Hello Community… Just started on my first Rapid weaver built site with Stacks 3 and Foundation. Noticing that the code has way more going on then I am accustom to. Currently my practice page only has a simple navigation area, three columns and a footer and only text used on the page. When examining the source code the HEAD is loaded with an unbelievable amount of meta tags script links, scripts and such. Also the BODY section has an overwhelming amount of nesting going on with it’s div’s.
Would value a little help understanding why all this is necessary as I have never used a site building tool that loaded pages with so much code? Please note, I am not pointing any fingers here, I have a deep respect and appreciation to RapidWeaver and its third party developers. Just trying to make sense of the code and what is going on.
Stacks has 2 div wrappers around every stack that is on the page. This is done in order to properly encapsulate each stack into its own little world. Stacks 3 has some mechanisms that allow us developers to opt out of these in some situations. Since Foundation was already very well grounded, it did not adopt any of this. The next version will take advantage of this so that there will be a lot less div cruft.
With all of this said, the extra wrapper divs have zero impact on website performance and style.
Thank You Joe… Good to know that the extra div architecture on the page will not impact the performance, also great to hear that the new Foundation Theme will be even leaner in it’s approach.
What about everything in the HEAD, as I understand things this is something that would impact performance?
Is there a way to lean this out to only what is needed for a given page?
Kind Regards,
Dave
P.S. Great job with your FoundationTheme and TotalCMS. Have been hands on for about a week now and loving it, so simple and intuitive, I might be so bold to say… Fun to use. Further, fun is not normally a word I have used when developing my companies sites.
There are some things that could be moved out of the HEAD. Javascript in particular. My SEO Help stack with Foundation’s Page Speed feature can relocate most of this to the end of the body tag though.
Thank You Joe… I do understand that some compromises may have to be made for this type of development workflow. Just want to get a grasp as to why some things are being done and look for ways to tame it down a bit where possible. As you mentioned regarding my concern over the over use of the div and that the new Foundation Theme will actually be a little leaner and that is good news. Just want to get the page code as clean as possible, wherever possible.
There isn’t anything to “tame down” here unless you find it too fast.
That is the key part of what you said in your first post.
I have no idea what you have been used to, but will guarantee that it does not provide the power, usability, totally free layout design, multiple forum support structure in place, smartest brains in the Stacks world working on it, documentation portal, video portal, etc., etc., that RW with Stacks and Foundation provides. If it does, then we all want to know about it, but Foundation is firmly at the top of the food chain when you factor everything in.
As you will find out, now that you have Foundation, you don’t need to buy any themes. You could, if you wanted to, just recreate any theme and do whatever you want with it using Foundation. Try that with your old system and if you still have a concern then do a proper true apples to apples site comparison and speed test and report back.
You original question has an analogy that is a bit like someone used to travelling about using a horse and cart, who buys a new Porsche 911 and becomes concerned with the quantity of carbon fibre used, or having too much electronics, or needing too many different oils, the tyres are too wide, etc…
So as you have already bought the Porsche 911, take it for a drive and enjoy it. Remember, nobody bought a Porsche and then went back to the showroom complaining it was not quick enough because of all the compromises that were made.
Hello Gary… Thank you for taking the time to respond.
I fully agree that RapidWeaver configured as I have mentioned is Fast, Fast Fast, when it comes to building out a page. This is due to the time and attention that RapidWeaver and its third party developers have put into their solutions. But my inquiry has nothing to do with the speed of building out a page using a WYSIWYG tool like RapidWeaver but rather the performance decisions (compromises) that need to be made when using it in comparison to that of the published code of a hand baked HTML5 page.
In the context of my inquiry the word compromise is not meant as a negative but rather a research term so as to evaluate how to best layout an overall site so as to take all things into consideration. The developers behind RapidWeaver, Stacks 3, the Foundation Theme and the many other solutions out there, work very hard to create intelligent and well crafted WYSIWYG web building solutions. It is unrealistic for every possible parameter to be represented through a WYSIWYG interface and it is also sometimes necessary for the developer of a WYSIWYG solution to load libraries and such into the page by default so as to reduce the complexity of the tool.
Even if one does not intend to be an expert developer and wants to live in a WYSIWYG tool, it is my respectful opinion that it is best to have a basic understanding of the web and how things work so as to make more informed decisions when it comes to building out a site.
Here are two resources you may find helpful. The first is Treehouse, these guys do a great job teaching all facets of web development and design. Another great resource and one I am currently using to better gain a solid understanding of the RapidWeaver WYSIWYG workflow is Ryan Smith’s RapidWeaver Classroom. He does a fantastic job teaching all things RapidWeaver and even has some training on the basics of HTML & CSS.
I hope this is helpful and thank you for your input as well. In regards to cars, I have to say I kind of fancy the Porsche 930 Turbo early 80’s… Fast, Fast Fast.