Intermediate Web Design.doc

Intermediate Web Design
WebWorks – A Workshop Series in Web Design (Session Two)

Table of Contents:
1. Getting Started
2. Meta Tags
3. Favorites Icon
4. Brief Introduction to CSS
5. Syntax
6. Adding to an HTML Page
7. Div and Span
8. Links Color Change
9. Building a Site without Tables

Quick Tip:
Did you know that you can view the html used to make any page you visit (called the “source code”)?
Simply right click, and select View Source or go to the View option on the menu bar and select Source

1. Getting Started with Dreamweaver MX 2004
Although notepad.exe is the fastest and “cheapest” way to create webpages, this tutorial will
cover the use of Dreamweaver as a guide to creating HTML pages.

• Open up Dreamweaver and select the “coder” option.
• Select HTML from the Create New area.

• A new window with a standard HTML document template will appear:

• Quick and fast right? Notice
the blue highlighting for html code… this will come in handy when hunting down bugs.
Also, Dreamweaver automatically ends your tags, which is very helpful and probably cuts
down 99% of HTML errors.1

2. Meta Tags
Meta tags are inserted in the <head> region of your web page and used to convey
information that is not viewable in a browser. Meta tags in general “work behind the scenes”
and a human visitor will not care too much about them. They are usually used to help
increase search engine rankings by including relevant information about the page. As we all
know, pages on the internet are usually not what they claim to be in a search engine...
1
If you ever used Notepad for HTML pages… it can get very frustrating when you miss that </tag>…

Webworks: Lists, Tables, and Frames Page 2 of 14

A little friendly note: If you want to be ranked #1 in a search engine like Google, meta tags alone will
not help you because they use a different algorithm in site ranking. The moral of the story here?
Content > flashy junky stuff. If you have good content, more people will link to you, thus driving up
the site ranking.

Here is an example of meta tags in use:

<head>
</title> RabbitWorld </title>
<meta name = “description” content = “All you want to know about
rabbits.”>
<meta name = “keywords” content = “rabbits, bunnies, bunny, world, no
sleep”>
<meta name = “robots” content = “noindex”>
</head>

Meta tags do not have an end tag!

Name – type of meta tag used
Content – information about this tag

Quick rundown on the tags:
Description – Brief statement describing the page
Keywords – What a user would type into a search engine to find this page
Robots – Should web spiders be allowed to index this page?

Another useful meta tag is REFRESH. Use this little snippet of code for redirecting to
another site.

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="5;url=http://www.site.com/">

Notice the number 5 inside content. This is the number of seconds before the browser will
attempt to redirect so you can have a little message in the main page “Please wait FIVE
seconds before jumping to another page!”

Dreamweaver automatically includes a meta tag in the new generated HTML file:

Content-type tells the browser what sort of character set (iso-8859-1) to load so the page
will look correct. This is optional, but this meta tag can be left alone.

3. Adding Favorites Icon
You’ve all seen a little icon appear right before the url in a web browser or in your favorites
folder:

Now you want to include your own customized icon for your own site!

Workshop Committee of Technology Assist By Students


Start by drawing a 16x16 image and convert it into the icon format. Save the icon as
favicon.ico. Upload this icon onto your webspace and put the following code inside the
<head> tag to link to the icon:

<link REL="SHORTCUT ICON” HREF= http://www.site.com/favicon.ico >

Refresh your webpage, and the favorites icon will be replaced with your own customized icon!

If your computer doesn’t have a program to convert picture files to icons, here are some links
to icon converting programs:
• http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,22323,00.asp
• http://www.mostshareware.com/soft/Image-Icon-Converter-
download-7867.html

4. (very) Brief Introduction to CSS
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) allow the web page designer to define HTML elements. This
amount of control over the rendering of the page allows a great deal of freedom in
determining what your page will look like.

An example would be taking a tag <h1> and give it new attributes like highlighting text with
red.

Whenever you want text to be highlighted red, all you have to do is use the <h1> tag instead
of using <font color= “red”></font>. Since CSS allows the designer to separate style from
content, this saves a lot of time when editing pages and makes HTML code easier to read.

Style is identified with its <style> </style> tags, and these tags will show up as purple in
Dreamweaver.

Want an example of CSS in action. You’ll find tons at the CSS Zen Garden
(http://www.csszengarden.com/).

5. Syntax
CSS sytnax is easy to remember: selector, property, and value.

The selector is the HTML tag you want to modify, property is an attribute you want to
modify with a value.

Example:

p {font-family: “verdana, arial, helvetica”}

The <p> tag is your selector, “font-family” is the property that will be
modified by the value “verdana, arial, helvetica.”



You can also make style definitions easier to read by spacing them out and writing each
property on a different line:

span
{
color:red
font-style: italic
}

When modifying fonts using CSS, there are units and values that should be kept in mind:

• em – height of a character
• px – pixels
• pt – point
• % - percentages!

body { font-size:10px; }

6. Adding to a HTML Page
Now you may be wondering, where do I stick all this CSS code? Well there are 3 ways to use
CSS.

External
This is the most common implementation of styles. The CSS code is in a separate file with a
“.css” extension (NOTE: You must have the .css extension). A snippet is put in the <head>
section of the HTML file specifying where the style sheet is. For example, if you had a style
sheet called main.css in your styles folder under your web directory, your HTML will be:

<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="./styles/main.css" />
</head>

The CSS file would then just contain your CSS code AND NOTHING ELSE. For example if all
your style sheet did was set the background color of your pages to yellow, the CSS file would
look like this:

body {background-color: yellow}

Using external style sheets makes it easy to apply the style sheet to multiple pages. Even
better, any changes you make to the source style sheet cascades and updates the styling of
all your pages.

Internal/Embedded
Say you apply an external style sheet to your page, but then want just one page to have a
blue background. Then you can include the page specific CSS code within the <head> section
of your page. While other styles of your external style sheet come through, the background
color style of the external sheet will be overridden by the internal stylesheet in the page. Now
the CSS code needs to be wrapped with special <STYLE> tags in the HTML:


<head>
<style type="text/css">

</style>
</head>

The use of comments within the style tag is to hide the code from someone viewing the page
with a really old browser. All the code will be displayed on the screen and that looks really
bad, so take the extra 2 seconds to comment out the style area!

Inline
Inline uses of CSS is generally not recommended and is slowly being faded out. Inline CSS is
where you stick the style directly inside a HTML tag. For example:

<p style=”color:green”>
The text in this paragraph would then be green.
</p>

The only time you would use Inline CSS is if you need one instance of CSS, say highlighting a
sentence or something that would be difficult to do with other HTML methods.

You can use more than one of these implementations. When they conflict, the order of
precedence:

1. Inline styles
2. Internal styles
3. External styles

Custom Selectors
Besides selecting HTML elements to apply styles to, you can also create your own custom
element names to apply to any element. Custom styles take two forms, CLASS and ID.

When should I use ID or CLASS?
• CLASS styles can be attached to multiple elements
• ID styles can only be attached to one element.
• Use ID when there is only ONE instance. Use Class when there are multiple instances.

The syntax for both is as follows:

CLASS
.somename { color: green; }

ID
#someothername {color: red; }

ID must be preceeded by a hash “#”.


p#ID1 { background-color: blue; }

CLASS must be preceeded by a period.

p.redpen {color:red}
p.greenpen {color:green}

Whenever you wanted to “highlight” text of a certain color:

<p class = ”redpen”>
This text is red!
</p>

<p class = “greenpen”>
The text is green!
</p>

Comments!
Comment as often as possible! You might have to look at your code several months or years
down the line, and realize you don’t understand what is going on because you failed to
document it properly!

Comments start with /* and end with */ :

/* Hello! This is a very important comment! */

Comments will not be displayed in the page; they only appear in the source. They also
appear as gray in Dreamweaver.

7. Div and Span
The <div> tag is used to divide portions of a web page and allows you to define a style
section. <div> to </div> is used to indicate the beginning to the end of a paragraph.
Remember that you cannot have a <div> within a <div>!

<span> is used to tell the browser to apply formatting. The big difference between <div>
and <span> is <div>’s ability to create paragraph breaks (line break before and after.)
<span> elements only affect a small chunk of text in a line.

Screenshot of these two tags in use:

<span> can be nested within a <div>:

<div class="blueback">



<span class="sitaround">Sit around in center! </span>
<span class="floatright">I am floating to the right! </span>
<span class="other">Other text</span>

</div>

The width of a <div> can be set, and the importance of this will be discussed later.

.box {width = 10px;}

8. Links Color Change
A fun thing to do is to make your web links change to a different color when the mouse
cursors hovers over the link.

In this example, “a” is the “a” in <a href =”....”></a> and we can apply the following style
changes:

a:link { text-decoration: none; color: #33CCFF; }
a:visited { text-decoration: none; color: #33CCFF; }
a:hover { text-decoration: underline; color: #FF0000; }

When correctly done, the link should be displayed in light blue and once the user hovers over
the link, it should be underlined and in red.

9. Building a Site without Tables
The ability to just “layout” a page without tables is one of CSS’s strongest points. There is no
need to keep track of millions of nested tables and tags.

Position
This property allows the coder to determine where a block of text will go in the page.
• Static – places the block wherever it is
• Absolute – places the block in the page defined by the coder
.somewhere {position: absolute; top: 50px; right: 100px; }
(This places the block of text 50 pixels from the top, and 100 pixels
from the right)

• Relative – places the block where it would have been if there was nothing around.

.shift {position: relative; top: 12px; right: 10px; }

Border
This is the standard property that allows us to draw lines around blocks of text. There are
many border styles, ranging from solid to ... hidden.

.a1 {border-style: solid; } /* Your standard black border */
.a2 {border-style: double; } /* Double border*/
.a3 {border-style: hidden; } /* Hidden! */
.a4 {border-style: inset; } /* Creates an indented border */
.a5 {border-style: outset; } /* Creates a raised border */
.a6 {border-style: groove; } /* Creates a grooved border */



For the ubiquitous thin border you see all the time, use this code:

border: 1px solid #000000;

Up to this point, a simple two-column page can be created using the following code:

#navbar { position: absolute;
top: 10px;
left: 2px;
width: 200px;
border: 1px solid #000000;
}

#maintext { position: absolute;
top: 10px;
left: 210px;
border: 1px solid #000000;}
}

Adding a third column is very easy, just create a new ID with the position of the third area.
Use the <div> tags in the <body> region of the HTML code (remember that <div> tags are
like blocks of text) and you’re done!

Float
This property “floats” a block of text or image in a direction (left or right or nowhere.)
#flt_right { float: right;} /* self-explanatory */

Multiple blocks with the same float direction will appear alongside each other. To create the
effect of blocks stacked on top of each other, but still floating towards a direction, use the
CLEAR property.

Without clear:

#flt_rightclear { float: right;
clear:right; }

With clear:



Useful Tags

Background
Property Values Description
Background-color Red, blue, FFFFFF,
transparent, etc Sets the background color

Background-image url Sets the background image

Border
Border-color Red, blue, FFFFFF,
etc Sets the color of the border

Border-style Hidden, dotted,
dashed, solid,
double, groove, Sets the style of the border
ridge, inset, outset
Border-width Thin, medium, thick,
pixels Sets the width of the border

Border-bottom- See border-color Sets the color of the bottom border
color
(bottom can be replaced by left,
right, or top)
Border-bottom- See border-style Sets the style of the bottom
style
border(bottom can be replaced by
left, right, or top)
Border-bottom- See border-width Sets the style of the bottom width
width
(bottom can be replaced by left,
right, or top)

Classification



Cursor Auto, crosshair,
default, pointer,
move, text, wait, Sets the type of cursor to display
help
Display None, inline, block,
list-item, run-in,
compact, marker,
table, inline-table,
table-row-group,
table-header-group,
table-footer-group, Sets how an item is displayed
table-row, table-
column-group, table-
row, table-column-
group, table-column,
table-cell, table-
caption
Float Left, right, none Sets where an item will appear
within another
Position Static, relative,
absolute, fixed Sets where to put the item

Visibility Visible, hidden,
collapse Sets the visibility mode of the item

Dimension
Height Auto, pixels, 30% Sets the height of an item
Line-height Normal, #, pixels,
30% Sets the distance between lines

Max-height None, length, % Sets the maximum height of an item
Min-height None, length, % Sets the minimum height of an item
Max-width Length, % Sets the maximum width of an item
Min-width Length, % Sets the minimum width of an item
width Auto, length, % Sets the width of an item

Font
Font-family Family name
(Arial)or a generic Sets the font family (Allows a list by
name (serif) priority)



Font-size xx-small, x-small,
small, medium,
large, x-large, xx- Sets the font size
large, smaller,
larger, length, %
Font-stretch Normal, wider,
narrower, ultra-
condensed, extra-
condensed,
condensed, semi- Stretches or condenses the font
condensed, semi-
expanded, expanded,
extra-expanded,
ultra-expanded
Font-style Normal, italic,
oblique Sets the style of the font

Font-font-weight Normal, bold,
bolder, lighter, Sets the weight of the font
100-900

List
List-style-type None, disc, circle,
square, decimal,
lower-roman, upper- Sets the type of the list marker
roman, lower-alpha,
upper-alpha
List-style- Inside, outsider
position Sets where the marker is placed
List-style-image None, url Sets an image for the list marker
Marker-offset Auto, length Specifies by how much the marker
is to be offset

Margin
Margin-bottom Auto, length, % Sets the bottom margin of the
element
Margin-left Auto, length, % Sets the left margin of the element
Margin-right Auto, length, % Sets the right margin of the element
Margin-top Auto, length, % Sets the top margin of the element



Outline
Outline-color Color, invert Sets the color of the outline around
an item
Outline-style None, dotted,
dashed, solid, Sets the style of the outline around
double, groove, an item
ridge, inset, outset
Outline-width Thin, medium, thick, Sets the width of the outline around
length an item

Padding
Padding-bottom Length, % Sets the padding on the bottom of
an item
Padding-left Length, % Sets the padding on the left of an
item
Padding-right Length, % Sets the padding on the right of an
item
Padding-top Length, % Sets the padding on the top of an
item

Position
Bottom Auto, %, length Sets how far from the bottom of the
parent item the current item is
Left Auto, %, length Sets how far from the left of the left
of the parent item the current item
is
Right Auto, %, length Sets how far from the right of the
right of the parent item the current
item is.
Top Auto, %, length Sets how far from the top of the
parent item the current item is
Clip Shape, auto Clips the item into a specific shape
Overflow Visible, hidden, Sets what is to happen if the item
scroll, auto overflows its given area
Vertical-align Baseline, sub, Sets the vertical alignment of an



super, top, text-
top, middle, bottom,
text-bottom, length, item
%
z-index Auto, # Sets the stack order of an item

Table
Border-collapse Collapse, separate Sets the border of a table to
collapse or separate
Border-spacing Length Sets the distance between borders
of two cells
Empty-cells Top, bottom, left, Sets whether empty cells should
right have a border
Table-layout Auto, fixed Sets how the table is to be laid out

Text
Color Blue, green, FFFFFF,
etc Sets the color of the text

Direction Ltr, rtl Sets the direction of the text
Letter-spacing Normal, length Changes the space between
characters
Text-align Left, right, center,
justify Aligns the text

Text-decoration None, underline,
overline, line- Decorates the text
through, blink
Text-indent Length, % Indents the first line of text
Text-shadow None, color, length Shadows the text
Text-transform None, capitalize,
uppercase, lowercase Transforms the text

White-space Normal, pre, nowrap Decides how white space is handled
Word-spacing Normal, length Changes the space between words


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