Blogs?

rsw

I have sort of followed this topic for a while now as i'm currently building a website for myself and was looking out for anything useful which might help me. I've not used the yahoo site builder thing before, so i've no idea what its like. From wha i can tell its a wysiwyg editor. But i couldn't help noticing that some of the pages you've made aren't valid html/css.

Personally if its a business' site I think its important for it to be valid, as well as being semantically correct, ie if you have a paragraph, use a paragraph element. If you have a list, use a list item element and using tables for tabulating data, and not structuring the page. And ideally presentation should be separate from structure, ie css separated into a css file.

done correctly everyone can access and read your page, whether its from a desktop pc, handheld device, screen reader (for vision impaired users) or a text browser such as lynx.

Not sure how important you think it is, or whether you've considered this already , but thought i'd mention it.

alan wood

Hi Bruce,
Well is that not greatnews. As Edson commented, you do get paid back in life for the good that is done, and I'm so happy that you are excited at what you can achieve in your new post.

A quote I liked to use at work was 'Aiming to deliver a quality of service second to none', something that I was aiming for each day.

Without doubt, that is what you have delivered here, and your new employers and have bagged a 'good un'

cheers

Alan.
PS. Glad the owner of the company liked my stuff. What is out there at present is just a draft of some of the chapters. It will get better.

Edson

hi richard,

thanks for the input. we are assuming sitebuider writes into code whatever we do graphically. as far as we know everyone who tried to acess our sites to be had success.

could you elaborate a bit more on the non valid to html/css thing? we are all concerned about making our sites the most accessible we possibly can so you may have a valid point there.

as for myself, my intention is to get my site up and running with sitebuilder and then move it to dreamweaver so that i can have more flexibility to manage it.

cheers.

rsw

Put your sites through http://validator.w3.org/ and http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/ and you'll see the non valid html that the pages have. This isn't to say that your pages are unreadable or inaccessible, in fact most of the time people probably won't even notice (i'm just fussy!)

I've just started building my wordpress based site, and having the presentation in a separate file means that if i need to tweak the design slightly etc only one file has to be altered to change the style of the whole site (no matter how many pages there are).

have a look at http://www.csszengarden.com/ for good examples of design and using css to control presentation.

don't get me wrong i'm not criticising anyones work here, and from what i've seen there is some good work being produced, besides i'm no expert in html/css either!

alan wood

Hi Guys,
Repeated the last lesson is a format that could be handy for me one day.
It can be found here
http://www.hand-cut-dovetails.com/compnav/p2/p2.html

cheers
Alan
bit of a glitch there. I tried to upload this via the publish button but that didn't work. Went to the yahoo site and uploaded files that way. I'll try again.
still locking up when I am trying to publish through sitebuilder.
Back to the drawing board.

1848hrs. I'll work on that one again

Sorted.

alan wood

Hi Modelhead,
I've updated my latest lesson to include 10 images.
The reason why I have problems recently was because I had changed my folder name from complexnavigation to compnav.
and I sending the wrong link.

When do you start with with your new employer.

cheers
Alan

http://www.hand-cut-dovetails.com/compnav/p2/p2.html

alan wood

Hi Modelhead,
Great stuff.

Just to keep you up to speed my end of the line. I am in no rush at all to progress this web page building.

I have masses of work to do on other projects so dont feel obliged to burn the midnight oil with me.

I can work away in the background on my modelling, cabinet making, drafting articles for British Woodworking, and the millions of other interesting jobs and skill building exercises I want to get on with.

When you do have a minute to give the next lesson, I will pick it up and progess with that.

After the latest lesson I will be able to improve what is already published to my web site.

Enjoy work

speak soon

Cheers
Alan.

My notes on the latest lesson that may be of use to someone else learning sitebuilder.
http://www.hand-cut-dovetails.com/compnav/p2/nav.html

http://www.hand-cut-dovetails.com (under construction)

rsw

model head, the w3c (as far as i am aware actually help to set the standards) and i think the validator is the most up to date there is (was last updated on the 8th of this month).

It is interesting though, that both firefox and internet explorer do not pass the acid2 test. The Acid2 test should render correctly on any browser that follows the W3C HTML and CSS 2.0 specifications. So you may produce a fully compliant webpage, which is then not rendered correctly by your browser anyway. which sort of defeats the purpose of following standards in the first place.

however, in my opinion, if we all write valid code, we'll encourage developers of internet browsers to produce programs which can render standards compliant code correctly, and in the end creating better cross browser compatibility of our websites.

The way I see is a bit like writing a book, you wouldn't expect to publish a book which was full of grammatical errors, neither would I design a building which didn't conform to building regulations etc. so why should I write a page that doesn't follow standards?

however, just to take one of your pages from your page you link to in your sig (http://www.ibuildmodels.com/edson/index.html), which is not valid (check here) most of the errors are the same type, and probably a good indication that the yahoo sitebuilder produces reasonably valid code.

also, as a quick test i tried FireVox screen reader which produces some interesting results!

Krisidious

I thought I might divert you guys a bit with a little paranoia...

I run a house plan website. as we know in AutoCAD, and other drafting software's images are quite easy to copy, import and trace... in other words... design theft.

how can you protect yourself?

I offer a simple scare tactic... I open myself to the very theft that I loath... so that you might protect yourself, I will reveal my methods...

methods

a Terms & Policy page... quoting the copyright statutes...
a script disabling the ability of visitors to right click on your page.

<script>
<!-- //Hide script from older browsers
var msg = "If you are found to have copied, reproduced, built or financed this plan, legal action will be taken! Your personal IP address has been logged. please observe the designers copyright.";

if (navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Netscape") != -1) {
  document.captureEvents(Event.MOUSEDOWN);
}

document.onmousedown = trapClick;

function trapClick(ev) {
  if (document.all) {
    if (event.button == 2) {
      alert(msg);
      return false;
    }
   }
   if (navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Netscape") != -1) {
    if (ev.which == 3) {
      alert(msg);
      return false;
    }
  }
}

//-->
    </script>

http://www.antssoft.com/htmlprotector/index.htm ... software to help you.
slicing your images into little piece and then fitting them all back together side by side and a top one another to recreate the graphic so that people would have to save each individual slice in order to steal one's work.

I hope I have not scared you all... I just want you to be aware that people can take your work...

Krisidious

actually that html protect disables your screen shot button while on the page.

good point on water marking or digital sigs Bruce.

Krisidious

did someone delete my link?

alan wood

Hi Kris,
Thanks for the advice. Copied your post. I'll wait for something from Bruce on this topic. I was reading last night a photoshop manual about uploading images to the web. I will be dealing with that in detail over the next few days.

Modelehead,
I tend to make detailed notes after a project, makes life easier down the line when I might need a recap. Adding a batch of similar sized pages using a template and double clicking, just speeds thing along nicely.
cheers
Alan.

rsw

orry to drag this topic off course..

modelhead, not sure if i'm understanding you correctly, but declaring the doctype is important. essentially the doctype tells your browser what standard your page is written to and how it should interpret the code, otherwise it will display the pages in quirks mode, but probably (for now) isn't something to worry about too much.

krisidiuos, that code doesn't prevent right click in firefox... and if i really want the image i can view the source and find the location of the image anyway. I would suggest you don't use 1139 x 1709 pixel images if yo are worried about copyright, especially when the originating page only displays them at 340 x 499.

Edson

@krisidious said:

I thought I might divert you guys a bit with a little paranoia...

I run a house plan website. as we know in AutoCAD, and other drafting software's images are quite easy to copy, import and trace... in other words... design theft.

how can you protect yourself?

kris, i share your concern and do not think it is paranoia: it does happen! however, i think it is a lost battle. the most we can do is make it a little more difficult for the thieves of ideas. after all we may do to the images it is enough to take a screen shot to walk away with them.

p.s.: at this point i still feel insecure dealing directly with code. i do not know the syntax well so am afraid of ruining the little i have achieved so far.

Krisidious

yes firefox is different this script is for IE only...

the reaosn I use the large image is I use the same image for multiple pages some larger some smaller...

FireFox is like socialism, they want you to have everything for free....

Krisidious

Edson,

the HTML Protect Software disables your ability to use the screen shot key or function

rsw

@krisidious said:

yes firefox is different this script is for IE only...

which raises another question do you check if your sites display and operate correctly across different browsers? do safari users see what an ie user does? does a page operate the same in firefox as it does in opera? I have to admit that I don't do this (although I probably will do)

Krisidious

I do occasionally, although right now my CSS brings my footer up too high on FireFox...

MS Front-Page, which is what I use, has a multiple browser and resolution and connection speed viewer built in.

Krisidious

I agree and disagree Bruce...

I believe you fail W3C without declaration which may affect rankings...

I also just switched to CSS in Jan. been upset with it ever since. my pages load faster, size is much smaller but still have a lot of issues and don't care for the look of typed basic fonts as navigation... I like image maps personally. and like you said cross browser use is messy.

Krisidious

Bruce, I hope you're saving all this info... you're going to have a book to sell when you're done!

awesome work btw.