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.

W3C Validator

I love this tool! It has helped me no end in working out what silly things I have done in my code that stops the whole page from working. It has meant that I have spent far less time trying to figure what I did wrong and just fixing it up, reloading and moving on. If you haven't used this as you are writing your code, I highly recommend that you do as it makes life so much easier. You can either put the code directly in or you can just paste the link in and with one click you are shown the error of your ways. Try it out at: http://validator.w3.org/
Now that I have all (or most) of my HTML working I will be moving onto the more somplex part of my project. I need to get my CSS working. I have been having a bit of trouble with this but I am determined to master it. I will begin battling with this first thing tomorrow morning and keep testing it until I get there. If all else fails there is always next weeks class to get some feedback from my peers and lecturer on how to fix what doesn't work. In the meantime I am going to be referring to the two texts that I have been using all semester; Nierderst Robbins - Learning Web Design and Wyke-Smith's stylin' with CSS. With these two resources and all the available resources on the web I should manage to sort out most of my CSS issues in the next couple of days.
The other issue I still have to resolve is my Contact Me page however more about that tomorrow.

How to create liquid layouts in CSS

I have been using the text Learning Web Design to get a better grasp of what is required to build my website. I have been reading how to create liquid layouts which is the way I want to go. Nierderst Robbins (2007, p. 312) notes the advantages and disadvantages of liquid page design:

Advantages

1. You don't have to monitor for a specific monitor resolution.
2. You avoid potentially awkward empty space because the text fills the window.
3. Liquid pages keep with the spirit and nature of the medium.

Disadvantages

1. On large monitors, line lengths can get very long and uncomfortable to read.
2. They are less predictable . Elements may spread out or too cramped at extreme browser dimensions.

I think that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages and have decieded to go with this option. Nierderst Robbins (2007, p.313) goes on to explain that you even if you use a fixed width for one column this is still considered liquid layout. She also talks about liquid layout using percentages and an example of this code follows:

div#main {
width: 70%;
margin=right: 5%;
float: left;
background: yellow;
}

div#extras {
width: 25%;
float: left;
background: orange;
}

This has helped me to understand how to position style in the sheet and apply it to my own web design.