My type assignment is coming together slowly, but surely. Majority of the work is finished, I just have to fix my block quote, and add the rest of my endnotes, as well as insert my pull quote. You can see the progress so far here or by following the link from my homepage. Let me know what you think!
Also, I commented on Scott’s blog and Rebecca’s blog.
So I’m sitting here trying to put footnotes into my nice little body of text when I discover one of the most useful functions on Dreamweaver. If you place your cursor on any text within your XHTML coding, on the right-hand side of your screen above your sight index, Dreamweaver will tell you what section that particular bit of code belongs to, as well as what CSS properties are applied to it. For example, a paragraph in your content section will come up properties for “#content p,” font size….line height…etc. Also, if you click on the end tag for any element, such as a div, it will tell you what that end tag belongs to. It is through such use that I discovered the answer to my problem. I was placing my footnote div and discovered that there was an end tag about my footer that was coming up as “body.” I thought this was odd since I had a body end tag below my footer. In my rampant search to discover the beginning tag of this div, I discovered that it belonged to my “mainwrapper” div. However, it was coming up as body because my CSS had that particular property labeled “middlewrapper,” which is what I had changed the name to on my homepage when I was originally writing the code so that I would not confuse it with my border. However, I completely forgot to change the name on all the rest of my pages. So, now my little Dreamweaver box happily informs me that my end div tag belongs to my wrapper. Thank you little Dreamweaver box. Another mystery solved.
So I seem to have run into a rather unusual problem this evening while working on my type assignment. Earlier in the day I fixed some of my CSS code to be more readable and less complicated. Now, I’ve discovered that for some reason, my final project homepage loads with the correct margins on my navigation and content sections, but all the pages that are linked off of that page, that are all linked to the same CSS page as the homepage, do not have a left margin on the navigation, and double the margin on the right side of the content bar. I have looked over my CSS and XHTML code several times and cannot figure out what is happening. I even tried running my pages through the validators again to see if maybe I missed something somewhere, but they came out clean. I think it’s really weird that my CSS is loading the margins correctly on the homepage, but incorrectly on all the other pages, even though it is the exact same CSS page. Any suggestions?
I must admit, The Polyglot Manifesto, Parts 1 and 2, presented quite an interesting argument. I think that the point that Manan Ahmed was trying to make in his two blogs speaks to the heart of the purpose of our class. The truth is, if we historians want our work to remain relevant in a technology-obsessed world, we too must become technology obsessed. We must make our archives accessible through digital collections; we must create on-line “exhibits” that present historical artifacts and materials in an interesting and engaging manner; and, we must have at least a basic knowledge of the process required to make the above two actions happen! We need to be involved in the process in order to ensure that the end result is what we envisioned. A curator cannot simply select the artifacts to be displayed in an exhibit and then walk away; they must be directly involved in the exhibit from the moment the idea is thought up, to the moment the exhibit is taken down. Therefore, a historian should be just as invovled in the creation of an on-line project, as a curator is in a exhibit. Like Manan Ahmed said, we must “not only speak past-ese and present-ese but also, future-ese.”
In addition to agreeing with Manan Ahmed’s manifesto, I also would the CSS tips and tricks listed in our other readings very helpful. I think the List-O-Matic link would be good if I was starting out with a blank website, but I currently like my navigation bar as it is. I have to admit, I haven’t played with my website much this week, although I did change some internal xhtml and css to float my picture on the right, although it didn’t change the overall look of the site at all. I did it moreso to simplify my xhtml and css for if I need to edit it later.
Also, I commented on Jared’s blog this week, although it is still not showing up on his site as it is “awaiting moderation.” Scary.
This week I was able to create a homepage that I am satisfied with, as well as provide a helpful hint or two to a fellow classmate. Here is my post on Jeff Weir’s blog.
The readings this week on typography presented an interesting debate. I, like Gertrude Himmelfarb, prefer footnotes to endnotes because, not only can I read the author’s sidenotes with the text, but also because I think footnotes are usually more detailed than endnotes. Therefore, I think it’s great that CSS has allowed for footnotes to be placed within the text again using the three styles shown in Prof. P’s article. Finally, footnotes are being revived and reclaiming their place in the academic world!
Ever since I finished the bulk of the work on my homepage on Friday, I have been mulling over the problem of how to get my header image and text to stay the same distance apart no matter what the size of the browser window. Finally, at 1:30am, while browsing through other random pages on the web hoping one of them might hold the answer to my problem, it dawned on me: if I make a “wrapper”box with a border for my entire page, and set certain size requirements for that box, it will display the same way on any size browser. Silly me. While trying to master some of the more complicated aspects of xhtml and css, I totally forgot about the very first thing we did to our little Dreamweaver pages in class; create a box for everything to fit inside! *sighs* Well, now that I’ve created my little wrapper box, I think I am finally as content as I am going to be with my page. That is, until I get to class on Thursday and discover something new and exciting to do with it.
If you would like, you can see my page here.
I have to admit, when I first started this class, the prospect of designing my own well-designed, web page was kind of scary. However, after class on Thursday, I was so excited that I came home and worked on this week’s assignment for a couple of hours. By the time I went to bed, I had a page that, while it wasn’t, and still isn’t, perfect, I was at least happy with what I had accomplished.
I used one of the MacFly templates from QuickDraw. I then proceeded to change the header text, add a header image through the use of an additional <div>, change the background color of the entire page, change the text color on the entire page, and edit the text in the body, including making a list, and in the sidebar. The place where I ran into the most complications was when I uploaded the page for validation. In my attempt to validate the page, which I just did this morning, several problems arose with my “strict” xhtml. It took me a little bit to fix the problems, and still keep the page looking how I want, but in the end, I would say this was a pretty successful assignment. I still don’t think the end result is perfect, but I’m sure it will get better as the semester goes on and I gain more experience with writing code.
As someone who has little to no experience in web design, I found Charles Wyke-Smith’s book incredibly helpful. Not only did he provide the material in a manner that was easy to understand, but the inclusion of helpful websites in the tips, and the availability of the CSS template sheets on-line makes me feel like I might actually understand this stuff! In fact, while I was reading the book, I started playing around in Dreamweaver in an attempt to put the stuff I was learning into practice. Furthermore, Luke Wroblewski’s section on colors and perception has caused me to think more critically about the color scheme I will use for my own website.
Recent Comments