| Another Project! |
[Aug. 13th, 2005|12:03 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  artistic | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Slow Like Honey | ] |
It has been quite sometime since I've written here. And with good reason: I've done NOTHING Web related lately. But now, that's changed...
A writer-friend of mine needs a portfolio Web site and, after some ka-bitzing we've reached agreement on how we're going to deal with payment (trade) and other details. Last night I was even mildly inspired and conjured an interface design that JC loved. It took me until 12:30 am but, as I explained to her: my best ideas hardly ever present themselves at 7pm.
There are many challenges in this project but the myriad of job samples, including video, ought to be the biggest hurdle for me. Maybe not. Since I've never worked with video, it could be a piece of cake. But I doubt it. I'm expecting to need to do some editing in order to just use samples of the video...again, I won't know 'til I'm neck deep in it and trying to swim.
One of the coolest things I've learned over the last few days is in regards to Web hosting - a concept called "reselling." It's probably common knowledge to most other people but my mind is still reeling with possibilities. Anyway, I contacted a hosting company that I've used in the past and asked if I should refer another client to them, did they have any benefits for that? I had a couple options but the reseller package is what I'm going with.
Basically, they sell me "x" hosting plan and for an extra $10 per month, they upgrade me to a reseller status. That status allows me access to control up to 5 domain names and to divide up the bandwidth between them as I see fit. Of course, I can increase the space/bandwidth/etc as I need. Then, clients pay me direct (what I charge is up to me) and the client and host company never have to deal with each other directly.
With the price JC agreed to pay me monthly for hosting/maintenance, I can use some of the remaining space for a site of my own and the remainder money that I owe the host company each month is less than if I purchased a basic plan by myself. If I get one other client, not only will my space be paid for, I'll probably make money.
Unbelievable. Only in America. |
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| Brief catching up |
[Feb. 7th, 2005|03:29 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  moody | ] |
So the one and only professional Web site I have designed is up and running and looking good. There are still quite a few things that I need info. on in order to complete the site but, that's out of my hands.
Since that site went up, I used my personal Web space (which has been sitting unused for quite some time) for print work. I have/had a logo design project that I worked with a committee on. Setting up the first meeting for all 5 of us to get together was murderous so, for showing proofs, I set up a meager site and e-mailed the group a link. The down-side to handling the project that way was the general lack of feedback. When presenting 6 different ideas, I got responses like, "I like 3 and 6" and nothing else. However, I did get some positive feedback from one gal on the committee thanking me for making the process so easy.
I did 2 rounds of posting and, as usual, learned quite a bit from the process. I'm feeling more gutsy about the whole "publishing a Web site" thing these days - not afraid at all.
I think I may design my Web space so that I can direct all my clients there for proofs. It is easier for someone to download at their convenience as opposed to e-mail someone only to find out 2 days later they didn't get the files for some reason. THAT seems to happen all the dang time. Anyway, if I build the site so that each client goes to a particular area to get their proofs, I can set up the PDFs to require a password thus halting any in-process or private work. Plus, the practice will be good. |
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| Milestones |
[Nov. 19th, 2004|12:26 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | Thrilled! | ] |
I am stupid-proud of this so feel the love and don't laugh too much...
I've been working on my first real-live Web site for a real-live client. While they haven't gotten a host lined up, I have everything done I can without receiving additional information from the aforementioned client. We don't seem to have much luck connecting to get work additional work done but I wanted to find some way for him to see the site in action. I remembered that I have some Web space with my e-mail/DSL account at home. So last night I set up the space, figured out how to use the FTP within Dreamweaver and published the site! Certainly, this isn't really a big deal but this is the first time EVER I have put anything up on the Web like this let alone, an entire project that is a Web site. It's a matter of getting of the first hump, you know? Now that I realize what is involved, I won't be at all fearful or timid the next time. That next time will be dealing with my client's host and my confidence for that is increased exponentially.
Anyway, here's a link to the space. It won't be there for long (as I already have other plans for the space) but I'll try to remember to put a link to the final site address when it is live...
http://www.vachonsalon.com |
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| Going it alone |
[Nov. 9th, 2004|01:31 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | annoyed | ] |
Okay, so let me just say that writing my column is getting more and more difficult, let alone actually building a real site.
First, I acknowledge that I may be rusty but as I fumble along, trying to make things work, I keep finding multiple ways of doing the same thing or worse, find that I can't make one thing do everything I want. For instance: buttons. I decided to try and build my various button states in ImageReady (mostly because I haven't used Fireworks much). My first exports of layers worked...the next didn't...same thing, no action and, in some cases, no image in the resulting gif! Fine. I decide to build them in Photoshop proper just to get the job done.
Then, I decide to use behaviors so I could have an "up," "down," and "click" state. And while I was able to make the behaviors and buttons work properly, the arrow icon did not turn into the finger-icon as it should when it hovers over a link. I thought placing a hot spot would activate the icon but it only caused the behaviors to cease altogether. After several hours of trying the behavior stuff, I finally had to use the basic rollover function (no "click" state) and use the click button as the inactive button on the targeted page. At least that way, some work didn't go entirely to waste.
Now I'm having some issues placing text into cells. I need to not use CSS in order to make this particular site massively user-friendly and so text formatting seems to be an issue. Certainly, if I knew HTML better, there may be a way to get margins defined but, as is, my only fix is to place a table (1x1) within a table to give some cell padding. The first page I did this on was great...the next, fubar'd the entire page.
Even more on the down side is that a Web friend of mine said that she also runs into weird and freakish problems when working in Dreamweaver on a Mac but much less so when on a PC. Oh THAT's great!
On the up-side, my first site is almost complete. I'm waiting on some content and may need to add a button but I think most is complete. I found a host site for my clients price and they seem pretty cool. I just completed my December column but it was hard. Mostly because I had to do so much work in order to get the technical stuff correct. And if you include all the time I had to put in to make the technical stuff work on top of the fact that writing a good column is hard for me, you get a feel for why I'm unsure of it's quality. I try very hard to make sure everything is perfectly accurate but the farther I go along into the unknown/unpracticed, the harder it gets. The reality is that I am a complete beginner and haven't really done much work for months. Now I'm trying to kick ass and it is slower going than I would like.
Now that all the grump is out, I should also say that I do enjoy a lot of the work I've put into the site I'm doing. After putting the silly thing together in Dreamweaver no less than 6 times, I'm getting pretty good at it! |
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| More? |
[Oct. 18th, 2004|02:00 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  chipper | ] |
The following is a link to my October article:
http://www.newsandtech.com/issues/2004/10-04/ot/10-04_martin.htm
Good news. I am in the process of working on my first professional Web site. I just got done developing the logo for this business and have begun designing the interface. It should be a fairly simple site with only 3-5 pages but I want it nice enough to be in my portfolio. Once done I'll put a link to it here.
More good news: I think the design industry may be picking up a bit. I contacted a company about hosting (turns out they do marketing as well) and they were very interested in meeting/seeing my work and said they are looking for people to freelance work to and possibly even full-time work. Obviously, I am feeling WAAAY out of my league but they insisted that many sites just need simple design and application.
And I've learned just a little bit (during this one phone call/visit to a hosting company) about hosting. I hadn't realized that how many hits you expect can affect price due to the increased band-width requirement. Perhaps I should have known that and, certainly it makes sense - I just hadn't considered it.
So, anyway, I'm putting the finishing touches on my favorite interface layout and will forward it to my client. Once approved, I'll begin the real work. I haven't decided if I'm going to just build it as a standard HTML site or with Cascading Syle Sheets. Hmpf. Probably not CSS for this one. |
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| Slacker |
[Jun. 12th, 2004|09:10 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  embarrassed | ] |
Plenty to write about eh? Ooooo, I am such a slacker.... |
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| Catching Up |
[Mar. 25th, 2004|11:19 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | relaxed | ] |
It's been difficult to feel chatty about Web design since the class began focusing on Flash. And it isn't because there isn't lots of nifty stuff to talk about but, I've had a difficult time figuring out how to discuss various aspects without specifically writing lines of ActionScript which, I imagine, would be dull as dirt to read.
If I'm repeating myself, I apologize up front.
On a base level, animation in fairly easy. Of course, I've done nothing complex but, the concept is easy: create a beginning frame, create an end frame and make a tween. This isn't to say that you won't have dozens of beginnings and endings to make a complete "animation" but, the idea is easy to grasp.
ActionScript is what makes all interaction possible. I know I've mentioned Intros and Outros and MovieClips. All of these can be as simple or as complex as you want but adding the ActionScript makes it work. But, with any code (as I'm finding out) when you begin to learn it, nothing is intuitive. I have great concern that I am simply regurgitating without understanding. I suppose that is normal upon learning new things but unsettling just the same.
I think bits of understanding AS is coming to me like, when things aren't working properly, generally, I know where to start looking. Unfortunately, I keep feeling as if I've solved very little on my own. Perhaps that's due to having a teacher available for a crutch. Maybe some solo time will force the brain to problem solve better.
Also, frankly, I'm a bit burnt on school. Mostly because of spring fever but 2 nights a week seemed to suck way more time than I thought it would. Also, I want to spend some time on my own working on a new Web site before going into 'advanced' classes. Some hands-on solo time could benefit me quite a bit if I use the time wisely. |
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| Outros |
[Mar. 15th, 2004|11:31 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | mellow | ] |
As the subject would suggest, tonight in class, we worked on our outros. Again, I find the animation portion of things, at this point, pretty intuitive. I'm sure it can get super complicated and, already, I've seen that many layers can be messy. I was discussing with some other students that I would like to have a 52 inch screen so I can see all my layers and the entire timeline all at once. Probably not going to happen...
Prior to dealing with the outros, I had all my buttons animated and working and all my intros up and running. Unfortunately, having an outro will force me to adjust some ActionScript code. I have notes and, it shouldn't be a problem but...it probably will.
The outros have variable statements and, from the looks of things, the variable portion will be the same for each of the buttons which, unto itself is kind of strange. As it goes, the process is sort of like this:
-Opening page containing animated buttons>
-Each button goes to a different page>
-Each page has an opening animation that, upon completion, hits a "stop" action>
-When another button is hit, the outro ActionScript tells the scene to advance one frame>
-This frame has a "play" action that plays the outro>
-The last frame of the outro has a variable statement>
-The button that was clicked sets the variable and thus the page that is now shown and its intro. The end.
Simple enough? I hope so. |
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| More on Flash |
[Mar. 13th, 2004|06:47 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | pissed off | ] |
First, let me say that not many things annoy me more than typing an entry or e-mail and, due to some kind of crap or another, the data is lost and the entry or mail not sent. AAAAAGGGGGHHHH!
So, let's try this again...
Last class focused on intros and outros on pages. Intros are the animation that occurs at the beginning of a page and the outros are the animations as you leave one page to go to another (generally the same as the intro but in reverse). Animation is pretty intuitive to me and so, not as stressful as coding.
The variable statements are beginning to sink in - good.
Only 1 or 2 weeks left of class...can't remember which. Though, I'll probably be taking Advanced Dreamweaver after this just to keep the ball rolling. |
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| More on Flash |
[Mar. 13th, 2004|06:30 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  busy | ] |
Seems things take awhile to settle in my head but, at least, progress is being made.
We spent time in class Wed building intros and outros. Obviously, the intro is the animation that occurs as a page is opening and the outro is the reverse (or other) animation that occurs when leaving one page to another. Animation is fun and relatively easy. Yes, I realize I'm doing nothing even remotely complicated but, at least this makes sense to me. What seems to take the most effort is getting the timing just right. On one of my pages I had a banner (for lack of a better word) fall open from a rolled up position and I wanted it to bounce back up a couple times as if the impact of unfurling created a back movement. The timing took quite awhile and I'm still not sure if it's right.
The variable statements are starting to sink in better, too. Not in anyway that I can elaborate more here but...I think that's coming to me slowly.
Right now I am just tweaking everything and it is time consuming more than anything.
1 or 2 weeks left of class...I can't remember....
Will probably be taking an Advanced Dreamweaver class immediately after this to keep the momentum going. That should only be 1 night a week. I could use a break... |
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| Holy Crap Batman |
[Mar. 9th, 2004|09:41 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  shocked | ] |
While Flash may be fun at times...it isn't easy....
First: the fun stuff
Animating is fun. Because Flash presents a timeline laid out in frames, there is some easy to grasp logic to it: put one shape in frame 1, another in frame 10, create a tween and *shazam*: you have a 10 frame animation because Flash fills in the gaps. Very nice.
One of the first interesting things when dealing with time within Flash is a little thing called a Movie Clip. A Movie Clip is an animation within an animation. Basically, you start by creating your Scene (main timeline). Now, let's say you want a 10 frame animation to repeat itself over and over again the entire time a user is viewing that page. Rather than create 8000 frames with the same 10 frames copied and pasted in succession, you make a movie clip and place it into a single frame on the main timeline. Without any Actionscript to tell it differently, that movie clip will loop forever within the space of that single frame in your main timeline.
And when animating, it's important to keep animated elements on their own layers. Why? Because even though you are only changing a circle to a square, that star in the background may get included in the tween. Flash is awesome in interpreting how objects must change from frame to frame but if there is too much going on - it might get confused and create something totally off the wall.
Second: The stuff that isn't necessarily fun.
Actionscript is applied code that creates interaction. For instance, take a button in Flash: there is Actionscript that tells that button to change when a mouse rolls over it and another script that tells it to change back to its original state when the mouse is no longer in the target area. Even more tricky is the script to control a "button" that is a mini-animation (when a mouse rolls over it) and the script that reverses that animation on rollout. Now, remember when I mentioned the Movie Clips and that they are animations within the main timeline? Well, you may need to apply Actionscript to both the movie clip and the main time line in order to make things work properly (although the script in each area will be different). Yes, it tends to get a little complicated. Or, should I say, it gets a little complicated for me at this point. I realize I've only begun to scratch the surface. One look into the index in the Action panel in Flash and you get the idea of what is out there: hundreds upon hundreds of possibilities.
Third: Can't say fun.
Variables. One of the things that makes Actionscript work is the use of variable statements. Of course, variable statements are based on logic (computer language logic - not my smarty-pants-self logic) which involves "if, then, else" statements strategically constructed so the computer can evaluate the variable situation. Video games are almost completely if, then, else statements: IF knight runs into dragon THEN start a fight. IF knight wins fight, THEN he gets gold and moves on, ELSE he dies and the game stops. Of course, I can't even begin to type that statement out in Actionscript but, big surprise,eh? But, I can tell you that Actionscript variables are based on Boolean Values which has 2 states: 1 or 0 (true or false). I am regurgitating information at this point - I'm hoping it will mean more later.
Holy Crap Batman:
Time and Space within Flash. I am learning that while the timeline in Flash is linear - time within Flash isn't always linear. Time can also be controlled vertically. I realize this makes no sense without a visual, and I'm sorry about that. Honestly, I was struggling in class last night. When I watch Morgan present an example, I feel like I understand entirely but when I look at my project - I go blank! Let me try here.... ummm ... animations are created linearly across the timeline. Actions, however, which may contain animations running linearly but the actions can be applied vertically to the layers in the main time line. Actions are particularly important to tell an animation when to begin, when to stop and when to reverse (among other things).
Last night we also created a "label" layer in our main time line. Labeling a section of animation allows you to create variable statements by targeting labeled areas rather than a specific frame number. Allowing Flash to recognize sections of script like this, saves you the trouble of having to fix your action script if you decide to add frames in the middle of your scene - it finds the label wherever it may be. Nice.
I must say I feel like I'm floundering at this point. I know it will sink in eventually but I hate feeling slow in the head. Here's to a brighter classtime tomorrow! |
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| Digging in Flash |
[Mar. 1st, 2004|11:02 pm] |
I'm only crabby because I'm so tired...and it's only Monday. *sigh*
Tonight we began a new interface in Flash. Yes, this is the 3rd interface to date. I did make this one completely different than my others which is fun.
The good news is that Flash is a vector image program which means Illustrator files work very well with it, or, you can create very similar things. Tonight, I rebuilt most of the interface in Flash and we began creating buttons. Actually, not literally "buttons" because there is a button feature in Flash that works like many other programs (creating rollover activity) but what we literally did was create movie clips. The difference is that the movie clips allows you to create animation, rather than just an "up," "down" and "out" button setting. The goal with the movie clips is to literally (I see I'll be using that term a lot tonight) create a movie within a scene. The scene is the root stage area for the Flash file you're creating. The movie clip is an animation, that literally only takes 1 frame space in the root file, even though it can be many frames long. The only equivalent I can think of is an animated GIF within a DW file: Even though the animation has many frames, it only takes up one area on the page. (That isn't a perfect example but it's the best I can come up with on the fly.) So the trick with movie clips is working time (the string of animation frames) within another time set (the root file).
The hardest thing about the movie clips is remembering which tween (short for in-between - it is what creates the animation/movement when you set up a beginning image frame and ending image frame) to use and not use for shapes vs. symbols. I'm catching on but can't even describe the problems well here because it's still a little over my head. I need some more work time to be able to explain this better.
Also of note: Flash files have 3 types of files created for each "site." The .FLA is, the Flash native file, an .SWF which is the file used for internet use and the .HTML which calls out to the .SWF file when placed in a Web site.
We only barely touched on ActionScripting tonight. As with DW, Flash has a fair amount of tools to help you along with coding. Unfortunately, I may run into a stumbling block: when in the Action menu in DW MX, there is an option for "normal" (vs. "expert" where you type in all your code) but we were unable to find the normal option in DW MX 2004. The classroom at school works in MX but there are a couple of us who have the ultra-new MX 2004. Morgan couldn't figure out how to change it in 2004 and even called a friend of his who is "certified" (whatever that means) in DW MX 2004 and he didn't know how to change this because he, of course, does all his own coding in the expert mode. Anyway, I need to figure out how to change to normal mode really quick.
Over and out. |
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| Flash |
[Feb. 25th, 2004|10:27 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | happy | ] |
So all the Web dabbling has brought us to Flash. Ahhh, Flash. The mother of all super-cool Web sites. While code required one mindset...Flash requires another: Thinking in terms of "time."
Tonight was spent getting acquainted with some of Flash's basic tools. "Frames" is the biggie. Because you work with time - you manage time in increments similar to film: frames. Many other tools are similar and intuitive to Illustrator as Flash builds vector images too...but... it isn't exactly the same. There are interesting twists like, after drawing a shape (say a rectangle) with a fill and a stroke, the fill and stroke are actually 2 different items. If you want to select both pieces, you must double click. Or, say you draw overlapping elements, say, a circle overlapping the corner of a rectangle, if you move the circle, the area of the rect. that was covered will now be open or, like it was cut out.
Also familiar is the layering. It is quickly apparent that proper layering is quite crucial for proper shape animation. A very cool trick that Flash is able to do is convert JPEG images to vector images. Basically, it is a very detailed outline of color areas. It is done very, very well and in some pictures, you can't tell the difference. But, if you use your imagination, you can guess that once you have vector pieces from a picture, the details of that picture can be manipulated pretty easily...though it could be quite time consuming.
One item that made many in the class pause for a few minutes to soak in the data: movie clips. While the name assumes actual movie/video clips, that isn't exclusively true. You can create a "move clip" that is a single frame. That is, you create a clip that is many frames long but then place that entire clip into a single frame of your "main" piece. For instance: you have a logo that you want to glow and ebb throughout the entire viewing of your site. Rather than create that action over...say 50 frames and copy and paste that 50 frames for the duration of your site - you create a movie clip and place it into one frame that is set to play over and over. Morgan says you can have movie clips within movie clips which makes the brain hurt a bit if you think about it too long... At least, at my level it hurts.
Homework is to bring in, yet another, interface to be created in Flash. |
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| JavaScript? |
[Feb. 23rd, 2004|10:48 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  contemplative | ] |
Tonight was our last class with Bill. Thus ends the "official" mid-section of coding which included CSS and JavaScript. I am still left feeling a bit like I'm hanging in the wind. It will take some time for much of this to sink in. More time still to come up with ideas that force me to use the stuff and then it's possible I might have an "a-ha!" moment.
I know I've been incredibly vague regarding JavaScript. It's because this whirlwind tour of it only scratches the surface. And while my lack of description might make you think you'll never need it - that is incorrect. It can be used both for rollover buttons and those neat little drop-down menus you sometimes see.
Oh, here's a little tidbit to get you thinking. Those drop-down menus? You know how it seems they appear and disappear? Actually, those items are always in place. What I mean is, they are all loaded when you load the page. What is happening is that the visibility is set to hidden in the CSSS and JavaScript is creating an interaction that causes them to "visible" - but the image is always there - it's a matter of if you can see it at this time or that. Technically, the menu always there. Imagine all the menus open at the same time and that is actually what the HTML page sees. Crazy.
Wed. we begin Flash. Apparently, Javascript is utilized in Flash. My guess is that it is JavaScript describes an action that will cause the Flash item to "go". That's just a guess though. |
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| My column |
[Feb. 22nd, 2004|11:23 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | radioioAMBIENT | ] |
For anyone who is interested and wasn't directed here because of it...
Here's a link to my new, monthly column in the magazine where I work:
http://www.newsandtech.com/issues/2004/02-04/ot/02-04_martin.htm
(And, in case anyone is wondering, that fluff at the bottom of my picture is one of my dogs and that's why I'm laughing.) |
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| Catching Up |
[Feb. 22nd, 2004|11:19 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | accomplished | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | radioioAMBIENT | ] |
So, where was I? Ah, yes. Cascading Style Sheets.
I did mention in a previous post that leaving tables behind in DW was a great thing. I should also say that I'm sure they have their place in the world - particularly if you have a site that has intense data offering or collecting. (Ugh. I hope I never have to deal with THAT.) But the backlash to CSS giving you so much freedom is that it feels a bit less structured. And while lack of structure can be great, it also feels a bit less ... umm ... guided.
With a table, you have a very set bit of space to utilize and fill and you know exactly where that space is and how big it is or needs to be. CSS, however, allows you to put anything anywhere but you must know exactly how to do it. So far, I am unable to use strictly code or the design view tools in DW - I have to use both to make sense of it all.
I am not nearly as afraid of code as I imagined I would be. But, it's a lot like learning another language: I don't always know how to say what I want, but I often know it when I see it. One of the coolest things in DW is the little helper drop down menus that guide you through typing code. For instance, an image tag (the indicator that tells HTML to place an image) is "img". When you type the opening < for your tag, a list of possible tags drops so, as you type "i" the selector moves to the items starting with "i" and as you type "m" "img" is selected and you can just hit return for the entire "img" tag. Sure, for the image tag, that's not a lot of keystrokes saved but when it comes to the "position" "width" "height"...well, you get the picture. And, of course, not only does this feature in DW save you keystrokes, it also serves as a hint-giver. LOVE IT!
I am also learning to appreciate using the actual text tools in CSS. Sure, you don't have all the fancy fonts I was using when I was setting up tables but, converting all text to images just isn't a good thing. Particularly if you're using CSS. By converting text to images, you eliminate half the work saved with CSS because you have to make changes to image files for all your pages. Not good. Plus, I found a couple typos and wanted to strangle myself. Then, I decided to swap a text color and, in CSS, it was as simple as copying and pasting my span tags - a matter of seconds. So, from here on out, I'm using regular text as much as possible.
Wed., the class moved on to JavaScript. Yes, we are moving right along. JavaScript is, yet another programming language that allows you to apply behaviors to HTML. Rollover buttons is a very simple example. To create a rollover button, you chose the image you want to change, link to the image you want it to change to and the behaviors tell the HTML how to react when: the mouse isn't on the button, when it is, what happens when it's clicked and what happens when the mouse moves away. For this commonly used behavior, DW writes the JavaScript that makes the button appear to change. And let me tell you: It writes a LOT of code for just a rollover. Bill said that he could write the same behaviors with less code were he to code it himself. It is important to know that, while a program like DW can write the code for you, it might not always be the most efficient code ever written. That only matters because more code takes longer to load in a browser. Obviously, rollover buttons are not going to stall anyone's system...
Oh, and speaking of system... JavaScript allows the HTML code to utilize the processing power and RAM of the users computer rather than relying on the server system. That also allows for faster interaction.
About code: I am, most definitely learning how to get things done which, I suppose, is the bottom line. However, I don't feel like I'm learning enough about the "whys" of coding. I'm going to have to get HTML (probably XHTML) and JavaScript books. Personally, I am a global thinker and I need to know "why" I'm using particular tags, etc. Of course, most of that will probably come with time and practice but in the meantime, I feel like I'm only getting half the story and that I am regurgitating rather than "knowing" the stuff. Yes, I'm impatient with myself. |
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| Everything Cascades... |
[Feb. 18th, 2004|10:28 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | cheerful | ] |
I haven't written here for over a week but...between having my car stolen, setting up a new computer at work (G5 2Ghz dual!) and learning cascading style sheets - my brain has been packed tight!
I have a new instructor for this portion of the course. Let me just say that once one learns that they are going to be learning code from an ex-aero-spece engineer (yes, that's right, a ROCKET SCIENTIST) one's knees begin to quake. However, Bill is a great guy and so far I think code is very cool.
Cascading Style Sheets (forevermore referred to as CSS) are nothing short of awesome. The premise is to set up both similar and unique styles and formats (generally text but not exclusively) that allow you to easily apply those styles to multiple pages. Not only can you apply these styles to multiple pages but any changes you make to one page will be applied to ALL the pages linked to the CSS. This allows a comlete change in page appearance without making change to the HTML code. This is HUGE! It also allows you to skip using tables which is a personal thrill as tables seems so finicky.
Anyway, here is an awesome site that exploits the use of CSS. Users are invited to take the HTML code and apply their own CSS and show off the potential for CSS:
www.csszengarden.com
Oh, and just because I said "code is cool" doesn't mean it is ALL coding. DW has tools to set up, apply and preview without actually coding. However, to exploit CSS to it's full potential, you have to do some hand coding. |
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