[thelist] Content Management and CSS/XHTML

[Clive R Sweeney]

I've subcontracted to create most of a substantial new site (c. 200 pages).
I have my templates set up now so that they use valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional
(but still with table-based layout) and it all seems to be working in major
browsers. My main concern is in the "content area" of each page. I've set it
up to be very easy to edit -- just <p>, <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, <ul>, <li>, and so
on. No extra styles/classes except to format alternate rows in data tables.
So far, so good, I'm thinking.

The problem is that the company I've subcontracted with also agreed to
implement a commercial Content Management System whereby users could create
content in Word or a variety of other programs and upload the content to the
site. Now I know the changes can be limited to specified areas of a page,
but I'm afraid of how the content will be coded. None of us have seen the
CMS yet (RPM from Reedy Creek Technologies -- http://www.reedycreek.com/) so
I'm imagining the worst -- <font> tags everywhere. There's no mention of
this issue or any reference to CSS anywhere on the Reedy Creek website, but
when I View Source on their site, there are dozens of font tags, long lines
of "&nbsp;", etc.

What do you think? Trouble in River City?

... clive