I believe it is an appropriate time for a CSS viral marketing campaign by the Web Standards community.
The novelty and excitement of CSS passed last year. Everyone’s waiting for CSS3 modules. Google any CSS [keyword] and most of the names I read several years ago are gone from the first ten pages for tutorials or explanations or examples of best practices, Web Standards CSS coding. And, those that remain are decent but not ones I would suggest to CSS beginners nor intermediate designers.
What about continuing fundamental Education?
Did you ever meet someone who knew some CSS and decided that absolute positioning was the ideal method for constructing a three column layout? Though their CSS and HyperText Markup Language construction may be odd.
Whilst in Austin, several programmers cited several sources that made me cringe. Even though everyone with which you discuss CSS may know about CSS, not everyone knows how to use it. The programmers answer for CSS was something like,
<div>
<table>
<tr>
<td><div></div></td><td><div></div></td><td><div></div></td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
It’s a simple three column layout, isn’t it.
Basic, fundament CSS tutorials are usually missing from search results. I searched Google for representative sites but I couldn’t find—in those particular phrases—the Little Boxes tutorials: so I did Little Boxes and found it. However, how many developers (and, programmers) do not know of The Noodle Incident.
Ingo Chao’s Authoritative “On having layout — the concept of hasLayout in IE/Win”
See below and see if you would recommend any of the pages returned in search results:
http://www.google.com/search?q=css+haslayout = css hasLayouthttp://www.google.com/search?q=css+has+layout = css has layouthttp://www.google.com/search?q=css+layout = css layouthttp://www.google.com/search?q=css+tutorialEchoEcho CSS Tutorial
CSS allows you to customize the lists that can be made with HTML.
The good news is that there are many powerful properties for doing so.
The bad news is that Netscape and Internet Explorer often support these properties in different ways. Both browsers have limitations in their support of list styles.
Netscape browsers only let you add the list CSS to
<LI>tags - not just any tag.Internet Explorer’s support of CSS with relation to lists is only fully supported for browsers on the Windows platform.[Elementary emphasis.]
Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) Tutorial
How to Manipulate Text Effects in Response to Mouse Events
<STYLE>
BODY { background-color: black;color: gold;font: 24pt sans-serif; }
UL.ActivateTextEffect { color: orange;letter-spacing: 2; }
</STYLE>
How to Fly Text in DHTML
This article demonstrates both ways to implement flying text through the marquee element and through Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) positioning. To better understand positioning in Dynamic HTML (DHTML), as well as the CSS object model in Internet Explorer 4.0
<MARQUEE WIDTH="700" STYLE="position:absolute; top: 180"
... DIRECTION="left">
<UL>
<LI class=yellow>Use the Document Object Model (DOM)<br>
to create interactive documents.
</UL>
</MARQUEE>
http://www.google.com/search?q=css+layout+tutorial
Little Boxes and CSS Layout Techniques: for Fun and Profit
]]>I didn’t go Malarkey. I didn’t relinquish Web Standards from disillusionment. I didn’t relinquish Web Standards from development of a SharePoint 2007 site during those six months. It was nothing exceptional. Chance circumstances beyond control. Things arose.
]]>Dives are good.
]]>Most of my readers have a better understanding of formal English language than that which I use. I’ve used redundant statements in articles or cited Wikipedia pages for larger references when making vague allusions. However, one thing has always bothered me: inline definitions. I do not generally follow links and I'd wager that most site visitors do not either. I wanted an inline definition rollover for Universality which for me includes editorial content which includes slang, vague references and allusions that may be understood by all.
This was the first pun I learned but did not understand until my father explained it to me:
“Two old ladies went for a tramp in the woods but he got away.”
Most readers will understand that “tramp” means a hobo or—these days—a homeless gent. However, the joke arises when “tramp” is first understood to be walking or promenading.
And, that’s where my frustration rose. Web pages offer interactive elements. And, I wanted a simple mechanism to display inline definition.
HTML 4.01 Specification, 9 Text, 9.2 Structured text, 9.2.1 Phrase elements: EM, STRONG, DFN, CODE, SAMP, KBD, VAR, CITE, ABBR, and ACRONYM
“DFN: Indicates that this is the defining instance of the enclosed term.”
That would work.
And, the funny thing about the “title” attribute: it works on all HTML elements even if not all browsers acknowledge it.
]]>Knowledge exceeds Man’s currency.
I wrote that maxim several years ago. It’s my translation of Job 28:18, “The price of wisdom is above rubies”. I write them when I can find dual meanings in the words: currency may either mean coin or paper currency; or, archaically used, it may represent worth.
Yes,— Anyone can do this.
Read the footnotes of Shakespeare’s entries in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations and you will notice that many of his famous lines were taken from Antiquity. Read Bartlett’s footnote’s and you will notice that many famous aphorisms have been taken from Antiquity.
]]>I was tempted to write this reply during the week in which the crises were announced but found it unnecessary. All crises on the internet have life expectancies measured in days (or, hours). The latest Web Standards Crisis has passed.
I have never—Ever—considered myself a Standardista; a Neo-Standardista but not Standardista. My perception of early Web Standards was that of Sans-culottes with Molotov cocktails and wishes for Utopia. That hasn’t changed. The Executive Safety Committee has but its mission has not: Universality (which includes Accessibility), separation of structure and presentation. And, the semantic use of markup languages.
The difference between true Web Standards practitioners and Everyone else is mission versus work. Consider this. Practitioners believe in the Mission; agency drones who must meet Accessibility because it is in the client’s contract requirements view Web Standards as part of the job: nothing more, nothing less. Those who believe in the Web Standards Mission continue to work towards Universality and separation of structure and presentation. Individual practitioners participating in Web Standards continues apace. General-use CSS template houses grow. Content Management Systems (CMS) and desktop editors remain problematic (though each new version improves its semantic markup and CSS use). Template houses for specific business CMS platforms continue the adoption of Web Standards. The final Standardista tenet - Use semantic markup - has grown in acceptance (even when the actual use of semantic markup remains inconsistent).
Those who embraced nascent Web Standards as beneficial—while others believed it to be Snake Oil Peddlers wares—continue with the educational processes. Perhaps, this passed crisis was about the glacial pace of the Web Standards educational processes. Perhaps, not. That would reflect poorly on the Web Standards movement itself. It couldn’t have been about the W3C: Web Standards education should have greater importance than worrying over the methodical pace practiced by the W3C, shouldn’t it? Why should Web Standards wait for the W3C? It hasn’t yet.
]]>It’s a simple question.
I see two replies.
Web Standards is Universality (which includes Accessibility) and separation of structure and presentation.
Web Standards is Universality (which includes Accessibility), separation of structure and presentation, valid (X)HTML and CSS, semantic markup and semantic use of ID and Class names for CSS.
Or, has Web Standards become something else?
The mission of Web Standards has not—Seemingly—changed. The definition and execution of Web Standards seem to be changing. I was curious to know if anyone else has this impression and thought I would ask by survey.
]]>core.css files. They may have individual CSS files strewn through the hierarchal structure. One could locate each style ID and Class name in the HTML, then locate each CSS file and isolate the offending style which required revision and revise it —if one were so inclined. Or, one could use W3C Cascading Style Sheets Level 2 Revision 1 (CSS 2.1) Specification, 6 Assigning property values, Cascading, and Inheritance,
6.4.3 Calculating a selector’s specificity. [Note: Afterwhich, read CSS: Specificity Wars by Andy Clarke (October 7, 2005) for translation.]
CSS Specificity’s much simpler.
I had this difficulty where CSS Specificity was required to correct it.
The Set-up went like this. The site was to have two sections: public-facing and private membership. The first CMS was MODx; it was the public-facing section. The second CMS was Moodle; it was the course-by-membership section housed in MODx. The public site was templated and populated with content. The course site was HTML templated (with CSS files included) and forwarded to a third-party agency for Moodle PHP integration into the new HTML templates instead of the Moodle default templates. However, two weeks later, on return of said templates, things were broken: templates, code, styles, PHP.
Sixty hours later.
I corrected the styles and the code and most of the templates (and, those I could not fix were due to my lack of PHP programming skills: I have none). The HTML corrections were tedious because Moodle has an unfathomable number of default templates. The third-party had included new styles into the style sheet, into the HTML as in-line styles; and—I found—Moodle had styles included in table elements. Style sheet corrections were simple. CSS Specificity.
That was my thought as I was engaged with cascading style sheet amusement one afternoon. I didn’t wish to collect quality assurance data for the W3C HTML Working Group Top 200 Sites Survey; I did not want to work on the design realignment for this site; and, I did not want to work on a proposed site. I wanted to make something small. Broadsides are perfect for practicing CSS and using type that has fallen on the print-room floor.
I found this broadside whilst perusing through the stacks in the Library of Congress: An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera
]]>I volunteered to perform a survey of the Top Global 200 Alexa Sites for the W3C® HTML Working Group. I have completed one-third.
The Top 200 Alexa-identified sites were collected on June 25, 2007. The survey baselines the quality of each site at the time of the survey. Validation results collection was begun on June 28, 2007 and continues.
Each site reviewed was from the URL identified by Alexa.
At the time of this survey the Alexa ranking and PR identifying numbers were accurate. Google Page Rank (PR) fluctuates.
The following Validation and Conformance services were employed. All settings were default.
The notation (f) designates a fatal or draconian error during validation: processing ceased. Each validation service or conformance checker offered different reasons. N/A or Not Applicable notations are explained in the notes.
Caveats: (X)HTML Conformance Checker identifies attributes that are not currently in the HTML 5 specification as an error but ignored. No effort was made to identify actual errors according to the current version of the specification nor conformance checker. Pages declared HTML 4 are given an error by the conformance checker; this error was removed from the error(s) total.
Thus far, these eleven sites represent the global state of large Content Management System sites and Web Standards.
]]>I found nineteen artists with songs. Six for which all songs on an album I like; twelve artists with songs that have gone white noise; and, one with collected label set plus one song.
]]>Standards Reboot Spring 2007.
I was generously asked by David Blanchet to judge Standards Reboot Spring 2007. I accepted. [Note: I’ve previously written about the design aspect in The Lesson of Vitaphone Cartoons as regards Web Design; and, What affect it had on judging Standards Reboot Spring Designs.] The following regards the HyperText Markup Language, or HTML and CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets of those sites.
I’ll digress.
The Basics - what you should run on all your web pages
- The MarkUp Validator. - Also known as the HTML validator, it helps check Web documents in formats like HTML and XHTML, SVG or MathML.
- The CSS Validator - validates CSS stylesheets or documents using CSS stylesheets.
- The Link Checker - Checks anchors (hyperlinks) in a HTML/XHTML document. Useful to find broken links, etc.
[Elementary note: Courtesy of the W3C Quality Assurance Tools page.]
The most common (X)HTML and CSS used for the structure of a site should be corrected.
]]>Ian Hickson offered the following in reply [June 17, 2007] to an W3C HTML WG message, Allow other doctypes.
Conforming HTML4 and XHTML1 docs will not become non-conforming HTML4 and XHTML1 docs. They'll remain conforming HTML4 and XHTML1 docs. They won't be conforming HTML5 docs because they aren't HTML5 docs in the first place. I don't see this as a problem.
HTML 4.01 or XHTML 1.0 document content which is found nonconforming with the (X)HTML5 Conformance Checking Service
may be made HTML5 conforming and—after DocType replacement—pass. Presently, conforming HTML5 documents that have not included undefined W3C elements, e.g., <header> will pass W3C Markup Validation (except for the various Document Type Declaration and Charater Set requirements).
I thought about what constitutes failure and acceptance between HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.0 and HTML5. It’s content.
I did some simple test cases.
]]>I like watching cartoons.
I was graciously asked by David Blanchet to judge Standards Reboot Spring 2007. I accepted.
Sites were to be judged on visual æsthetics, code semantics and over all strategy (or, integration of the æsthetic and code). Design æsthetics isn't difficult except for me.
That’s where cartoon watching illustrates things.
]]>