• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Web Site programming

I don't think you would qualify as the "average web surfer".

No such thing, which makes the web so beautiful.

But if you insist on designing for the average web surfer: The closest thing to it does indeed surf without images and CSS: Google.

Chances are that if your site still works on a monochrome text-only browser, google will be able to index it well.
 
O.k. this is a new question,
I've been looking at the Css Zen Garden site and particularly at the tiny blue example in order to get some ideas and learn how to go about starting from scratch. Looking at the html code I see that all of the <p> and <h> tags have <span> in them but without any further detail of what this span is referring to, i.e. font color or emphasis or class etc.
For example, taken from the tiny blue html code:

<h3><span>Benefits</span></h3>
<h3 class="resources"><span>Resources:</span></h3>
<p class="p1"><span>A demonstration of what can be accomplished ....</span></p>

Is this the standard way to code? what's the pupose of these 'span' tags if they don't have any details following them?
 
The <span> tag is simply for applying CSS specified formatting to a block of text. If you have no CSS <span> has no effect.
 
BTW did you look at the CSS for that example? <span> is being used to carry in CSS attributes for that page.
 
RecoveringYuppy said:
BTW did you look at the CSS for that example? <span> is being used to carry in CSS attributes for that page.
I did look at the CSS of that page but the thing is that in the html code, EVERY paragraph and heading has a span in it but they are not regarded at in the CSS file. The only places in the CSS file that address span are the "quicksummary" and "linkList" classes whereas the html has a bunch of other classes and divs which have empty spans in it as well. My question is regarding those spans.
 
I did look at the CSS of that page but the thing is that in the html code, EVERY paragraph and heading has a span in it but they are not regarded at in the CSS file. The only places in the CSS file that address span are the "quicksummary" and "linkList" classes whereas the html has a bunch of other classes and divs which have empty spans in it as well. My question is regarding those spans.

What *a* CSS file does with the HTML is not the question you should be asking here. The HTML is written in such a way as to allow as many CSS manipulation as possible. So a good first step would be to find a design that *does* make use of those spans.

I think I once read that the spans allow for certain tricks that require that you can address an outer and inner container. Positioning an image in the top-right and the bottom-left corner of each paragraph, e.g. seems to require tow nested elements.

But I am far from sure ....
 
I think I once read that the spans allow for certain tricks that require that you can address an outer and inner container. Positioning an image in the top-right and the bottom-left corner of each paragraph, e.g. seems to require tow nested elements.
I believe this example does what you are referring to. There are two gif's in this example which contain text and the CSS also has nondisplaying text in the same area so that blind readers will be able to "speak" the text.
 
I think that "a good first step" would be to start at the start, with a simple design

Looking at ZenGarden is a great way to see the potential... but... realising that potential in an effective and efficient implementation does require a thorough understanding of a complex range of techniques for controlling elements, attributes, pseudo-classes, pseudo-elements and, perhaps most pertinently in the case above, inheritance
 
Last edited:
I've read the blurb, I think I'll give it a whirl when I'm back in the office next week, it could be very useful. But, you still need a Mac for testing if you build on a PC...

Bah, who cares about what those Mac users see? :P


(And now I'm one of them... I use a Mac at work now. *grumbles*)

I recommend vi for the same reason.
Ewww. :( I loathe that program. Colon i to edit, my arse.
 
Last edited:
Ewww. :( I loathe that program. Colon i to edit, my arse.

Still a better editor than Dreamweaver though, right? And it's on any unix box I tn into. "You kill my process. Prepare to vi."
At work I mainly use Textpad as it's provided on my PC and the developers (touched no doubt by His noodley appendages) provided matching bracket support which I can't live without when writing perl.
 
there is nothing...and I mean nothing...that will make me navigate away faster from a website than it playing music.

Seriously. Rethink that.
 
there is nothing...and I mean nothing...that will make me navigate away faster from a website than it playing music.

Seriously. Rethink that.


yeah yeah, I get the point. Thanks for being so brutal with me.:D
No uncontrolled music....ever....ever...and ever...
 
I think that "a good first step" would be to start at the start, with a simple design

Looking at ZenGarden is a great way to see the potential... but... realising that potential in an effective and efficient implementation does require a thorough understanding of a complex range of techniques for controlling elements, attributes, pseudo-classes, pseudo-elements and, perhaps most pertinently in the case above, inheritance

Good advice.

It is for example possible to access the CSS properties of everything in the page via JavaScript. You can adress the elements via classes, ids, names, TagNames, etc.

So, regarding your time-dependent layout, yairhol, i here manipulate the CSS properties of the body-tag, using a little variation of Earthborn's JavaScript, to change the background image of the page, and additionally change the color of all content embedded in "<span>"'s from your ZenGarden snippet to white for the night-background or black for the day-background:

HTML:
<html><head>

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
    <!-- Hide this code from non JavaScript browsers
    
    function night_or_day() {
     currentTime = new Date();
     
     if (currentTime.getHours() < 6) {         
	  document.body.style.backgroundImage = 'url(night.gif)';
	  var content_color = "white";	  
     } else if (currentTime.getHours() < 18) {     
	  document.body.style.backgroundImage = 'url(day.gif)';
	  var content_color = "black";	  
     } else {     
	  document.body.style.backgroundImage = 'url(night.gif)';
	  var content_color = "white";	  
	 } 
	  
	 var all_spans =  document.getElementsByTagName('span'); 
	  
	 for (var i = 0; i < all_spans.length; i++) { 	 
	  all_spans[i].style.color = content_color;	  
	 }
	}
	
    // End of JavaScript code -->
</SCRIPT>

</head><body style="background-image: url(neutral.gif);" onLoad="javascript:night_or_day();">

<h3><span>Benefits</span></h3>
<h3 class="resources"><span>Resources:</span></h3>
<p class="p1"><span>A demonstration of what can be accomplished ....</span></p>

</body><html>

The more you rely on this kind of techniques, the more likely it is that people in your target audience will not see what you want them to see.
 
Last edited:
Have you considered that, in the absence of arguments, it looks like you are arguing just for the hell of it?

Let's have some discussion points out there and - erm - discuss them.

:confused: Defend it from what? Accusations that, in the context of web pages, the concept of WYSIWYG is nothing more than a myth?

Your vitriol is blinding you to the fact that I am by and large agreeing with you. This is a very peculiar argument.

Here's an idea: you actually express an opinion first, and then wait for a challenge

I expressed some (open to debate) opinions on this thread - you seem to take a rather violent and personal exception to what I said.

In light of you having yet to describe ONE 'non-legacy, rich, online experience' let alone any protocols, applications, interfaces and/or platforms, it seems (to me) that your thoughts on this subject are not quite fully formed

You might be right - does not justify your ad-hom attacks on me though. If I was stupid you should be able to easily discount and dismiss my opinion without insults.

I lead a technical pre-sales group for a global software vendor. I enjoy tossing out ideas to be debated and discussed. I welcome debate and discussion of software trends and developments. I don't mind being made to look stupid if I can learn something from it but please, if you want to teach me something, can you do it civilly?
 
I have asked you some questions

If you answer them, I'll be happy to reply
 
Learn HTMl, CSS, XML, Javascript, PHP, and SQL for starters. Personally I hate web development, and yet I seem to end up in web development jobs all the time...
 
hamelekim said:
Learn HTMl, CSS, XML, Javascript, PHP, and SQL for starters. Personally I hate web development, and yet I seem to end up in web development jobs all the time...
thanks. I've got a pretty good hang of the basics of html and CSS with just minor positioning and similar stuff problems which I'm trying to overcome.
Javascript has been mentioned here in regards to if...then statements to display different background pictures at different times of the day.
I don't know what XML, PHP and SQL are.
I'll need to look those up.
 

Back
Top Bottom