Wow, how things have evolved! - Post...

User 417813 Photo


Trial User
2 posts

Hi,
Once upon a time, long, long ago I taught myself a bit about HTML. Now some 10 - 15 years later I am in a position to build a webpage for the first time since "way back then". Trouble is we now have things like DHTML, XHTML, CSS, yada, yada, yada! I'm confused.

Because I'm a visual learner (I tend to learn by observation rather than lectures) can someone point me to a simple but full 'example' web page that is already disected for inspection.

To make myself clearer, what I hope to find is an example webpage accompanied by the HTML code (if it's still called that) say, colour coded to explain what each section is and where it goes (eg red section = header, blue section = body, green = css etc). I would hope it has examples of tables, lists, frames etc too. (Although just freely viewable scripts might show how these work.)

For example I am starting to come to grips with what CSS is BUT..
Where exactly does it go (start & end) in the coding? (I've looked at the coding on several webpages but it's hard to see this.)
Should you cover everything in CSS (in my mind I have visions of needing to include every single aspect of every little pixel/line/para/pic etc in the CSS).
Is it a seperate file to the index.htm file? (if so where is it 'dumped'?)

I know this might seem strange to some but that's how I taught myself HTML to start with. I downloaded and disected other pages over time but back then simple pages were ALL there was! It's called the look, play, try method and it works.

BTW - I thank the contributors to this forum (and the web owners). I have already started to learn much but boy, am I ever getting confused!
User 355448 Photo


Ambassador
3,144 posts

Volitans,

I would recommend the "My Website is Better than Yours" book that you can get from CoffeeCup as a softback book and/or PDF. The book will show several sites, and point to the code that causes things to be that way.

As for CSS, you can put the code in each page, OR you can put the code in a separate file and link it to each page on your site. The single file is easier to maintain.

You can visit http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp to play with the code and see what is happening when you change a specific element. Then build a web page on your hard-drive, and put a CSS file in the same directory. Then start adding things to the CSS file, and to the web page. That will let you make a change to the CSS, and see the changes.

I have a testing folder on my web site, and use that to see how things work. I read a message here that explained why I needed to set the font on my web site, so I created a test CSS file, and a page to view the fonts. Then I selected the one my wife liked, and now it is the default font on all my pages, and I made that change by just adding the needed code to my main CSS file.

If you are wanting to get a specific element to look a specific way, ask here, and someone can tell you how they do it, or maybe tell you how you can create the code to see many different styles on a single page (as I did with my fonts).

Do you have the CoffeeCup HTML Editor 2007? You can create a CSS file, and open it in the editor, then select Preview, and see how it works (I think CC provides a default html file for this).

Hope this helps.
User 417813 Photo


Trial User
2 posts

Thanks BillR,

I've just had a quick peek at the w3 website (CSS tutorial) and that looks good.

I particularly like your idea of a 'testing folder'.

Interesting that you say "As for CSS, you can put the code in each page, OR you can put the code in a separate file". It's this flexibility that has confused me in the past. Various pages I looked at had done both/either. Maybe my old mind is still set in 'rigid rules mode'.

Anyway, you obviously understood where I was coming from and answered me nicely. Thanx.

Volitans
User 355448 Photo


Ambassador
3,144 posts

Volitans,

If you have style settings that you want applied over multiple pages, it makes your work easier if you have a single file to maintain. If you have style that applies to a single page, then put that style on that page.

I suppose a purist would tell you to put all the style in a css file and only have content on your page, but the real idea is to make it easier for you. If you have several different colors of font, and decide to change those colors, you can go through every line of code on your page making the changes, or you can make a single change in your CSS code (either on the page or separate file).

I also get a better understanding of what needs to be done if I can play around with the code and actually see the changes.

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