Greg, My 2 cents (I'm the sort of boffin that does both the code and the styling). I like starting from a bootstrap template and quickly learn the conventions. They are generally not that hard. Frankly I learned 2 templates that I bought of https://wrapbootstrap.com and I use them as the base for most stuff I do as they use similar styling principles.
The major advantage of using a template is you get the basics of creating the right blocks of code/html. E.g. start from a template e.g. http://wrapbootstrap.com/preview/WB0R5L90S or https://wrapbootstrap.com/theme/nifty-light-dark-admin-template-WB0048JF7 (I use this one most) Then create my basic working "blocks" (no code behind them, just get the high-level) and generally in this order 1. A simple panel - get it right, you'll reuse it a lot. Make sure you have the styles for the panel, title, body, menus, footer, looks right, feels right and is easy. 2. Basic grid or table 3. Buttons 4. Text Inputs 5. Overall page structure 1. Header 2. Left-hand menu 3. Main content page Then I build my first pages (html only) 1. Login 2. Registration 3. Forgot password 4. Initial app dashboard This allows me to practice the basic blocks above. Once you have those working the rest flows quite easily. Every time I write a new UI element I go through two thoughts processes: 1 - what can I reuse from existing code, 2 - what is new and can be shared in the future that I have to code in a way that is reusable in the future. Also, I use Aurelia for all my UI but any other component based UI helps build the right isolation and re-usability of the CSS for the components. I tried before to build it and style it later but it was a badly messed up process. Most of the design changes required changes to the HTML structure which generally triggered changes to how the C# behind is working or design. My 2 cents :) Regards, Corneliu. On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 12:45 PM, Greg Keogh <gfke...@gmail.com> wrote: > Folks, I'm creating a non-trivial ASP.NET Web Forms application for the > first time in several years. I have previously suffered from the terrible > problem where I spend more time on formatting and stying than I do on > coding. Sometimes it can take 1 hour to get a single web page working, then > it takes 4 hours to make it look nice. I thought I'd try Bootstrap this > time to ease the burden of styling, but now I'm wasting more time learning > all the conventions and quirks of Bootstrap. This is typical, I find if you > decide to use some "kit" then you usually have to become an expert in that > kit. > > The answer to this problem is to split the development into (1) coding (2) > styling. I have done this twice before, over 10 years ago ... I write a > completely working web site with only the bare minimum formatting and > styles, then later someone comes along and styles it beautifully. > > Is anyone still doing this sort of thing? What do others do to style their > sites with minimum suffering? > > Finally ... Is there anyone in this group who is a styling boffin and > might take a short contract in several weeks time to style my app once it's > near completion? I guess it might be several hours work spread out over a > few days. If you can help, please email me off-list at gfke...@gmail.com, > or phone on 0419-113-543. > > Cheers, > *Greg Keogh* >
