Fundamentals of web_design_v2

What We’ll Cover
 FTP - why it should be the first tool in your web developer toolbox.
 HTML basics, what's involved in writing it and understanding the
basic elements of a webpage.
 Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and how they control the
presentation of HTML.
 Javascript and its role in user interaction, how it integrates and why
it matters.
 Flash and what role it plays in presentation, interaction and the ups
and downs of using it.
 PHP and ASP will be discussed in very general terms with an eye
toward use of dynamic pages and Content Management Systems.

But first, some background...
Basics of how the web works and how
your website fits into the big picture.

Host
User
Web
Page
Domain
Registry
Domain
Name
Resolver
IP address
00.00.00.00
Internet
Service
Provider
Domain Name Registrars
HTTP request:
“www.sitename.com”
HTTP response
Basic HTML pages – ‘flat website’
Advantages: Speed / Flexibility
Disadvantages: Labor-intensive / navigation issues

Host
User
Web
Page
Domain
Registry
DNR
IP address
00.00.00.00
ISP
Domain Name Registrars
HTTP request:
“www.sitename.com”
HTTP response
Database-driven website
PHP
Scripts
MySQL
Database
“LAMP”
• Linux
• Apache
• MySQL
• PHP
CMS – Content Management System
• WordPress
• Drupal
• Joomla
• many more
Advantages: Automation of navigation, easy to change overall site design (‘theme’)
Disadvantages: Speed / Server Load / Script conflicts (plugins)

FTP
 FTP = File Transfer Protocol
 This is the method you’ll use to move files to and from your host.
 The better the tool integrates with your computer,
the easier it will be to publish your site changes.
 There are web-based tools but I’ve found them inefficient.
 Higher-end tools like Interarchy are blazing fast and support all the
special cases you’ll run into. ‘dot’ files being one of them.
 Tight integration with your text editor can make editing easier.
 Can be used to change file permissions.

Examples of FTP Programs
For Mac:
 Interarchy
(http://nolobe.com/interarchy/)
 Cyberduck
(http://cyberduck.ch/)
 Transmit
(http://www.panic.com/transmit/)
For PC:
 WS-FTP
(www.ipswitchft.com/)
 FTP Explorer
(http://www.ftpx.com/)
 Smart FTP
(http://www.smartftp.com/)

HOST
FTP in the scheme of things
HOST
Editor on local PC
Web
Page
F
T
P
Edit/Preview
within tool
Web
Page
F
T
P
Text editor / freestanding FTP Dreamweaver / IDE
Browser
View
http

GUI EDITORS - WYSIWYG
 Dreamweaver
 Beginners always seem to start with this. It’s a great tool.
 The preview isn’t quite right, it’s slow, it’s big, it’s expensive.
Has a built-in FTP tool. Tight integration with Adobe CS.
 FrontPage
 Very common starting point on PC. Solid and serviceable.
Deep integration with Windows OS.
 Plain-text editor
 Cheap. Fast. Efficient. Reliable. Trustworthy. Multi-platform.
 My choice – BBEdit for the Mac.
Downside: not quite as ‘helpful’ as GUI apps.

TEXT EDITORS
For Mac:
BBEdit
(http://www.barebones.com)
Text Wrangler
(http://www.barebones.com)
SubEthaEdit
(http://www.codingmonkeys.de/)
For PC:
NotePad++
(notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/)
Crimson (
www.crimsoneditor.com)
jEdit (http://www.jedit.org/)

HTML BASICS
HTML – Hyper Text Markup Language
HTML is a ‘markup’ language. It consists of TAGS: <b>This is bold</b> -
looks a lot like the pre-WYSIWYG wordprocessor ‘WordStar’. Browsers
interpret and ‘present’ the markup code.
Tags generally ‘open’ and ‘close’ – except for single-element tags like
<img>, <br> and <hr>.
Images and link paths can be ‘absolute’ or ‘relative’ – demo
For many years HTML page design was done using the <table> tag –
in the last decade CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) support in browsers has
improved to where object-oriented design techniques can be used,
separating design from content and allowing site-wide design changes
with minor edits.

HTML PAGE ELEMENTS
DOCTYPE – Rendering rules for HTML
HTML – Beginning of hypertext
HEAD – Title / Links / Scripts / Meta
BODY – The visible content of the page

Anatomy of an HTML page
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title>Page Title</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/resources/my_styles.css" media="all">
<script src="/resources/js/my_script.js" type="text/javascript" language="javascript"></script>
<meta name="keywords" content="dog, cat, bird, mouse, platypus">
</head>
<body>
<div id="pagewidth">
<div id=”banner">Page Banner</div>
<div id="wrapper" class="clearfix">
<div id="twocols" class="clearfix">
<div id="maincol">Main Content Column</div>
<div id="rightcol”>Right Column</div>
</div>
<div id="leftcol">Left Column</div>
</div>
<div id="footer">Footer</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>

banner
footer
rightcolmaincolleftcol
wrapper
Two cols
pagewidth

CSS – CASCADING STYLESHEETS
Definitions of STYLES for HTML Elements
Rather than:
<p><font size=“3”>Doo Dah</font></p>
(as inline style)
<p style=“font-size:12px;”>Doo Dah</p>
(as line in stylesheet)
p { font-size:12px; }
Can also refer to DIVisions of a page.
(live demo)

CSS Cheat Sheet
http://www.lesliefranke.com/files/reference/csscheatsheet.html

Javascript
JavaScript is an object-oriented scripting language used to enable
programmatic access to objects within both the client application
and other applications. It is primarily used in the form of client-side
JavaScript, implemented as an integrated component of the web
browser, allowing the development of enhanced user interfaces and
dynamic websites.
- Wikipedia

JAVASCRIPT
Common uses:
• Form validation – check user input before submission
• Popups
• Hide/show page elements
• Image rollover swaps
Javascript can be placed in
• A command within a tag (MouseOver)
• The <head> portion of a document
• The <body> portion of a document
• An externally-referenced file
Frameworks – many commons functions are available as ‘frameworks’

FLASH
Flash allows the presentation of scalable, vector-based information.
It has numerous advantages but is not intended as a primary tool
for constructing general-purpose websites.
Here’s a few drawbacks:
• How do you bookmark your location? Not supported – all navigation is
absolute and programmatic.
• Requires an add-on to the browser. Largely supported but can be issue.
• Complex animations can run slowly on low-end machines, yielding low
framerates and jerky display.
Flash is a great tool to present an animated piece of content but care
should be taken to factor in user issues if the entire site will be built in it.

PHP and ASP – the dynamic duo
 PHP – Hypertext Preprocessor – a
language designed to create HTML
using programming logic
 ASP – Active Server Pages – the
Microsoft version of PHP.

Information Architecture
 The blueprint that describes how
information is organized and structured.
 The relative position of files and folders
 The ‘concept’ behind your navigation

Product ...
Product 2
Home
About
Contact form
Products
Map
Staff list
Links
Products Order Form
about.html
contact.html
index.html
links.html
map.html
product_list.html
products (directory)
product1.html
product2.html
.
.
.
product-x.html
staff.html
store (directory)
order.html
validate.js

LEARNING RESOURCES
HTML Tutorial (http://www.w3schools.com/html/)
HTML Reference (http://www.w3schools.com/tags/)
HTML Validator (http://validator.w3.org/)
HTML Cheat Sheet (http://www.webmonkey.com/reference/HTML_Cheatsheet)
CSS Tutorial (http://www.w3schools.com/css/)
WestCiv CSS Guide (http://www.westciv.com/style_master/academy/css_tutorial/)
CSS Cheat Sheet (http://www.addedbytes.com/cheat-sheets/css-cheat-sheet/)
CSS Layouts Step-by-step (http://www.webreference.com/authoring/style/sheets/layout/advanced/)
Javascript Tutorial (http://www.w3schools.com/JS/default.asp)

TOOLS
4096 Color Wheel (http://www.ficml.org/jemimap/style/color/wheel.html
)
CSS Creator (http://www.csscreator.com/version2/pagelayout.php)
Layout-o-matic (http://www.inknoise.com/experimental/layoutomatic.php)
Little Boxes (http://www.thenoodleincident.com/tutorials/box_lesson/boxes.html)
Entity Lookup (http://www.digitalmediaminute.com/reference/entity/index.php)
Stu Nicholls (http://www.cssplay.co.uk/)
Firebug (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843)

CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
WordPress Blogging Community – set up a free blog and get used to
using WordPress in a controlled environment before ‘self-hosting’
(http://www.wordpress.com)
WordPress Developer Community – once you have your feet wet, get
your own domain name and host, then roll your own look feel
(http://www.wordpress.org)
Boulder Digital Arts courses on installing, managing and customizing
(http://www.boulderdigitalarts.com/training/details.asp?offering=216)

Q & A
M. Douglas Wray
http://www.macwebguru.com
macguiguru@spamcop.net

Fundamentals of web_design_v2

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