Week 1 - 4/5/2010

Lecture

• XHTML (Review)

                                               i.     XHTML stands for Extensible Hyper Text Markup Language

                                             ii.     XHTML is almost identical to HTML 4.01

                                            iii.     XHTML is a stricter and cleaner version of HTML

                                            iv.     XHTML is HTML defined as an XML application

                                              v.     XHTML is a W3C Recommendation

• CSS (Review)

                                               i.     CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets

                                             ii.     Styles define how to display HTML elements (Presentation)

                                            iii.     Styles were added to HTML 4.0 to solve a problem

o   HTML was never intended to define content of a document

o   When tags like , and color attributes were added to the HTML 3.2 specification, it started a nightmare for web developers. Development of large web sites, where fonts and color information were added to every single page, became a long and expensive process.

o   To solve this problem, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) created CSS.

o   In HTML 4.0, all formatting could be removed from the HTML document, and stored in a separate CSS file.

o   All browsers support CSS today.

                                            iv.     External Style Sheets can save a lot of work

                                              v.     External Style Sheets are stored in CSS files

• HTML and XHTML is for structure
• CSS is for presentation
1. Class Exercises
• Dreamweaver (Review)

                                               i.     An application that allows individuals to create basic web pages without knowing how to code

                                             ii.     But to become a professional you will need to understand how html works

                                            iii.     It is a  WISYWIG and code editor

o   Drag and drop capabilities of a software package

o   What you see is what you get

                                            iv.     It is a FTP program

o   Copies files from your local site to the remote site

                                              v.     www.adobe.com

• Basic HTML  (Review)

                                               i.     Index page

o    Entry point to your web site -> index.html

                                             ii.     Common XHTML Tags

o   http://www.washington.edu/accessit/webdesign/student/unit2/common_tags.htm

o    http://www.elizabethcastro.com/html/extras/xhtml_ref.html

3. Lecture
• Firefox tool bar
• Naming conventions

                                               i.     Site functionality can be disrupted if not done correctly

                                             ii.     No spaces in file names. You can use underscores or hyphens

o   my great web site.htm should be my_great_web_site.htm or my-great-web-site.htm

                                            iii.     Shorter names compared to longer names

o   crap.htm as compared to thisisacrappywebsite.htm

                                            iv.     Don't use special characters

o   #,^,(,@

                                              v.     Don't mix cases and avoid uppercase (unix does not like it)

o   index.htm, not Index.htm

                                            vi.     Most servers will read files with spaces but not always and the characters %20 will be used for that space so it can be messy

• Introduction (Stylin with CSS)

                                               i.     Re-use of code

                                             ii.     Economy of code

                                            iii.     DRY (Don't repeat yourself)

                                            iv.     Only four Browsers Matter

• Chapter 1: XHTML, Giving Structure to Content  (Stylin with CSS)

                                               i.     Web Standards

                                             ii.     IDWIMIE

                                            iii.     Content, Structure and Presentation

                                            iv.     Attributes

                                              v.     The Top 10 Benefits of Standards Based Coding

                                            vi.     XHTML-The Rules

                                           vii.     About Title Tags

                                         viii.     Document Flow - Block and Inline

                                            ix.     The Browser's internal style sheet

                                              x.     Document Hierarchy: Meet the XHTML Family