RE: [WSG] Learning The DOM
Jeremy, How much JavaScript do you know? Enough to get myself in trouble! Reading Stuarts' book has enlightened me to loads of really useful things, but I realise that as far as scripting languages go (compared to, say, PHP or VBScript) I am just scraping the surface of JavaScript. What kind of things about DOM Scripting need clarifying? Reinforcement of unobtrusive techniques, including best practices and standard code snippets. I'd like to see some more stuff about bullet-proofing scripts as well, particularly when it comes to slower computers and click-happy users. Do you want to see examples of cool stuff with a kind of DOM Scripting for dummies style explanation or more sober articles with a more geeky leaning? Bit of both, really. DOM Scripting has a fairly high built-in cool quotient, just because it makes things happen on the page. But learning why and how something works, not just what it does and how to copy it, is the key to becoming proficient in any area of development. Please share your personal experiences: what's your skill level with JavaScript compared to say, CSS or XHTML? What's your opinion of JavaScript? Compared to (X)HTML and CSS I'm not really very adept at JavaScript, however the few things I've done so far have been a lot easier to complete than I thought they would be. My opinion of JavaScript: the best days are yet to come. Chris ** 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] using scalable vector graphics
Yes, fallback content can be a normal img / element with a fallback bitmap image, and further fallback alt-text. To make the width dynamic you need to do two things. 1) Your SVG image mustn't declare a fixed width in itself 2) You need to do the sizing with CSS. My preferred way is to place the object in a container (which you have to do anyway) and use CSS to make the object size to width: 100%. Then, no-matter what size your container is, the object should resize smoothly. I have a crude example at home which I'll post for you later on. Ben On 7/19/05, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ben Ward wrote: Use the object tag, just like we do with Flash. The SVG mimetype (type atrribute) is image/svg+xml so you'd have something like: object type=image/svg+xml data=image.svg !-- fallback content -- /object would the fall back content maybe be a jpg, gif or png of the svg image? You can add width and heigh into that if you need to (though that rather defeats the purpose of using vector graphics). No embed tags needed at all. I can't fathom why you've been advised to use embed at all, I must say. when i googled the question, adobe support was one hit and they said in their explanation to embed the graphic in the html. if i wanted to use this image as a background image to fit the viewport or container, regardless of the users resolution, how would i do this? dwain -- Dwain Alford [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alforddesigngroup.com The artist may use any form which his expression demands; for his inner impulse must find suitable expression. Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning The Spiritual In Art ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** -- http://ben-ward.co.uk ** 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] nth child rule
Thanks for the answer. I didn't find the nth:child resource. Ted On 19 Jul 2005, at 1:56 am, Drake, Ted C. wrote: Here's my question, are there special rules for using nth-child pseudo classes? Beyond first, second, third, ... what are the labels? Sixth, seventh, tenth? That is what I would assume. Here's the prototype: http://www.tdrake.net/joan/index-liquid.html There is no such thing as 'third-child' and so one. Only ':first-child' (support: Gecko, Safari, Opera, iCab), :last-child (Gecko, partly in Safari) and :nth-child (no web browser supports this, currently). http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/selector.html#first-child http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-selectors/#nth-child-pseudo Philippe --- Philippe Wittenbergh http://emps.l-c-n.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 **
Re: [WSG] Learning The DOM
And now, I'd like to turn the question around and ask everyone on this list what they'd like to see from the DSTF. How much JavaScript do you know? Quite a bit. I helped beta some of the LiveScript engine the Netscape boys whipped up in 95. Sadly, I was stuck in a be compatible with Netscape 4 environment for far too long and now have some severe DOM deficiencies. What kind of things about DOM Scripting need clarifying? There's a bunch of stuff out there along the lines of use this script to do X. There's some stuff about I've just made this standard way of doing things that solves a bunch of problems. There's also a bunch of stuff about here's a mega-library that solves all your monster DOM/AJAX/Web application problems. There's very little about growing, as a programmer/problem solver, from the using and hacking of found scripts, to architecting large organizational solutions. For example, most Unobtrusive examples end with this line to get things going: window.onload = init; For all the effort that goes into an Unobtrusive script to make it play nice with the HTML and CSS, this one line essentially declares There shalt not be any Other Script before Me. Beginners try to stitch two of these in the same page, and it fails and they think they broke it. If beginners are going to become advanced, they need to know more than code; they need to learn how to stitch scripts together to make systems, and systems to make applications. It's that mentality, that potential for hugeness in every minor script, that needs more support in more tutorials. I *don't* think this means we need another here's the architecture I use presentation -- I would cringe at the notion of an official, WaSP-authorized standard. Learning to think about architecture is different than using someone's pre-developed one. We need to teach the beginners how to think differently. Without that, DOM is just another set of methods to memorize. Do you want to see examples of cool stuff with a kind of DOM Scripting for dummies style explanation or more sober articles with a more geeky leaning? There may be a place for a For Dummies approach for the topic, but in my experience such approaches get the complete n00b going just far enough that they realize what they need to learn and they move on. Cool stuff is what gets the word out (e.g., techniques and articles cited in this very list), but I think the level of the learner should be assumed to be higher than that. Please share your personal experiences: what's your skill level with JavaScript compared to say, CSS or XHTML? What's your opinion of JavaScript? I run a team of coders who do all that stuff, and I'm their reference for getting it all to play nicely. To me, the separate languages are more than separating presentation, structural content, and behavior; it's about giving my team the tools to do their jobs without stepping on each other's toes. I see the three languages just starting to learn the steps of a very cool dance. Feel free to contact me off-list, if you wish to chat more. -- 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] Body tag background color changes
On Jul 18, 2005, at 7:16 PM, Bert Doorn wrote: Just wondering whether there was a way to include different body background colors (for different pages) within the same css file. For example #fff for page1.html, #ffc for page2.html etc. If every page has to have a different background colour, you could put an ID on the body element, then in your css: ... If there's a few different backgrounds but they are used on a number of pages, use a class instead of id. This is a good habit, IMO, although technically the body tag is unique on the page and so many pages on the site can have a body tag with the same id -- IDs need only be unique per document. There are two reasons it's still useful (AFAICS) to make body IDs unique on the site, and classes non-unique: 1. You may be coding in XHTML, which may give you the ability in the future to do something entirely wacky like dump every page in your site into a single XML file. Then you'd want your XPath query to be able to home right in on a single body element. 2. Class attributes are a space-delimited list, allowing you to stack up the categories the body belongs to. I use this technique to define a range of layout types, which may be content- or section-specific, like so: body id=pageBioPubIntphoto class=sectionBio sectionPub layoutText The page___ and section___ identifiers are derived directly from the path, and the layoutText class in this case sets black text on white background (the layoutPic is mostly pictures, with a black background and subordinated grayish text). With this technique, you can do more than change the background per page, section, or layout type. You can also, for example, set specific dynamic submenus to appear or hide, or layouts with the same IDs can be radically shifted. -- 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] Body tag background color changes
I have to agree about using body class instead of id. Here's what I'm using on one page body class=sub3 sub3sub1 sub3sub1sub4 asub3sub1sub4 This set of classes match with a set of id's in a nested list that is used for navigation. This has allowed me to open, close, change background colors, add icons to show that a parent list is open for children, etc. You can use multiple classes but multiple id's in a tag can create problems. For more info on this, I sent the entire css sheet to this mailing list a couple months ago, it's probably in the archive under when navigation lists go bad or some silly name like that. Ted -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ben Curtis Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2005 10:23 AM To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] Body tag background color changes On Jul 18, 2005, at 7:16 PM, Bert Doorn wrote: Just wondering whether there was a way to include different body background colors (for different pages) within the same css file. For example #fff for page1.html, #ffc for page2.html etc. If every page has to have a different background colour, you could put an ID on the body element, then in your css: ... If there's a few different backgrounds but they are used on a number of pages, use a class instead of id. This is a good habit, IMO, although technically the body tag is unique on the page and so many pages on the site can have a body tag with the same id -- IDs need only be unique per document. There are two reasons it's still useful (AFAICS) to make body IDs unique on the site, and classes non-unique: 1. You may be coding in XHTML, which may give you the ability in the future to do something entirely wacky like dump every page in your site into a single XML file. Then you'd want your XPath query to be able to home right in on a single body element. 2. Class attributes are a space-delimited list, allowing you to stack up the categories the body belongs to. I use this technique to define a range of layout types, which may be content- or section-specific, like so: body id=pageBioPubIntphoto class=sectionBio sectionPub layoutText The page___ and section___ identifiers are derived directly from the path, and the layoutText class in this case sets black text on white background (the layoutPic is mostly pictures, with a black background and subordinated grayish text). With this technique, you can do more than change the background per page, section, or layout type. You can also, for example, set specific dynamic submenus to appear or hide, or layouts with the same IDs can be radically shifted. -- 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 ** ** 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] World Usability Day November 3, 2005
World Usability Day, on November 3, 2005 is designed to promote the fields of usability engineering and user-centered design. More info: http://www.worldusabilityday.net/about Chris Dimmock Cogentis Internet Marketing www.cogentis.com.au ** 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] Body tag background color changes
For the record, I believe there's a bug in IE5 for Mac which will cause problems with the body class=foo method. I've certainly seen some strange background behaviour on a website where this method was used which only came up in IE5 Mac, but I haven't got time to test at the moment. Have You Validated Your Code? John Horner(+612 / 02) 8333 3488 Developer, ABC Kids Onlinehttp://www.abc.net.au/ ** 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] Body tag background color changes
John, I built and tested a mini demo a while ago and it had no issues that I recall. Just checked again now in Mac IE5 and there are no issues - though it uses ID rather than class: http://www.maxdesign.com.au/presentation/page-id/index.htm Russ For the record, I believe there's a bug in IE5 for Mac which will cause problems with the body class=foo method. I've certainly seen some strange background behaviour on a website where this method was used which only came up in IE5 Mac, but I haven't got time to test at the moment. ** 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] Body tag background color changes
On 20 Jul 2005, at 11:55 am, russ - maxdesign wrote: John, I built and tested a mini demo a while ago and it had no issues that I recall. Just checked again now in Mac IE5 and there are no issues - though it uses ID rather than class: http://www.maxdesign.com.au/presentation/page-id/index.htm Russ For the record, I believe there's a bug in IE5 for Mac which will cause problems with the body class=foo method. I've certainly seen some strange background behaviour on a website where this method was used which only came up in IE5 Mac, but I haven't got time to test at the moment. John is referring to this bug in IE Mac http://www.macedition.com/cb/ie5macbugs/#whitespace which is about the use of multiple classnames with the same substring in their name. Philippe --- Philippe Wittenbergh http://emps.l-c-n.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 **
