YAML DevBlog | An (X)HTML/CSS Framework

YAML 3.1: fresh and polished into 2009

January 20th, 2009 by Dirk Jesse

After a long period of development with quite a few breaks, I am very happy to announce (in the new blog!) that YAML 3.1 has been finished. The difference in numbers between 3.0.6 and 3.1 might not seem like much, but there've been many changes under the hood. I think that with this version, YAML has finally become a versatile developer's tool, supporting web programmers throughout the entire designing process of screen layout, navigation, content, forms, and print versions. The extremely flexible design possibilities have been expanded even more.

Highlights in the new version

• Expanded layout possibilities: the new CSS classes .page_margins and .page allow an even more variable page layout.
• Form construction kit: a complete form construction kit supports the production of accessible forms, with all the design freedom you could wish.
• Equally tall content boxes: an optional extension of the flexible subtemplates allows column containers of equal height, without compromising robust design or compatibility to older browsers -- all in pure CSS.
• Add-on: microformats: this add-on provides templates for visual presentation of the most widely used microformats.
• Add-on: RTL support: this add-on delivers complete support for working with Arabic or Hebrew script. It contains all the necessary adjustments for the core and the navigation components.

The complete list of changes is available in the Changelog.

Important changes

The standard IDs #page_margins and #page have become the CSS classes.page_margins and .page. This change does not influence existing YAML layouts, backwards compatibility is guaranteed, code adjustments of existing layouts are not necessary.

In YAML 3.1, the markup of the navigation menu components was completely reworked, unified, and changed to be based completely on CSS classes. When updating existing YAML projects, please either update the markup of your menus or copy the navigation components into your own CSS folder before you update -- and link them to your layout from there.

The entire download package has been tidied up. The folder and file structures of the layout examples have been unified, and seven new layout examples are included to demonstrate the use of all the new features. All the graphics used in the package that are smaller as PNG files have been converted, and the corresponding Photoshop files are now in one central folder named examples/photoshop-files.

The Simple Project and the YAML Builder are gone through a compatibility update for YAML 3.1, keeping the current functionality. This deals mostly with the navigation components, where the markup had to be rewritten.

The new development blog

A few words on the blog. This replaces the News area of YAML.de and will be writtten exclusively in English. YAML has found a constantly growing worldwide community that I would like to encourage. Support and documentation of YAML will of course continue to be provided in German as well.

My sincere thanks go out to all my hardworking testers for their support and feedback, and I wish you all happy programming with YAML 3.1.

Dirk Jesse
Dresden, 20.01.2009