Depending on what browsers you're supports it's probably far easier to use generated content (:before, :after). Maybe combined with calc or CSS expressions.
Sure, but it's hard to get a variety of content in that way. If you have a paragraph that begins with lorem ipsum over and over again, you'll quickly notice.
While there are some situations where that makes more sense, doing that for things like paragraphs is kind of silly - you're just moving junk copy to your CSS. You either have a giant CSS file, or some rather repetitive paragraphs.
Well then you set your range to repeat fairly often. The issue at hand is repetition of paragraphs that start with "Lorem ipsum". All you have to do is break the repetition enough for the eye to be fooled.
And in regards to CSS, I'd argue it's probably even smaller to include fixie.css than fixie.js, and it would be non-blocking.
Just auto-filling all <p>'s and <h_>'s might be an interesting option. You could also have the API allow you to list tag names to be auto-filled. It can even be smart and first check whether the tag in question already contains text content, and if it doesn't, only then auto-fill it.
I considered doing that, but the problem is that I've noticed that some people use <p> tags as breaks between paragraphs. Requiring a class makes sure that the developer/designer knows where their filler content is going.
If you're going to require classnames anyway, it might be more flexible to use those to define the type of content to insert. Personally I'd prefer adding a simple bit of js to a page to define the fixie behaviour, something like :
etc, as otherwise I have to have a special layout with lots of 'fixie' everywhere and perhaps a special structure using certain tags in order to use the js, and can't define what sort of content goes where except by changing the type of html element which contains it.
I'd prefer to start with an html document which has already been made, and consider how to add fixie to it in the least obtrusive way - and how to remove it later when it was not required, without impacting the document structure or classes etc at all. So if I can add a bit of js which adds fixie in an unobtrusive way to any existing page, and then remove it by simply commenting out that js, that would be preferable to having to set up a special template just to use fixie, or having to consider fixie use from the start. Fixie should really IMHO adapt to the html it is used on, not force that html to be adapted to it.
Nice suggestion. I made some modifications so this is the new behavior. Child elements are targeted, and content is never overwritten.
```
<div class="fixie">
<p></p>
<p>Hello <a></a></p>
</div>
```
The above will cause only the first `<p>` tag to be filled, and the `<a>` tag.
In addition, you can now use `fixie.init(["CSS-selector"]);` to target arbitrary tag names, class names, and ids. If the tag in question contains text content, it will not auto-fill it (though it will auto-fill children, if need be).
I dislike using lorem ipsum or other non-sensical text for mockups, but I admit that it fills a very real need for designing content-centric websites when the content isn't ready yet.
I've encountered just too many cases where the design looks great as a mock-up but when you start plugging in real data the layout start breaking apart, either because the content is too short, too long, or the designer didn't consider long usernames.
My dream for a filler content generator would be a large database of real content types, so you would have a list of real twitter handles, facebook names, blog post titles, world news articles and so on. You could then do stuff like h1 class="fixie worldnews title" or class="fixie twitter username".
Designers often argue that the purpose of Lorem Ipsum is to help the client focus on the look and not the content. I think this posture is wrong because you need the client thinking about content as early as posible.
Front-end developers also need the randomness of real world data to test the sturdiness of their layouts and account for edge cases as early as posible.
Agreed, lorem ipsum can become a crutch - good copy is integral for good design. That said, this script will give you random length paragraphs, articles, and what not, giving you some room to test your layout, and makes it easy to throw in temporary content until you've written something yourself.
I think that would address the class proliferation issue and still be explicit about which dom nodes should be populated. easier to maintain / comment out.
This would be so much more awesome if you could assign the class to a container div. Then on each page reload it would randomly add content - be it paragraphs, headers, imgs, lists, tables etc.
This would be a fantastic tool for testing templates against a wide variety of random content. When making a template for clients to use you can never be too sure what they are going to add so you do your best to style everything. Getting random content on each page load would really solidify this testing.
Adding a class to individual elements... I don't find this too useful.
You can now assign the class to a container div - you must still provide some empty tags to specify what kind of content you want.
For example, if you need a couple paragraphs of text, you can use `<article class="fixie"></article>`. If you need exactly 1 header followed by 3 paragraphs, you can use
```
<article class="fixie">
<h1></h1>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
</article>
```
I don't this is a good idea. Because even if you want quick design but later you will have to fix them all. And nowadays designers are familiar with html ( the most basic skill ).
But it's nice btw
- I could pass a selector rather than adjusting my markup (maybe I can add 'fixie' via jQuery?)
- There's an easy way to swap out the word list - I've had Bacon Ipsum, Hipster Ipsum, and Gangster Ipsum all slip through before and it's embarrassing (depending on the client).
42 comments
[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 48.4 ms ] threadWhile there are some situations where that makes more sense, doing that for things like paragraphs is kind of silly - you're just moving junk copy to your CSS. You either have a giant CSS file, or some rather repetitive paragraphs.
And in regards to CSS, I'd argue it's probably even smaller to include fixie.css than fixie.js, and it would be non-blocking.
I'd prefer to start with an html document which has already been made, and consider how to add fixie to it in the least obtrusive way - and how to remove it later when it was not required, without impacting the document structure or classes etc at all. So if I can add a bit of js which adds fixie in an unobtrusive way to any existing page, and then remove it by simply commenting out that js, that would be preferable to having to set up a special template just to use fixie, or having to consider fixie use from the start. Fixie should really IMHO adapt to the html it is used on, not force that html to be adapted to it.
``` <div class="fixie"> <p></p> <p>Hello <a></a></p> </div> ``` The above will cause only the first `<p>` tag to be filled, and the `<a>` tag.
In addition, you can now use `fixie.init(["CSS-selector"]);` to target arbitrary tag names, class names, and ids. If the tag in question contains text content, it will not auto-fill it (though it will auto-fill children, if need be).
Maybe a configuration file that allows for selection of specific classes/ids instead?
I've encountered just too many cases where the design looks great as a mock-up but when you start plugging in real data the layout start breaking apart, either because the content is too short, too long, or the designer didn't consider long usernames.
My dream for a filler content generator would be a large database of real content types, so you would have a list of real twitter handles, facebook names, blog post titles, world news articles and so on. You could then do stuff like h1 class="fixie worldnews title" or class="fixie twitter username".
Designers often argue that the purpose of Lorem Ipsum is to help the client focus on the look and not the content. I think this posture is wrong because you need the client thinking about content as early as posible.
Front-end developers also need the randomness of real world data to test the sturdiness of their layouts and account for edge cases as early as posible.
I'll definitely give it a try, though I invite anyone else to send a pull request.
This would be a fantastic tool for testing templates against a wide variety of random content. When making a template for clients to use you can never be too sure what they are going to add so you do your best to style everything. Getting random content on each page load would really solidify this testing.
Adding a class to individual elements... I don't find this too useful.
For example, if you need a couple paragraphs of text, you can use `<article class="fixie"></article>`. If you need exactly 1 header followed by 3 paragraphs, you can use ``` <article class="fixie"> <h1></h1> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> </article> ```
I'd use this on client projects if:
- I could pass a selector rather than adjusting my markup (maybe I can add 'fixie' via jQuery?)
- There's an easy way to swap out the word list - I've had Bacon Ipsum, Hipster Ipsum, and Gangster Ipsum all slip through before and it's embarrassing (depending on the client).