UNLV Libraries Website Blog http://blogs.library.unlv.edu/website/ News about the UNLV Libraries Website. en Copyright 2007 Wed, 24 Oct 2007 14:01:31 -0800 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Information R/evolution (?) The Machine is Us/ing Us, continues to work on the Digital Ethnography project. Check out the new Youtube Videos: A Vision of Students Today Information R/evolution Or read more about the background of the project.]]> http://blogs.library.unlv.edu/website/2007/10/information_revolution.html http://blogs.library.unlv.edu/website/2007/10/information_revolution.html users Wed, 24 Oct 2007 14:01:31 -0800 Hot or Not? stats. Where are our users hanging out? What they might expect from us in the future?]]> http://blogs.library.unlv.edu/website/2007/10/hot_or_not.html http://blogs.library.unlv.edu/website/2007/10/hot_or_not.html users web 2.0 Wed, 24 Oct 2007 12:47:27 -0800 Credit where credit is due Hong has fixed the Firefox printing problems we've had since Firefox was released. Previously, Firefox would only print the first page of a web page, no matter how long that page was. Hong discovered that it was the absolute positioning of the [body] tag that was causing the problem (this is necessary, though, for cross-browser rendering). This morning I changed the print style sheet to position the [body] relatively, and it now works (almost) 100% properly. Thanks, Hong! http://blogs.library.unlv.edu/website/2007/08/credit_where_credit_is_due.html http://blogs.library.unlv.edu/website/2007/08/credit_where_credit_is_due.html technical Fri, 17 Aug 2007 11:10:05 -0800 Firefox's Web Developers Toolbar 1) CSS drop-down (with real-time, in-browser CSS editing!) The extension lets you view and manipulate a page's style sheet(s) without having to change the CSS on the server. I use this all the time because it's much safer to troubleshoot style sheets here than it is in Dreamweaver. You can view any style sheet the page is using, disable any or all of these style sheets or styles, and best of all, edit the styles. css.png Notice that in the below screenshot there are 2 CSS tabs on the bottom half of the screen. One shows the embedded styles, and the other shows the style sheet attached to the libraries home page. You can make changes to either of these style sheets within the browser, click on the home page (the top half of the screen), and your changes will be applied to the page (*note: the changes are only applied in the browser, not in the server. If you like the change and want to use it, you'll still need to edit the style sheet on the server.) It's very simple, and very useful for figuring out where problems on the page might be, or just playing with div positioning, font sizes, or colors. Web-Dev_screenshot.jpg 2) HTML and CSS validation, including Section 508 validation. Uses the W3C validators and the Cynthia Says 508 validator. This is very useful for troubleshooting browser-specific problems, and ensuring accessibility. 3) Page Zoom and resize (including 800x600 resize). There are other ways to do these, of course, but it's nice to have them in one place. 4) Ruler toolbar So you can measure anything on the page. 5) Outline block-level elements. This outlines all the divs on a page, and can be used in conjunction with "Display ID & Class details" to see the names of all divs in use, as well as LOTS of other information. 6) Display image file sizes. Actually, there are lots of things you can do with images using the toolbar-- probably more than you'd every need to do. 7) Disable javascript. This is another one that you don't need a toolbar for, but it's faster than using the browser menu. There's lots more available, including some things I just discovered while writing this posting. As one review puts it: "This is really the swiss army knife of web developer tools. It is so feature packed that I am still finding new things that it does. Unfortunately, the UI is also so cluttered that I am still finding new things that it does." (link) The Web Developers extension may not help you improve your HTML or CSS skills, and it doesn't help you create pages, but it's great at locating and troubleshooting problems in existing pages. Highly recommended. By the way, there's also an extension called Firebug that I haven't used, but that is supposed to really help create CSS and JavaScript. Download the Web Developers Toolbar extension More about the extension]]> http://blogs.library.unlv.edu/website/2007/08/firefoxs_web_developers_toolba_1.html http://blogs.library.unlv.edu/website/2007/08/firefoxs_web_developers_toolba_1.html browsers development tools Mon, 13 Aug 2007 11:02:49 -0800 Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us http://youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE]]> http://blogs.library.unlv.edu/website/2007/02/web_20_the_machine_is_using_us.html http://blogs.library.unlv.edu/website/2007/02/web_20_the_machine_is_using_us.html Just for fun Wed, 07 Feb 2007 10:03:39 -0800 Welcome to the New University Libraries Home short survey. You can also contact darcy.delbosque@unlv.edu with any questions or comments or Kee.choi@unlv.edu with any technical problems or issues.]]> http://blogs.library.unlv.edu/website/2007/01/welcome_to_the_new_university.html http://blogs.library.unlv.edu/website/2007/01/welcome_to_the_new_university.html Mon, 29 Jan 2007 07:50:47 -0800 Style Sheet Primer Background - Why do we need style sheets? What do they do? It's important to first remember what HTML does and does not do. The purpose of HTML is to mark up your text and give it meaning. For example, if something is a heading, it gets an [H1] tag (or some sort of [H*] tag). If text is meant to be plain old paragraph text, it gets a [p] tag. Links get [a] tags. Blockquotes get [blockquote] tags. In other words, HTML is designed to give some semantic context to the text in a document. HTML is NOT designed to dictate the look of a page, or of any of the text on a page. Yes, you can add an [h2] tag to some text if you want to make it bigger and bold, but at that point you're doing something with HTML that it was not designed to do. Also, different browsers will render [h2] tags differently, so [h2] text will change size depending on what browser you're using. Similarly, [table] tags are not designed to dictate layout. They are designed for one purpose: to indicate that the information contained in them is tabular data. You can use them for layout, but that's not what they're for. CSS (cascading style sheets, often just called style sheets) should be used to handle everything involving the look of the page -- the layout, the font size, the text color, the background color, etc. For the most part, the purpose of style sheets can be summed up in one statement: Style sheets allow you to separate content from presentation. HTML is about content. Style sheets are about presentation.

The best example

Here's a great example of the power of style sheets: Look at the page at: http://www.csszengarden.com/ Now look at the ones at: http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/201/201.css&page=0 and http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/200/200.css&page=0 These pages have IDENTICAL HTML!! Look if you don't believe it. The only difference between these three pages is that they each use a different style sheet.

Tutorials

1) http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide/Style I don't usually like W3C tutorials - they tend to be boring and overly technical. This one's pretty good, but forget the parts about web-safe colors; that's not an issue. Also, [font] tags are no longer part of the official HTML standard. 2) http://www.csstutorial.net/ This one's not bad, but there's lots of code. It's probably better as a refresher for those who already know some CSS, since it doesn't do much to explaing what [div] tags are. There's also an article by the same author at http://www.killersites.com/articles/articles_CSS.htm that has some good introductory stuff. 3) http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/support/Training/Online/webdesign/css.html This is the mother lode of CSS tutorials. Look around; there's lots here for every level.

Some things to keep in mind

Probably the thing about style sheets that people have trouble wrapping their brain around are the undefined tags -- the [div] and [span] tags. These are really important when it comes to using style sheets to create your page layout, though, so don't skip them. A good introduction is at: http://www.htmldog.com/guides/htmlintermediate/spandiv/. Please also remember that DREAMWEAVER DOES A HORRIBLE JOB AT CREATING STYLE NAMES. It likes to calll things ".style1" and ".style2". This isn't okay! Use style names that make sense in the context of your page. Don't use a style called ".style1" to make a title bold. Call the style ".title" or something meaningful like that. Relying on Dreamweaver to create style names for you is always a mistake. ]]> http://blogs.library.unlv.edu/website/2007/01/style_sheet_primer_1.html http://blogs.library.unlv.edu/website/2007/01/style_sheet_primer_1.html Thu, 18 Jan 2007 13:16:39 -0800 The New Homepage real questions... What does this change mean for Web Developers?
Three letters: CSS. The current design, as most of you recall, changed the old table-based design into a CSS-based one. This allows us to make site-wide changes easily and quickly. The new design will expand our use of CSS, so if you're not comfortable with style sheets (especially absolute and relative positioning), brush up! WDS has some books on the subject, and there are TONS of great resources available online. Check NetLibrary as well -- they have books on just about every computer-related topic. How will the changeover to the new template take place?
WDS is now testing how to adapt the current site to the new template with minimal problems. It looks like we'll just need to replace the header, side menu, footer, and style sheet. I can think of a few areas where this might cause problems (Special Collections and Government Info come to mind), but overall things should go smoothly. When is this going to happen?
Hopefully before Spring semester begins -- that's why the whole process of designing and vetting the page has moved so quickly. What does this mean for the branches?
Nothing. Branch pages can remain exactly as they are. WMC may eventually decide to adapt the branch sites to the new (or similar) template, but that decision is months away, at least. For now, the changes affecting the main site need not affect the branches at all. If you have any questions, feel free to contact any of the WMC committee members, and if you missed today's meeting, be sure to check out the second one on Thursday, January 4, 2007, from 3:00-4:00 in Amargosa. -Michael]]> http://blogs.library.unlv.edu/website/2006/12/the_new_homepage_1.html http://blogs.library.unlv.edu/website/2006/12/the_new_homepage_1.html technical Thu, 21 Dec 2006 14:11:20 -0800 IE7 and you - part deux Good Stuff Okay, so after some time spent using IE7 to test the new home page design, I notice 2 big, BIG improvements to IE that make it better in some respects to Firefox (did I just say that?): 1) Printing - IE7 automatically resizes pages to print correctly. Fantastic! Printing has been one of the biggest struggles for our site over the past 4 years, and this will someday make it a non-issue. For those of you who print pages frequently (I know the branches and Media do), this alone makes it worth upgrading ASAP. 2) Zooming - Many have already heard me say this, but the coolest, most useful browsing "trick" I've come across is using CONTROL+SCROLL-WHEEL to make text bigger or smaller. This works on every browser I have (5 of them!), and is very convenient. The problem is that, if a page has been poorly coded, or if some text is actually images, it won't resize no matter what you do. IE7 now offers zooming, rather than just text enlargement. That means that when you resize the font, the entire page and everything on it gets larger (Opera's been doing this for years, but who uses Opera, other than KK?) This is a BIG DEAL for developers, since it means that page elements won't shift when text gets resized -- basically it eliminates the need to design with this annoying element shifting in mind. Here's hoping that Firefox 3 (already in beta!) includes this functionality as well. Bad Stuff This page says it best: "IE 7 team went overboard in 'simplifying' the user interface." In fact, until about 10 seconds ago I couldn't figure out how to get to the "File" menu in IE -- something I use fairly frequently in FF. Turns out that hitting the ALT key shows the File menu, as well and the Edit, View, Favorites, Tools, and Help menus that are usually at the top of every browser. (Of course! Why didn't I think of hitting the ALT key right away?!) As an annoying bonus, once you hit the ALT key, clicking the Minimize Page button at the top right of the screen makes these menus go away rather than minimizing the screen. You have to click it twice to minimize :-( Well, having made that discovery, the rest of my "Bad Stuff" list is out the window. Overall, just remember that, if you can't find something in IE7, the ALT key is your friend. -Michael]]> http://blogs.library.unlv.edu/website/2006/12/ie7_and_you_part_deux_1.html http://blogs.library.unlv.edu/website/2006/12/ie7_and_you_part_deux_1.html browsers Fri, 15 Dec 2006 12:56:58 -0800 IE7 and you IE7 is now available, so IE6's days are numbered. I've been running IE7 Beta for a few months now at home, and like it. It's basically Firefox without the extensions, or IE6 with tabs, RSS capabilities, and better (i.e., more standards-compliant) CSS handling. You can download this now on your work computer, or just stick with IE6 if you're happy with it. I've downloaded IE7 to test pages on, but as far as I can tell, there's no way (or at least, no easy way) to run both IE7 and IE6 on the same machine. This means I (and you, if you're an IE7 user) need to test pages both on my normal computer and a second computer running IE6; we've historically designed for whatever browsers we offer on our public computers, and that will probably remain IE6 for some time. In case you're wondering, I haven't seen any problems with any of our sites on IE7, although I have seen some minor differences compared to IE6. If you're interested, here's a link to some blogger commentary: http://getahead.ltd.uk/blog/joe/2005/07/29/ie7_reviews.html -Michael http://blogs.library.unlv.edu/website/2006/10/ie7_and_you.html http://blogs.library.unlv.edu/website/2006/10/ie7_and_you.html browsers Mon, 23 Oct 2006 14:03:17 -0800