Re: [WSG] streaming video

[Ric Raftis]

Christina Porter wrote:

can anyone give me some pointers for streaming video.  I know nothing, 
but it looks like my client base will want it and I need to know about 
it in general and guidance in particular from a reliable source. 


If it's Flash, there is a thing called the "Satay Method" that removes 
the  tags plus other bits and pieces to make Flash code standards 
compliant.  Do a search at the Macromedia web site.  Their pages on it 
are easier  to read than the ones located elsewhere.


Regards,


Ric
**
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 projects for students?

[Ric Raftis]

Tom Worthington wrote:

Any suggestions on web projects for my students this year 
?



G'day Tom,

Could I suggest that quality projects present themselves quite easily in 
the form of non profit organisations.  There are many of these around as 
we all know and many of them don't have the resources and funds to 
afford some quality web design.  Working with live organisations provide 
the opportunity for students to interact with real people and respond to 
their needs and wishes and this is how the real world works.


Another very beneficial aspect of working with non profits is that they 
are generally made up of members of the community.   As such, students 
have the ability to spread the word about standards compliance and 
accessibility on a broad basis that can reach back into the business 
community itself.


Kind regards,


Ric

PS  On reviewing your page, albeit briefly, I noted your comparison of 
the web splash page with the cover of the book.  A fair comparison I 
suppose, but personally I find splash pages a total waste of time and 
bytes.  Give me the meat straight away.

**
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] how important are validation-programs?

[Ric Raftis]

As someone else has already said, they are only warnings.  However, if 
you are pushing standards to clients and they view the results, it is a 
good idea to have no warnings or errors.  Best way around this I have 
found is to use background-color: inherit;  and the warning will be removed.


Regards,


Ric

Soeren Mordhorst wrote:


I feel good when a validation-program could not find any failures,
cause it gives me a secure feeling that at least the basics of 
standards are complied.
But how important is the validation with tools like hera or the 
w3c-validators realy?

Let's take an example:
After a CSS-validation made by w3c there appears the result:"You have 
no background-color with your color : h1".
In this case my question would be: Why should I define a 
background-color, if the background-color

that should be used is already defined in the body-element?

All the best,

Soeren
**
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
**

Re: [WSG] Do you still support 4.0 browsers?

[Ric Raftis]

If you go to the Australian Taxation Office's site you will find that if 
you want to download and use E Tax, that you have to use a Version 5 
browser and above.  Does it get worse.my word it does... it has to 
be IE  If you want to use their electronic business access you have 
to use IE as well.  This is to the point that you can't even fill in 
numbers for your ABN (Australian Business Number) if you're using Firefox.


Support Version 4.0 Browsers  What about supporting standards 
and this is a government department in Australia that seems not to 
recognise the existence of anything else apart from Microshaft!


Regards,


Ric
**
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] Page veiwing

[Ric Raftis]

Angus at InfoForce Services wrote:

I am sorry if this is off topic. I do not know who to ask. I have my 
screen resolution to default to 800 by 600 and thinking of changeing 
to 1024 by 768. I still would like to view my web pages in 800 by 600. 
I really do not have the knowledge to have the screendefault to 1024 
by 768 and still veiew web pages in 800 by 600. Actually Only one of 
my apps requires 1024 by 768. I use EditPlus 2.12 with Windows XP Home 
SP2. Can anyone help? thank you.


I use MultiRes, a desktop resident resolution switcher.  It's available 
from http://www.entechtaiwan.com/util/multires.shtm and is a free programme.


Regards,


Ric
**
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] TARGET in 4.01 Strict

[Ric Raftis]

Bert Doorn wrote:

The main idea is that one should not open new windows at all, leaving 
it up to the user to decide, which is why the target attribute was 
removed.


G'day Bert,

This always seems to be a subject of some debate.  For commercial sites, 
I ALWAYS open a new blank window on a link.  I do however advise users 
that this will happen and that they only have to close the new window to 
return to "my" site.  From a marketing standpoint, why would you want to 
be showing people the door and then pushing them out into the street?


As I say, only my personal opinion though.

Regards,


Ric

**
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 design education

[Ric Raftis]

Your comments reminded me that I had neglected to mention something else 
regarding my TAFE experiences.  Perhaps I should mention that I am 50 
years of age and attended as a mature age student and not someone out of 
high school, however despite all amounts of agitating and lobbying, the 
Bendigo TAFE refused to provide access to Firefox or Opera or any other 
browser apart from IE.  That was the only browser that you could use to 
access the outside world.  You couldn't install or run your own versions 
locally, so consequently Firefox and the Web Developer Extension were 
not available to test your sites or ensure that code was valid.


Maybe this will change in the future, but it has to come from the top.  
The thing that I found most amazing was that the IT people in charge of 
the networks had the say over the people delivering the courses.  It was 
actually the network administrators that stymied the efforts of the 
lecturers by denying access to better browsers and tools.  You would 
have thought that IT professionals would be far more aware of the 
benefits of using compliant browsers and be implementing these in our 
educational institutions.


Regards,

Ric

Michael Nelson wrote:


Ric Raftis wrote:

It was interesting reading your post James because it seems that
TAFEs across the country may vary widely despite courses
supposedly being drawn from a national based syllabus and
providing national accreditation. 



Related to this, I reckon one of the biggest problems causing a lack 
of standards in Web design education is a lack of collaboration. Each 
facilitator/lecturor is re-inventing the wheel with activities and 
resources largely due to IP restrictions within their workplace. In 
reality, many facilitators just end up re-using the same resources 
that's been used for the last 5 years because on their own they don't 
have time to update both their own skills and the resources they use.


The ironic thing is that (nearly) all the best info on Web Design 
topics is being shared freely by professional designers on their 
blogs/sites! ... I mean, with excellent sites like 
http://webdesignfromscratch.com/ and http://maxdesign.com.au/ 
published by professionals, what is the role of an educator?


My take is that if lecturors and facilitators were able to 
collaboratively create and update flexible learning pathways from all 
the great free stuff out there, we'd be in a better position to help 
the uptake of standards in Web design education.


(Plug) : 'cause of this, I've started setting up a WebDesign Wikibook 
over at:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Web_Design 
<http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Web_Design>
 
Really it's just ordering and grouping all the great resources out 
there created by you professionals into some sort of learning pathway 
with ideas for activities... Feel free to contribute :)


--
Michael Nelson
http://liveandletlearn.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] CSS Holy Gruel

[Ric Raftis]

Al Sparber wrote:

We're compiling a folder of CSS layouts. Feel free to play. There'll 
be more.


http://www.projectseven.com/tutorials/css/holy-gruel/juanpercent.htm


OK, I'll be the silly bugger who asks.  Why is the layout using a HTML 
4.01 Transitional DTD?  Just curious.


Regards,

Ric
**
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 design education

[Ric Raftis]

James Gollan wrote:

I feel it is worth pointing out that not all educational institutions 
are still teaching table based design. As an educator I feel I am in a 
great position to make a difference at a 'grass roots' level. Students 
studying web design at our college (Ultimo TAFE) are exposed to about 
as much evangelism as they can take! ..


It was interesting reading your post James because it seems that TAFEs 
across the country may vary widely despite courses supposedly being 
drawn from a national based syllabus and providing national accreditation.


I recently completed a Certificate IV in Web Design at the Bendigo TAFE 
(BRIT) and my experience was anything but what you describe.  Students 
were permitted to design their final assignment, a total web site of 
their choosing, in any layout they wished, even Frames!  Yes, they were 
expected to validate both their xhtml and css, but only to low levels.  
Tables seemed to be the most popular layout used.  Personally, I did the 
course to learn more about css layouts and I achieved this.  Some help 
was achieved through contact with one particular lecturer who was 
enthusiastic, but out of date and teaching deprecated tags at times.  
However, to his credit, he was willing to do the research and admit his 
shortcomings.  Most of my learning regarding structure of css sites came 
from active participation in a forum at www.htmlforums.com where the 
moderators are certainly evangelists for css layouts.


Regards,

Ric

**
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] suckerfish menu and position:relative woes]

[Ric Raftis]

Peter Ottery wrote:


hiya,
i dont like flyout menus as much as the next guy/girl but i have a
situation that requires them, so i'm using the son of suckerfish menu
[1].

 

Personally I don't like the suckerfish menus much.  I found these much 
more to my liking and you might like to have a look at them.


http://www.tanfa.co.uk/css/examples/css-dropdown-menus.asp

Regards,

Ric


**
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] Call for a new (scalable) business case for web standards.

[Ric Raftis]

Jay Gilmore wrote

et al..

I'm with you Jay.  I live in a small rural community as well and my work 
comes by word of mouth.  I can't start something up locally as most 
people in town don't even believe people use the internet!!!  This is 
probably where a thread on a forum has more value than a list.  People 
could add their ideas to the thread and build the compelling reasons you 
and all of us are probably seeking.


I particularly loved one of them posted today, I think by Helen but 
forgive me if I'm wrong, about using the Web Developer extension in 
Firefox to remove all styling.  I thought that was brilliant and really 
showed up some big flaws in some sites I tested.  I had never used that 
before.


To some extent, one of the things it will come down to, like solicitors 
(wash my mouth out) and accountants it is all to do with the trust of 
your clients or potential clients.  Present a good case that you are a 
professional, build the trust and always work on the basis of "do we 
really cost more or are the others worthlessI mean worth less".


Regards,


Ric

**
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] Background-Image download order

[Ric Raftis]

Nick Gleitzman wrote:

 Boring, but multiple CSS files, one for each page, containing only 
the bg image declarations for that page.


Maybe I've missed something, but why wouldn't you just have the one css 
file but declare the background image in the head section of each 
individual page?


Regards,

Ric
**
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] list's with header text

[Ric Raftis]

G'day Paul,

I haven't done coding on this, however I think it may be possible by 
setting a class for your bold heading with no bottom padding or margin 
and then using an ordered list.


Regards,

Ric

Paul Collins wrote:

Paul Collins wrote:


Hello all.
 
Just wondering if there is such a thing as a header tag for a HTML 
list,  or , such as the TH tag or the Summary tag for a table? 
Would be a handy feature, but I haven't seen anything like this out 
there yet?
 
So you could have:
 
*The following are the days of the week*

1. Monday
2. Tuesday
3. Wednesday
 
and so on, with there being some method of indicating that the heading 
is related to the list items.
 
Would anyone know if this is possible or a W3C plan in the works?
 
Cheers

Paul



**
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] Hi all, need some help with a peekaboo bug in IE - SOLVED

[Ric Raftis]

G'day Barrie,

I think what you need here is called the Holly Hack.  It fixes ul, li 
problems that IE mucks up.  CSS for my sites where I use uls include:-


/* Fix IE. Hide from IE Mac \*/
* html #navbar ul li { float: left; }
* html #navbar ul li a { height: 1%; }
/* End */

Reference: http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?page=2&cid=C37E0

Regards,

Ric



Barrie North wrote:


How weird, it was being caused by the styles on the ul in the black main
menu box. I don't know why that would shift the whole column, o well.

Barrie North
Compass Design

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of Barrie North
Sent: Friday, December 30, 2005 9:57 PM
To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org
Subject: [WSG] Hi all, need some help with a peekaboo bug in IE

I am making a site for IE6+ and am really stuck over an IE bug.

http://joomlashack.compassdesigns.net/js_jshack06v2/index1.html

Some strange bug is occurring in IE6, the left column bounces all over. It
seems to be related to the peekaboo bug and you can see it when you mouse
over the links to the left column in the "main menu". Refresh the page in IE
so see the bug again.

Also, if you click on the "blog" link
http://joomlashack.compassdesigns.net/js_jshack06v2/index1.html
you get a two column layout. For some reason the left column decides it
wants to be in a different place.

The solutions I know of involve position:relative and height:1% and
line-height:1.2. I have tried all three of these but not had anything work.

Apologies in advance for not making a page that isolated the bug better.
This is CMS output and I found this bug late in the production cycle...

Cheers
Barrie North


**
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
**



 



**
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] Setting Up Font Sizes

[Ric Raftis]

Not from me Paul.  If my msg came across that way, please accept my
apologies.  It was not intended.

Regards,

Ric

Paul Noone wrote:

Is it just me or is there some underlying agression on this list of late? 
 



**
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] Setting Up Font Sizes

[Ric Raftis]

Where did you get that from in that article?  Setting the font size to 
100% and then setting individual elements to ems is how I do all my 
pages.  As far as I know it is the recommended method so users have 
control of their own viewport.


Regards,

Ric

Paul Noone wrote:


So setting the font size for the html element to 100.01% and then adjusting
it in the body (or elsewhere) is no longer recommended

 


**
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] Swf - google

[Ric Raftis]

Put a sitemap on your index page down the bottom so that Google et al 
can follow the html links.  Validate your page also.  You are using an 
xhtml doctype and yet have upper case tags on your page.


Regards,

Ric

Elton Okada wrote:


I have a swf file in my page.

Google will not index. I can print the content of swf in a div with 
display:none.


Is it a good practice ? Does anyone have a better idea ?

This is the url: http://www.victoriabratberg.com/beta

Thanks and sorry


**
The discussion list for  http://webstandardsgroup.org/

See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
for some hints on posting to the list & getting help
**