Thrashbox is still the safest, most flexible way to do corners, and this generator makes it much easier. Of course, the ultimate is to work out a method that doesn’t need those extra DIVs without losing any flexibility in using it.

I had some free a few days ago and decided I would work on the next version of Spiffy Corners, but since I already knew what I needed to do and how to do it - it really didn’t appeal to me. I can’t stand work that requires only time and no creativity.

So I started reading through the comments on various blogs, and the one here regarding automating the process of building a ThrashBox stood out at me. I knew from previous experiments that GD does not support native anti-aliased filled ellipses (the bundled version doesn’t support filled ellipses, although it does support some anti-aliasing), so this sounded like a challenge. I decided on a name for the project and bought the domain and started in on the PHP.

To my surprize it only took a couple hours to figure out the code. I was able to put the design together from PhotoShop to CSS in under 3, so I’m pretty pleased with myself on this one.

It’s far from perfect, but it - like Spiffy Corners - was more about pushing myself to learn something new than anything else. I publish these things because packaging them up into a presentable and marketable package is more fun to me than actually creating them. I’ve always said that if a marketing job were to fall in to my lap, I’d take it.

Anyway, open for criticism (and I’m sure I’ll get a lot of it…) is: http://www.spiffybox.com/

Lets face it, HTML was intended to be document centric, but the market has made it layout centric. Paying clients don’t really care about how beautiful the code looks if the display looks drab and second rate.

AlB, to be honest, that’s more a reflection of your own ability to use CSS, than it is of the technology. We haven’t built a non-CSS site since late 2002. Our sites always validate and use very, very, very few hacks.

Now, if you’re too busy to learn CSS layout, that’s cool, but wheeling out circa 2003 arguments about drab design, while ignoring Zoo garden, the dozens of CSS showcase sites and the tens of thousands of high quality corporate sites that don’t see any reason for tables can only be willful ‘fingers-in-the-ears-I-can’t-hear-you-la-la-dee-la‘ stuff.

Web purists seem to want a site that is structured like a word processor document, and clients want bright flashy online flyer ads. in order to please the customer, and keep development time to a minimum thereby increasing the profit margin of the site creation we are often forced into using tables for layout. CSS support in the major borsers and CSS itself are just not there yet.

Lets face it, HTML was intended to be document centric, but the market has made it layout centric. Paying clients don’t really care about how beautiful the code looks if the display looks drab and second rate.

Thus the birth of all these hacks and work arrounds that have lead to ugly and often invalid use of HTML and CSS, and further to the use of Javascript to further manipulate layout.

IMHO the best model for creating clean, readable pages would be the use of XML/XSLT, but then how many web designers actually have the time to create sites this way and still meet clients’ needs?

The industy is simply not fueled by the designers, but by paying customers who have little to no understanding of the surrounding techical issues, and why should they?

who has the kind of time to sit around and write all this ranting (much less read it)???

It’s debates like these that teach people something, because in debates like these, lots of constructive critisism is made, so don’t have ago at people for having a little debate. =)