New post as a test

So this is a test for instructional purposes

Validation

I haven't managed to quite get there but I have had a really good go at getting the whole site to validate. I still have a couple of days so there is the possibility that I might be able to fix the few errors that are there. I will need to do some further research into what exactly is wrong with my code. Fixing the little common sense things were easy. It is the references to CSS and JavaScript that the W3C validator doesn't seem to like ... I just don't know why!
I have essentially finished my site, written my learning reflection and put together the site documentation and linked the appropriate documents for ease in moving between them. I am in the final few days of this subject (-2 and counting) and have learnt alot about what I can do and what is more challenging for me. I look forward to being able to develop the skills I have learnt in the near future.

Finishing touches

Today has been spent putting the finishing touches to my website and starting to construct the documentation around the site. I have been working with CSS a lot today and really feel that I have the hang of it (mostly) now. Although I am still getting an error on all the pages of my site through the validator on the script text= css part of the link. Not sure why this is happening and have probably run out of time to get it fixed. I had the aim of a completely valid site but I think that may have been wishful thinking - more experience required in working out how to fix the things that are making my site not 100% valid at this stage I think.
The site documentation is coming along. I am using screen grabs of each of the pages of the site and then providing an explanation of what the visitor can do there, what technologies are used on the page and the navigation of the page. This is not terribly difficult as my site is a content site and therefore quite static. There is some interactivity there but only on certain pages.
I was using the JavaScript onclick code from our week 8 lecture initially to get some interactivity in my photogallery however I just couldn't get it to work. I then went and searched for a photo gallery plug in online and came up with a great bit of code from Jon Designs at http://smoothgallery.jondesign.net/ using mootools v1.11 to create a slide show gallery that I am really happy with. This is probably what I should have done in the first place! According to Jon "Since it's based on the mootools library, it's somehow platform agnostic. I have fully tested it on:

• Firefox
• Opera
• Internet Explorer 6 and 7
• Safari"

This means that I am about as close to complete as I am going to get with this website and I have learnt a lot every day that I have worked on it.

Reference:
Schemoul J, Mootools and slide show gallery, http://smoothgallery.jondesign.net/ accessed 31 October 2009

Finishing up the details

After seeking a little help from a friend I have sorted out some of the issues in my CSS. I am feeling as though I have learnt a great deal about this in the last week and have managed to feel like I have an ok handle on how to apply it. My friend explained things as being in blocks and that was a bit of an epiphany moment for me. I realised a lot of what I was doing wrong and have been able to apply rules to the whole website and have it work - very exciting!
I ahve also been using the tutorials at thw W3C website at for example: http://www.w3schools.com/css/pr_background-image.asp to ensure that I am applying the correct code and rules to the aspects of the page where I want them to appear.
Now I just have to do some work on my JavaScript, correct the validation errors and I am just about done with the website component. I can then just finish up my documentation and have the files all ready to hand in/post next Tuesday.

CSS continues and Learning Reflection

This evening I sat down to write part of my learning reflection (so far) and found that I feel quite happy with the things I have learnt over the semester and that the things that I haven't learnt as well as I may have hoped have not really held me back from doing the final project and feeling a certain amount of satisfaction with the skills and knowledge I have gained. I feel that I don't want to pursue front end code as a job and this is a really good realisation for me. My strengths don't lie in this direction however having a good understanding on the backgounds of all of these technologies will stand me in good stead in the future.
I also spent a bit more time playing around in CSS - the saga continues! I have made some good inroads into getting the bits and pieces to sit where I would like them to but the job is by no means complete. I found some help at the following sites for some very simple things such as liquid layouts: http://www.bigbaer.com/css_tutorials/two-column-header-footer.html
And for my navigation menu which I was finding a bit difficult to place I found some really good options for a vertical menu at Exploding Boy: http://www.exploding-boy.com/images/EBmenus/menus.html These helped me to sort out my code so that I can continue on with the project without feeling too frustrated. I feel as though I am getting a better handle on CSS all the time now!

Updating the System plan and the world of CSS

Today has been spent working out a few bugs in my code and updating my system plan. There were a few things that I was unhappy with and I have changed those to better reflect the system that I have been building. This has been a good review exercise on what I originally aimed to do and what I have managed to accomplish. Time has not been my friend in this.
I think that if I had more of a background in this sort of thing my goals in my learning proposal would have been far more realistic. As it is, I have struggled to really learn enough about (X)HTML, CSS and JavaScript to bring together what I have done so far. I seriously underestimated the time it would take for me to learn how to use these programs. This may not be the case for everyone; different strokes for different folks and all but it has certainly been the case for me. I find that I really need to try things out quite a lot before I can get them to work even with the helps of books such as Learning Web Design. This title has been a saviour however I have still been working through trial and error and unfortunately I still don't know why some things suddenly work. I have to backtrack to understand what it is I have done differently or corrected to make something suddenly appear as I want it to.
I am going to continue my trial and error learning style as I am making progress and I am definitely the type of learner that has to try things to understand how they work. Explanations are great and really help however it is the actual doing that is the key for me to retain the knowledge and gain the skills.

Email me form - microformat

Today I have been working on getting my pages uploaded and doing some basic testing to check that all the links work and my thank you page comes up when I use the contact me form that I have put in. I used what is essence (at least I think it is) a microformat for Email forms. It has helped me add an anti-spam filter by adding a verification step to any emails that are sent through. This helps to stop spamming services from using these as the verfication code changes and needs to be input again each time you send an email. The place I found the most help with this was at: http://www.emailmeform.com/?page=cphome where like the hresume microformat I used it allows you to input the information that you want and then generates the code so that you can copy and paste into your own web page. I am also using their emailing facility to push the messages onto my inbox where I can pick them up. I have done quite a few tests to make sure that this all is working and had to backtrack a bit because I wanted to create my own Thank you page. This meant redoing the Contact Me form and adding the link after I had created my own page. I did this so that the whole website (apart from the online resume) has the same overall look and feel. I think this is important as it demonstrates the look and feel that I am trying to achieve. For anyone looking for a Contact Me form with verification. I would recommend using this as it also validates! I do need to add the additional page into my site map and system plan as it was not something I considered before I walked through adding the Contact Me page.
I am still having quite a bit of trouble with my photo gallery and am going to need to seek some help with this. The JavaScript is just not switching the images out at all. I have put all the images into an 'image' folder and this is something that I have had issues with before. I will have to try again tomorrow to see what I can do about.