Re: [WSG] Questions about the new european parliament web site
* Matthew Cruickshank [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2005-09-13 19:39]: Maybe it would be more educational if someone could describe how these tags might have been built. I'm assuming they are using a .net platform that has been horribly hacked. Maybe I shouldn't throw blame immediately at .net, but I have noticed similar things with them. Should the CMS have translated all of the xml stuff into an action or content? Is it just bad code? It's just bad code. They're almost certainly using Apache Cocoon to aggregate a bunch of XML formats together, but they haven't written their XSLT to strip namespaces or tags. This was the same problem that tvnz.co.nz faced when it launched their Apache Cocoon site. The problem they're facing is that they've got XML coming from all kinds of sources, Eg, they might have a content repository providing XML like content xmlns=c_repo section titleSome title/title paraSome content/para /section /content And they'll combine that with a couple of RSS feeds, some XHTML, and maybe some search engine results, and end up with a lot of XML namespaces and non-XHTML tags. This is no bad thing, provided they go to the effort of cleaning it up into XHTML. They could put another stage in their pipeline to filter the namespaces and such with some XSLT and using xsl:stylesheet exclude-result-prefixes= ... Cleaning the result up into XHTML as the final stage in the pipeline though is messy, and generally it's better to write wrappers around all the XML you're aggregating, convert this to XHTML, and then keep a simple sitemap that just aggregates these wrappers together. I'm following a process to transform the incoming feed into clean Atom 1.0, ant to JTidy the content into XHTML. Then I can take a standard set of transforms to convert into RSS 2.0, HTML, and whatever else down the road. Getting it clean coming in makes it much easier to keep it clean going out. -- Alan Gutierrez - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://engrm.com/blogometer/index.html - http://engrm.com/blogometer/rss.2.0.xml ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] wishing not for picky browsers (was) Barclays standards redesign
At 03:44 PM 9/7/2005, Christian Montoya wrote: I was actually thinking the other day, browsers should be more like compilers... they should refuse to parse incorrect code. Then the enforcement would be on the output end, too. Why on earth would I want to use a browser that refused to show me pages that didn't validate? I'd be blocked from seeing 98% of what's on the internet. You're right in terms of what the user wants, but I would say that what the user wants is not what is best for them. For example, we want rich tasty food but it's not what's best for us all the time :) Realistically the horse long since bolted on the concept. But imagine two scenarios: 1) Code compilers were as forgiving as browsers In this scenario, it wouldn't matter how broken, inefficient or vulnerable (security holes) the program was; the compiler would cheerfully let it through and it could end up on your computer. Now think about how often you have to patch the average windows machine to plug up the latest hole. Imagine how much worse it would be if there was even less standards enforcement! :) 2) Browsers were as unforgiving as compilers If this had always been the case, everything you could view on the web would be standards-compliant. Or at least, as compliant as a computer can test for... there would still be any number of ways for the human element to create problems :) So it's a nice daydream to think how things might have been; but to introduce it now would be marketshare suicide for the browser concerned. Personally I'd be fine with it; but most of the people on this list do not fall in the average category and our pages are more likely to be compliant. I think I'd just love to see the fallout against big application vendors when all of their products ceased working overnight. That was an awfully long way of saying, you're right in the current practical sense; but I think the sentiment is more accurately applied as if we could turn back time cheers, h -- --- http://www.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
[WSG] Style a parent element based on an id selector of the child element
Hello, are you able solve this dilemma for me? Is there a way to style the td element with a background colour if an a element has a active_menu id? table tr tda href="" id="active_menu"Link/a/td /tr/table Thanks,Martin
Re: [WSG] Style a parent element based on an id selector of the child element
On Wed, 2005-09-14 at 16:56 +0800, Martin Smales wrote: Is there a way to style the td element with a background colour if an a element has a active_menu id? No, CSS Selectors don't allow this. They can only step down, not up. You could do the equivalent in JavaScript, or... well, a long term strategy might be lobby browser makers to support XPath or something. So basically I don't have any good advice for you. .Matthew Cruickshank http://holloway.co.nz/ ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Style a parent element based on an id selector of the child element
Martin, that's not possible all selectors work the other way around. You could assign a class or, if you don't need it for other things, the id to the td tag. If this isn't possible on the server side, use javascript to do so. regards, Martin am Mittwoch, 14. September 2005 um 10:56 schrieben Sie: Is there a way to style the td element with a background colour if an a element has a active_menu id? ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
RE: [WSG] Style a parent element based on an id selector of the child element
As Matthew said, the selectors step down, so you could apply the active_menu
id to the td, then use descendence(!) on the contained elements.
td id=active_menuasnip/a/td
#active_menu { styles }
#active_menu a { styles }
Regards
Scott Swabey
Lafinboy Productions
www.lafinboy.com
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Matthew
Cruickshank
Sent: Wednesday, 14 September 2005 7:16 PM
To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org
Subject: Re: [WSG] Style a parent element based on an id
selector of the child element
On Wed, 2005-09-14 at 16:56 +0800, Martin Smales wrote:
Is there a way to style the td element with a background
colour if an
a element has a active_menu id?
No, CSS Selectors don't allow this. They can only step down, not up.
You could do the equivalent in JavaScript, or... well, a long
term strategy might be lobby browser makers to support XPath
or something. So basically I don't have any good advice for you.
.Matthew Cruickshank
http://holloway.co.nz/
**
The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/
See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
for some hints on posting to the list getting help
**
**
The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/
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for some hints on posting to the list getting help
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Re: [WSG] Style a parent element based on an id selector of the child element
G'day Is there a way to style the td element with a background colour if an a element has a active_menu id? As others have said, you;d need to resort to JavaScript to do this, or change the setup so the id is on the container you want to change. One thing though... Is this in a data table or is part of a navigation list? If the latter, I'd use a list (ul or ol) rather than a table. Regards -- Bert Doorn, Better Web Design http://www.betterwebdesign.com.au/ Fast-loading, user-friendly websites ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Firefox rendering issue
Try sticking something (a comment or whatever) inside your div id=postpreview/div There used to be a bug where Gecko wouldn't attempt to render empty divs. If it hasn't been fixed, it might be the problem. ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
RE: [WSG] display inline question
Ted Drake wrote
...
I was asked to create a nested definition list with the nested dl's looking
like simple lines of text.
...
Ted try the setup I have for my site map at
http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com/site_map.htm
The associated CSS is:
dl {
font-size: .9em;
padding: 0 0 .2em 0;
margin: 0;
}
dt {
float:left;
line-height: 210%;
width: 55%;
}
dd {
background: #F6F6F6;
border: #DDD 1px solid;
margin: -.2em 1em .8em 50%;
padding: .4em .6em .4em .6em;
text-align: justify;
height: 1%;
}
I believe it encompasses your needs: two columns, both compressible on page
contraction, DD associated with its TD.
HTH,
Mike Pepper
Accessible Web Developer
Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst
http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com
Administrator
Guild of Accessible Web Designers
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.gawds.org
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See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
for some hints on posting to the list getting help
**
[WSG] position relative z-index woes
Hi again, I'm having another weird issue with MSIE and I wonder if anyone knows how to fix it. If you visit this page: http://www.i-marco.nl/weblog/archives/archive_2005-m09.php and you type something in the search box on the top right, 'google' for example, it will trigger some Ajax that fills a div located under the search box. The div has position: relative; and a left: num px; attribute. It also has a high z-index to make it float above the page layout. In Firefox it works perfect but in MSIE the layout of the page is distorted as soon as the div gets filled. It's like it eats up space even though the z-index is higher than the rest of the page. Is there any way to get around this? Regards, Marco -- Marco van Hylckama Vlieg - Senior Web Developer http://www.i-marco.nl/ ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] wishing not for picky browsers (was) Barclays standards redesign
On Sep 14, 2005, at 12:40 AM, heretic wrote: At 03:44 PM 9/7/2005, Christian Montoya wrote: I was actually thinking the other day, browsers should be more like compilers... they should refuse to parse incorrect code. Then the enforcement would be on the output end, too. Why on earth would I want to use a browser that refused to show me pages that didn't validate? I'd be blocked from seeing 98% of what's on the internet. ... Realistically the horse long since bolted on the concept. But imagine two scenarios: 1) Code compilers were as forgiving as browsers In this scenario, it wouldn't matter how broken, inefficient or vulnerable (security holes) the program was; the compiler would cheerfully let it through and it could end up on your computer. Now think about how often you have to patch the average windows machine to plug up the latest hole. Imagine how much worse it would be if there was even less standards enforcement! :) Meaning, that I could teach my mom to program effectively in an afternoon? That artists and journalists would get basic programming skills covered in the first two weeks of class? That about one out of three people interested in software would actually be able to program it -- unlike the one out of maybe twenty now? How horrible. :) 2) Browsers were as unforgiving as compilers If this had always been the case, everything you could view on the web would be standards-compliant. When I first started learning HTML, I viewed-source on the Yahoo page. The only Page. They hadn't bought a domain yet. They had a message at the bottom of the page, after having listed a couple hundred categorized links, If you know of another URL not on this list, please let us know. If browsers were as restrictive as compilers, *none* of those sites would even exist, because they were all done in the free time of professors, students, internet aficionados, and hackers with better things to do. But HTML was so easy and forgiving, everyone was trying their hand at it. Three years after explaining what a URL was, they were on billboards and ads everywhere. That's faster adoption than the DVD had at about the same time. Making browsers forgiving is part of the core ideology of the Web. I wouldn't discard it so casually. -- Ben Curtis : webwright bivia : a personal web studio http://www.bivia.com v: (818) 507-6613 ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Standards based visual design guidelines
Interesting topic. Outside of the design fanboi/grrl type sites most design resources (at least those I use) tend to be grounded in usability, rather than pure visual design - probably because visual design is supposed to be creative, whereas standards (arguably) are not - they're what everyone/someone else did, or represent the collective sub-conscious. And, visual design is just one aspect of web design that should communicate some value about the thing it represents (i.e. what one attaches to something based on an emotional/conditioned response from the visual stimulation) while serving the dual purpose of enabling an interactive experience. Certainly there are design trends which tend to be derived from and/or in turn inform other visual media, and I would suggest that most web designs can be categorised into very few design patterns (I think the lucky number seven was mentioned some time ago, but I can't recall where that came from). Herrod, Lisa said: I'm looking for some examples of standards based visual design guidelines and wondering if you can point me to anything you've seen or personally use in your design process...? ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
[WSG] alistapart.com search plugin
Hi All I just posted a plugin for your firefox browser. It installs a search option for stuff on www.alistapart.com. In other words, when you need to find the code for sprite rollovers, you go to the search box in the top right, choose alistapart, type in sprite rollovers and voila, you get the www.alistapart.com search results in your browser window. Installation is a piece of cake, just click on a link. Here's the post: http://www.tdrake.net/firefox-search-plugin-for-wwwalistapartcom/ Enjoy Ted www.tdrake.net ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Standards based visual design guidelines
Herrod, Lisa wrote: Hello, I'm looking for some examples of standards based visual design guidelines and wondering if you can point me to anything you've seen or personally use in your design process...? If it is something you use during design development, let me know that too, as I'm interested to see how developers/designers apply standards from a purely visual perspective. Thanks and looking forward to hearing your story, hi lisa, i use the jigsaw puzzle design method, which is not taught anywhere that i know of. the jigsaw method is taking blocks of content and putting them together visually into a hopefully pleasing design. if not pleasing at least utilitarian. i strive for some form of cohesion in the design. by that i mean that the elements can be followed in some sort of comprehensive fashion. it may not be pretty, but there should be some logic to the format. the following site is under reconstruction off line for seo purposes, but the format is the same. it may not be pretty, but hopefully utilitarian and logical in it's approach. if you would like to comment to the list that would be fine as well as off list comments are also welcomed. http://www.studiokdd.com/ dwain -- dwain alford [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alforddesigngroup.com The Savior replied; There is no such thing as sin;... 'The Gospel of Mary of Magdala' ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Web font families
Paul Bennett wrote: And Times New Roman is the default font by browsers, if I remember correctly? At least IE's default font. I may be wrong (it happened once before ;) ) but I would think that the browser would use the default SYSTEM serif font. Seeing as this (for Windows) is Times New Roman, that's what you'll see on Windows machines... Welcoming feedback from those more 'in the know' Paul IIRC, you are correct. Although this by many different things. Mainly - the theme that you are using. If someone installs a different theme, that may change the default font. In linux we the same sort of system, except that what is the default font is less common because of the gtk and qt, and the fact that things are vey easy to theme. For example in my gtk theme in linux it defaults to some sans serif font (bitstream vera sans, I think). Then there's the Macs which are a whole 'nother ball game. At any rate, the most important thing is that you can't rely on anything. There is no way to reliably tell the fonts on your users machines or seamlessly let them download fonts you want them to use, because the people who are in charge of this sort of thing are too greedy to be able work together and create a standard (and the w3 couldn't care less about presentation). Another really annoying thing is that the fonts are not very consistant in there sizing. So sometimes I stuble on sites that have really large or unreadably small font's because of this. So the story is that you can't expect pixel perfection. HTML and CSS were not designed for that, if you need that sort of thing I think the PNG format would be good for you ;) ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
RE: [WSG] Standards based visual design guidelines
I'm looking for some examples of standards based visual design guidelines and wondering if you can point me to anything you've seen or personally use in your design process...? Form follows function. Less is more-more or less. ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Standards based visual design guidelines
On 9/15/05, kvnmcwebn wrote: I'm looking for some examples of standards based visual design guidelines and wondering if you can point me to anything you've seen or personally use in your design process...? hiya, not sure I get where you are coming from. As in, i cant think of any instances of where visual guidelines for 'standards based' design would be different from visual guidelines for a non-standards based design. A brilliant, intuitive visual design is completely possible with standards, or not. Same goes for a terrible design :) I'll take a punt at providing some help anyway :) The biggest things I concentrate on when designing a page are: - defining a clear visual hierarchy. making the most important things (according to the brief) have the loudest 'volume' - and designing tiers of importance around that. Its often a balancing act, finding the right balance between elements that allow the eye to quickly grasp what the page is aiming to convey. - providing visual separation between elements where the content is not directly related, and conversely providing a visual link between content that is related. this can come in the form of things like lines, background shades or just varying amounts of space. - clearly indicating the 'action points' on a page, whether they be links, buttons forms etc. they're the big picture considerations i think of when approaching a design. If you're talking about some actual hard recommendations like sizes, spacing, colours I don't think you'll find it. I've often dreamt about such a project - but when it comes down to it, every brief/project is different and I think the best approach is to keep your guidelines very high level - something like those 3 points above. hth, ~~~ Peter Ottery ~ Creative Director Daemon Pty Ltd www.daemon.com.au (yeah yeah, redesign coming :) ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
[WSG] Looking for help with standard-based JS rollovers
Hi guys, Here's an outline of the requirements: The site I'm working on has a dynamically-generated menu (a nested list with Son of Suckerfish dropdowns) running horizontally underneath the banner section. In order to add a little more life and interest to the pages, we want to have the banner change as you roll the mouse over the menu items - each section has its own banner, so if I roll over Reading Room the banner will change to show the reading room banner image. The banner image is currently set as a background on the header container. The problem: I'm not that great at Javascript. *grin* So can anyone point me at (or give me) some appropriate code, please? It would be greatly appreciated. Cheers, Seona. ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Looking for help with standard-based JS rollovers
If you have some knowledge of arrays you might be able to do it. First of all you have to separate the behavioral part from the document, just as you would have separated the presentational part from the document part. It degrades nicely in browsers that either don't support Javascript or Javascript is disabled. Read this article on Adactio: http://adactio.com/articles/display.php/this_year's_document_object_model/9 Okay, now just thinking about this, this is the logic that I would use. Make two two-dimensional arrays one being called links and the other one rollovers. For each corresponding link there will be a URL to the image. When you hover over the link, the action will be triggered, the URL for the image changes to the corresponding link, and visually you see that the image changes. If you can't do it or can't find someone to do it, I'm available for hire. Sincerely, Jorge Colon ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
[WSG] Press release: Official launch of the Web Accessibility Tool Consortium (WAT-C, www.wat-c.org]
Leading Accessibility Organisations Launch International Development Consortium Australia, Europe, Japan and United States form WAT-C to create real time web and software accessibility analysis tools via GPL. - Thursday, September 15, 2005 Melbourne, Australia. Today organisations representing four continents announced the official launch of the Web Accessibility Tool Consortium (WAT-C, www.wat-c.org). The new consortium is developing a series of browser-based web accessibility analysis tools under a general public license agreement. By harnessing the passion, knowledge, and creativity of this international group of web accessibility practitioners, stated Steven Faulkner WAT-C founder, We have a unique opportunity to provide tools to promote the understanding and development of an accessible web. WAT-C is a collaboration of some of the world's leading accessibility practitioners. These developers of free web accessibility testing software services include: Accessible Information Solutions [Australia] Infoaxia [Japan] Juicy Studio [UK] The Paciello Group [USA] Wrong HTML [Japan] The consortium will promote and pursue software development goals including: Free web accessibility testing software Enhanced development of existing web accessibility testing tools The internationalization of web accessibility testing software There is an international movement to harmonise divergent web accessibility guidelines, such as WCAG by the W3C, Section 508 in the US, and JIS in Japan, Makoto Ueki of Infoaxia and co-founder of WAT-C. We want to support this process through international collaboration in the development of tools to help all web developers produce accessible websites. WAT-C will shortly release an updated version of the Web Accessibility Toolbar for Internet Explorer, and recently announced the release of a Colour Contrast Analyser utility. Toolbar versions for Mozilla/Firefox and Opera are in development. Contacts Steven Faulkner Accessible Information Solutions [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.accessibleinfo.org.au Makoto Ueki Infoaxia, Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.infoaxia.co.jp Mike Paciello The Paciello Group [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.paciellogroup.com ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
