Journal Entry 1 - Web Development Perceptions
I have learned this week and through this tutorial that web design a lot more complicated than the average person assumes. It is very precise I discovered after I spent 20 minutes debugging to find I had missed a #. I still can’t comprehend how some websites work.
My current perception of web design is it requires education. While there are programs out there that make it “easy” and “quick”. They look easy and quick and I hope to be able to create something more elegant that works. I hope to create a site that will be functional and beautiful for my jobs (Auto Restoration, and Photographer). Then I'll think about where to go if I can handle that.
Journal Entry 2 - HTML History
I am learning that pretty and functional aren’t necessarily the same thing. I’m told in my psychology course that people can keep up to 7 things in their mind at once. Give or take 2. I am going to require a lot of cheat sheets for this class. I spend half my time looking back to find out exactly how many punctuation marks are required.
Early developmental problems of the internet included network compatability issues. In the 1970’s the networks created couldn't talk with each other. In 1982 TCP/IP network protocols were established so different networks can communicate.
Journal Entry 3 - CSS History
CSS has been a major player in Web design in recent years because as web sites get larger the efficiency of a "quick fix" for the entire site is necessary. CSS allows editing of presentation over many pages by changing just one style element on a external style sheet. This gives greater consistency in your website.
HTML's purpose is to provide the structure and content of the page. While CSS's purpose is to format the presentation or style the webpage. Simply put CSS makes HTML look pretty.
Most modern browsers (IE6, IE7, Firefox2, Firefox3, Opera9) support most of CSS 2.1. but much of CSS 3 is not supported yet. Some new things or improved things for CSS3 is multi column layout, speech, box-shadow, more support for colors, and media queries.
I am getting more comfortable with HTML and CSS and as we get into more formatting and design, using HTML and CSS becomes more fun and less frustrating. Although I still can't make the underline disapear from a visited link.
Journal Entry 5 - Web Design
It was well worth reading The Principles of Beautiful Web Design article. It gave me a clear place to start to jumpstart that blank page. He made the process look easy and really professional. I like the idea that we have basic elements to move around that limits us just enough to keep our mind from being completely boggled. The info on codeing was the least interesting. I realize that it will be important if I create something for another part of the the world or a different language. The page I was reading glitched a bit and the flow wasn't so great with repeated paragraphs etc so that may have had something to do with my inablility to focus well on it. This article inspires you to grab a notebook and start sketching.
Journal Entry 6 - Out of the Box
I tried to read this first but had a hard time following it. Now that I've done everything else I think I'll give it another try. It is interesting to watch a framework turn into something that looks great. Its hard to imagine I could do that at this point.
Journal entry Tables vs. CSS
When reading an article like this they always make it look easy. I enjoyed the hour markers as this writer progressed showing that this isn't a quick process. As I read I understand more now that when we started but I am still snowed by most of it. I keep thinking am I supposed to know all this? I still can't make the numbers on my calendar go to the top left and those pesky underlines under the visited links stubbornly refuse to leave. At least with CSS I can see the styles and it feels organized. The idea of looking through all that code in the tables seems daunting. Even unqualified and understanding about 50% of it, this article was interesting and well worth the while. I enjoyed his writing style. Most interesting? That would be how it seems achievable. Like its all logical and I could do it. (Except getting the underlines on visited links to go away). Least interesting? Monty Pythons holy grail.
Journal Entry Specificity
Wow this article was definetly a reread one. Maybe this is my problem with that annoying underline on a visited link. It is an article you have to print out to refer to. It was worth the time to read and reread. Most interesting was that it showed inline being the highest level of specificity but then discouraged the use of it.