Web Builder Resources Page 1

Resource Notes

Browser Links

from Webmonkey:

Windows Browsers
Mac Browsers
Linux/Unix Browsers
Other Browsers
History of the Browsers (news.com 4-part report)

roughly 90% of web surfers use a Version 4 or 5 browser

Take a networking quiz

I got 22/27 on the first try, much better than I expected!

Morons in Webspace

A vitrolic-yet-informative rant on usability

DOM (Document Object Model)

Webmonkey's Introduction to the DOM
dHTML Tutorial (webmonkey)

not a language, but a concept
opens browser objects to action from CSS/P, JavaScript, X/HTML, XML, etc.

JavaScript

Webmonkey JS quick tutorial
Webmonkey JS full tutorial

used to manipulate document objects
JavaScript usually goes between the </title> tag and the </head> tag.
hide js from older browsers with a  tag.

CSS/CSS-P

W3C CSS Home Page
W3C CSS2 Specification
W3C CSS Validator
Webmonkey CSS1 Tutorial
Webmonkey CSS-P/CSS2 Tutorial
CSS Talking (alistapart.com)
Fear of Stylesheets (alistapart.com)
glish.com Cross Browser CSS
Eric Meyer's CSS pages
The MASTER CSS List

Another Rollover trick
CSS tabs with submenus

CSS3 Color Module (Candidate Recommendation 14 May 2003)
CSS3 Text Module (Candidate Recommendation 14 May 2003)
CSS3 Ruby Module (Candidate Recommendation 14 May 2003)

used to manipulate document objects
used to control layout and spacing as well as style
CSS-P not available to users with older browsers (NS4/IE5)
IE 3,4,5 have class bug issues
Advantages to using CSS/P: (a) smaller file size (cleaner code) (b) separates design and content, making site-wide changes much easier
Communicator does not support attribute HEIGHT wrt CSS positioning. IE 4/5 are buggy wrt HEIGHT.
OVERFLOW is only supported by IE 4/5 for windows (outdated info -- also in Moz, NS7)
CSS2 specs provide powerful new flexibility in font choice: create font on the fly, download font for user to see, etc.

Grid Layouts with CSS (alistapart.com)

XML/XHTML

Webmonkey on XML
Webmonkey on XHTML

XML is case sensitive, tags all lowercase
XHTML is an interim step towards standards compliance with XML
closed tag sets, id=/name=, "" around all attributes

XSL/XSLT

W3C XSL Standards

doesn't interface directly with browsers

PHP

Webmonkey Tutorial

server side scripting

Perl/CGI

Webmonkey Tutorial

server side scripting

XSSI

Webmonkey

what we use for some of the header magicks
aja is fond of this, saves server load as functions happen when the page is called
can be used places where CGI isn't allowed

allows inter-interpretability of web resources
3 distinct sub-languages: OWL Lite, OWL DL, and OWL Full
builds on XML (custom-tagging) and RDF (defining the way information is presented/represented on-the-fly)

Articles and Interviews

An Interview With Mike Davidson of ESPN Part 1 | Part 2

"For the month before our redesign, we calculated that 97.44% of our users were using standards-compliant browsers (IE 5+, Netscape 6+, Mozilla, Opera 6+, Safari, Chimera, and Konqueror), and the rest were either non-detectable or using non-compliant browsers. The only substantial groups among the non-compliant browsers were IE 4.x at 1.32% and Netscape 4.x at 1.17%. The other .05% of our users were either undetectable or were using obscure or masked user agents."
Response to low-end users whose browsers were not supported by ESPN's standards-compliant redesign was (a) informational page about upgrading to a modern browser (b) soliciting feedback before and after the changeover (c) keep close tabs on the blogs for user comments/discussions (d) participating in discussions with users via email, blogs, and response to suggestions via change.
Uses positioned divs

An Interview With Douglas Bowman of Wired News

XHTML 1.0 Transitional and CSS
positioned divs, not float
discusses issues with float, incl: (a) required order of content within generic markup (b) trouble ensuring a consistent vertical start position of columns
two issues with absolute positioning: (a) When one or more columns is positioned absolutely, there is no way to ensure a footer would always appear at the bottom of the longest column (b) small browser windows can make absolute spaces overlap.
problems encountered: (a) tried to go to XHTML Strict, but could only get XHTML Transitional DTD b/c of ad requirements (b) archived content required 'cleaning' (c) had to rebuild templates / deal with browser quirks (d) as much as 14% of readership were reading Wired on an older browser, unformatted

Changes in Internet Explorer for Windows Server 2003

Q: when / will there be the next version of IE?
A: As part of the OS, IE will continue to evolve, but there will be no future standalone installations. IE6 SP1 is the final standalone installation.
Q: What's the long-term outlook for IE as a development platform? Are there major limitations planned for future releases (such as in Longhorn) due to security reasons? I know that this is a concern to many developers that rely on IE technology.
A: Security continues to be a top priority. The platform will change for longhorn but you can expect the client, where folks need to browse, to not be as restrictive as the server. I encourage folks to get involved in our beta program to help us evolve the platform
Q: Why is this? the anti-trust? (no further standalone)
A: Although this is off topic, I will answer briefly: Legacy OSes have reached their zenith with the addition of IE 6 SP1. Further improvements to IE will require enhancements to the underlying OS.

Progressive Enhancement and the Future of Web Design by Steve Champeon (webmonkey)

Do Web developers need a Linux cert

OWL ascends within standards group (news.com)
The Semantic Web is Closer Than You Think (xml.com)
OWL flies as Web ontology language

Web Stats with PHP Apps (builder.com)

Coursework

Adobe Certified Expert

Big General Resources Pile

A List Apart
Browser Watch
Search Engine Watch
W3C Tutorials
devedge.netscape.com
The Jeffrey Zeldman Report
user statistics (websiteoptimization.com)
Bugs (fun JavaScript demo site)
Incluside Web Design for the Future
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (draft)
Designing with Web Standards (from Zeldman's keynote)

Weird, Fun, Random

An answer to the monkey/typewriter question for web designers. (The answer, incidentally, is 'no')
Moveable Type, which I've wanted to check out a while
Pretty, pretty, pretty. Also, pretty! And, more pretty sites designed with CSS/P. Woo-hoo.
Scalable Vector Graphics (W3C spec)

... people.redhat.com/bharris/webstuff/ ... http://people.redhat.com/bharris/webstuff/index.html