Lauren Bellero on fri 4 aug 06
first let me say i think tony ferguson's and graham
mercer's posts on the subject are both excellent viewpoints.
one of tony's pearls:
"Use css (cascading style sheets) for format consistency."
ok, i graduated summa cum laude (comp sci no less) which only
means i have (oh alright, 'had') a capacity to learn... (good thing
'retention' wasn't a criterion!). i have TRIED to learn CSS.
i have failed miserably. just can't get my head around it.
can any of you web guru's point me to a 'css for dummies' type
learning tool?? am i hopeless??
my 2 cents regarding websites: i am definitely in the
mercer camp. i don't sell on line and my site is an
invaluable 'tool' to show folks my work. i also believe
that, in a small way, it helps to 'legitimize' me
as an artist. it is mostly used when i send out info
about my home show (and of course, on every piece of
info i generate: email, biz card, shopping bag, show
announcement, etc). mine is of the "free" type: 10MB
from my isp (worldnet). yes, it's a long name, but
i bought a domain name from yahoo at $5/year for
5 years, and a cheap ftp program. it DOES however cost
me in time! which is why it is not regularly updated
(another reason i can't really sell from it). upside:
it's basically free. i do it myself, so i have control.
downside: could it be better? absolutely (for one thing,
css would be a big plus)! but it suits my purposes and
i think that's the key for judging a site's effectiveness.
make sure that whatever choices you are making are the
right ones for your personal situation.
all the best,
lauren the mudslut
--
Lauren Bellero, Mudslingers Pottery
http://mudslingerspottery.net
Red Bank, NJ
Daniel Semler on fri 4 aug 06
Hi Lauren,
> 'retention' wasn't a criterion!). i have TRIED to learn CSS.
> i have failed miserably. just can't get my head around it.
> can any of you web guru's point me to a 'css for dummies' type
> learning tool?? am i hopeless??
While this is not strictly (or even loosely really) clay related with the
indulgence of the moderators - please hit delete anyone not into CSS - and no
the C in this case is not for Clay :)
CSS is based on a simple selector : style language structure. Selectors are
tags, classes or ids specified in the HTML. The styles are the style
attributes
that may be applied to elements in the HTML that match the selector. Thus its
not a procedural language.
I haven't really a great book on the subject to point you at but feel free to
look at my website (www.clayosmos.com) to check out the rather simple use of
CSS I have. I use it for text consistency and for CSS-P for placement. There
are I may use hover psuedo tags to implement rollovers too. I'm a geek and I
have a nasty habit of reading the w3c specs directly, but they are not always
easy to follow, which may explain why browser vendors don't often :)
Check out alistapart where Jeffrey Zeldman and
others hold forth on dos and don'ts and there are links to useful examples.
Also try which has a bunch of stuff, but may have good
examples.
Build some experimental pages and see what gives. There is some other dude's
site I'm trying to remember who had some cool CSS stuff. Meyer - that's it.
If you want to chat about this feel free to mail me directly.
Thx
D
dwichman@frontiernet.net on fri 4 aug 06
www.htmlgoodies.com is a great website with tutorials on many subjects.
The author uses lots of working examples. If you click on the
Cascading Style Sheets in the Beyond HTML section, you can start with
the beginning tutorial on CSS and I bet he can get you going with it.
http://www.htmlgoodies.com/beyond/css/
It is also a great source to understand html and javascript...
Debi Wichman
John Post on sat 5 aug 06
Thoughts on CSS...
It is important to know what your learning style is.
You have to pick one or more books that make sense according to the way
you think.
There are lots of books available about CSS.
Some have lots of pictures, others have lots of text.
It also helps if you draw some pictures of what you want your page/pages
to look like before you start.
I have used CSS with Dreamweaver software.
I have several different books about Dreamweaver.
One is mostly a quickstart basics picture guide - a how to.
Another is a big fat thick one that has long chapters on each subject
but it also has tutorials at the end of each chapter linked to images on
the web that you can use to follow along with and create CSS pages.
When I am learning something new, I usually go for the picture type
books first....just show me some stuff and let me get going.
When I have a good handle on things, that's when I go for the books that
have more text and more detailed information on specific topics I need
to know.
I never read computer books from cover to cover. I always use the table
of contents and the index to get to what I need and then learn that.
In order to work with CSS, I think a good understanding of tables is
helpful... so if you already know how to work with html, I would then
read about tables and then move onto CSS.
The guy who developed html never intended people to actually write web
pages using it. He always thought that there would be shell programs
(like dreamweaver and others) that people used to create pages. In an
article that I read about it in a computer magazine, he said he thought
the language he wrote was a little cumbersome and he wished he made it
simpler.
Anyway, I guess I am trying to point out that probably the first thing
you need to determine is which software program you will be using to
create your html and css pages... then find appropriate texts for your
learning style...either pictures or text -based.
John Post
Sterling Heights, Michigan
Graham Mercer on sat 5 aug 06
Hi Lauren,
In reply to your question,(can any of you web guru's point me to a 'css for
dummies' type learning tool??) and for anyone else interested in Cascading
Style Sheets, let me offer the following resources for consideration. It is
difficult to say "This is THE one to use" because we all learn differently,
however I have found these references very useful.
http://www.csszengarden.com/ - a fantastic example of what you can achieve
with CSS
http://www.webdeveloper.com/forum - a good forum site with heaps of web
development related topics
http://www.w3schools.com - an excellent learning resource for CSS and other
topics, from very basic to quite advanced
http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/learning - lots of information and resources
from the World Wide Web Consortium
Hope you find this helpful.
Graham
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