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Apr
19
2010
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Posted 2 years 30 days ago ago by Douglas C.
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Prior to modern day content management systems, a great many qualified web site design companies counted on handling static HTML web sites for a large portion of their profits. However, with the breakthrough of content management systems such as DotNetNuke, the customer has quickly become aware of the positive aspects offered by dynamic web sites. The skinning architecture in DotNetNuke allows professional web designers to create spectacular user interfaces which assimilate seamlessly with the underlying portal application to generate a robust, yet visually attractive customer web site.
One of the nice things about classic ASP - and one of the primary explanations for its reputation as a rapid web development (RAD) tool - is the fact that ASP scripts can be injected into standard HTML markup to turn otherwise static HTML content into intelligent web pages. This function makes it feasible to rapidly write ASP applications that build web pages dynamically from a database (or other external data source), and to generate robust web applications.
However, this ease of us comes with a price. The majority of ASP websites incorporate a mangled mesh of intermingled HTML markup and ASP script, making them tough to figure out and even tougher to maintain. This problem frequently rears its ugly head when web designers need to change the user interface. Since the presentation characteristics are inlayed in the ASP script, changes generally require a joint effort between a web developer and a designer to ensure the integrity of the change. This eventually results in more work, more time, and increased cost.
Skinning requires the use of "templates" which distinguish presentation and layout characteristics from application logic. An intelligent skinning engine is then used to assemble the artifacts into a final product. This two-tiered approach offers both developers and designers a fair degree of freedom when it comes to maintaining a web site, and can extensively lessen the time and effort needed in the post-release phases of a development project.
However, skinning also introduces some complexities to your web application. The process of joining multiple files into a single page can produce severe performance degradation. Not to mention, developers must be well educated to keep the presentation details of layout and appearance abstracted from their script code. Both of these items can be mitigated through the use of technology and a solid skinning architecture.
Subsequently the skinning solution needs a method for a web designer to define a skin using the simplest base technology. HTML is the lowest common denominator when it comes to the Web and has the largest support in terms of design tools. The only problem with HTML is that it is completely static - yet a web application has requirements for dynamic components as well.
Based on the requirements and challenges specified above, it would seem to be useful to make it possible for web designers to incorporate placeholders into their HTML markup which represent dynamic functionality. This can provide the cleanest abstraction of “form” and “function”. The skin file could be altered without affecting the application logic. The application logic could be modified without affecting the user interface. The only problem is the performance penalty added by this additional layer of separation. The
DNN Skin Maker
is a great tool if your looking for a little help getting started or if your want to produce your own high quality skin.
