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Semi-Non-Important Pseudo News
Semi-Non-Important Pseudo News
#1
Yes, this does involve my fanfic, and other people's fanfic. And fiction, non-fiction, fantasy, horror, poetry and links to other places.
After almost exactly two *years* I've finally (pause for drum roll) updated my website (the story area of it anyway). There's no new fanfic, per se, but there are three links to fanfic sites that I didn't have before. And I've trimmed out the dead links and stories where the author's email address bounces, and also added back some stories previously removed for various reasons.
I'm rather ashamed of myself that it's taken me that long to do a content update. I really should update much more frequently, particularly since other people send me things to put on my site.
Next up - a consideration of whether to make a "modern" site, complete with stylesheets, java(script) and other file size hogs, or to keep things simple (basic HTML only) and friendly to pretty much every browser I've come across.
Jeanne

www.jhedge.com
go.compuserve.com/Comic
[Image: buddyicon_sm.gif]

[Image: 6bf36ddc1d2c96930d75576c361a9b3f8152885f.gif]Jeanne Hedge
www.jhedge.com

"Believe me, if I have to go the rest of my life without companionship, knowing myself won't be a problem."
-- Gabrielle of Potadeia
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Re: Semi-Non-Important Pseudo News
#2
Quote:
After almost exactly two *years* I've finally (pause for drum roll) updated my website (the story area of it anyway).
Aw, man... Now I'm gonna have to update mine.
Quote:
Next up - a consideration of whether to make a "modern" site, complete with stylesheets, java(script) and other file size hogs, or to keep things simple (basic HTML only) and friendly to pretty much every browser I've come across.
IMHO, Javascript and such can safely be dispensed with. Style sheets, though, actually made my fanfic webpages smaller than they were originally. Feel free to copy and use the one on my 'fic page, if you like the results it gives (here, for example)...
-Rob Kelk
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
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Re: Semi-Non-Important Pseudo News
#3
JavaScript = bad. It should never have been created. If for some reason you need scripting capability use php or asp.
Html and stylesheets are good tough, but make sure not to use some of the fancier css features because support is pretty spotty.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
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Re: Semi-Non-Important Pseudo News
#4
Quote:
Aw, man... Now I'm gonna have to update mine.
A word to the wise -- if you update more frequently than every 2 years, it will probably take less than 3 weeks to get the update *done* [Image: tongue.gif]
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IMHO, Javascript and such can safely be dispensed with. Style sheets, though, actually made my fanfic webpages smaller than they were originally.
Thanks for the input, and the samples to peruse. I haven't done much at all with stylesheets before. Every time I've looked at the source code for a page that uses one they've always seemed like royal pains in the backside to set up.
Jeanne

www.jhedge.com
go.compuserve.com/Comic
[Image: buddyicon_sm.gif]

[Image: 6bf36ddc1d2c96930d75576c361a9b3f8152885f.gif]Jeanne Hedge
www.jhedge.com

"Believe me, if I have to go the rest of my life without companionship, knowing myself won't be a problem."
-- Gabrielle of Potadeia
Reply
Re: Semi-Non-Important Pseudo News
#5
Quote:
JavaScript = bad. It should never have been created. If for some reason you need scripting capability use php or asp.
I don't play on doing very much scripting - Javascript was just on my mind because I do like mouse-overs that change button colors and such. And, of course, you have to remember to code your Javascript to provide an alternative for those browsers that don't have Javascript turned on.
Quote:
Html and stylesheets are good tough, but make sure not to use some of the fancier css features because support is pretty spotty.
That's part of the reason I've never had much use for web page generators/editors (I hand code). Most of them seem to throw in propriatary code that all browsers can't see, or add useless code that make file sizes much larger than they need be (such as close tags for paragraphs, or putting font size/styles on every paragraph, even though things haven't changed from the previous one)
Jeanne

www.jhedge.com
go.compuserve.com/Comic
[Image: buddyicon_sm.gif]

[Image: 6bf36ddc1d2c96930d75576c361a9b3f8152885f.gif]Jeanne Hedge
www.jhedge.com

"Believe me, if I have to go the rest of my life without companionship, knowing myself won't be a problem."
-- Gabrielle of Potadeia
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stylesheets
#6
quick answer on dynamic stuff is this:
- If you hand code, and have a decent, low-level HTML book (old books are often the best bet for this) it takes a bit more time to set up and learn, and then takes a *lot* less time to maintain and update.
- If you're willing to put a bit of extra time into learning code, especially if you have a coder background, PHP is a much better idea than javascript. It's cleaner, easier to use, and can do more. It also plays with SQL really nicely if/when you decide to include a database portion. If you are serving off of someone else's machine, and they do not have PHP, though, Javascript is still available. PHP, being server-side, is platform independant, while Javascript is oh so very not.
- If you decide that you want to use any sort of HTML generator, understand that you will never, ever be able to go back, short of a complete rewrite. Also, the page will be a lot bigger than it has any need to be with corresponding increases in load time and bandwidth consumption.
Yes, that was the quick answer. Yes, yes I am wordy.
Sirrocco
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Re: Semi-Non-Important Pseudo News
#7
Quote:
(such as close tags for paragraphs,
Er, that's a requirment of the HTML 4.0 standard, i.e. everything must have a close tag. bug knows why its needed on a line break or horizontal line...
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or putting font size/styles on every paragraph
That's where Cascading StyleSheets become your friend: define once, use many. I'd suggest picking up something like HTML: Comprehensive Concepts and Techniques, Third Edition, Shelly, Cashman, Woods, Dorin ISBN: 0-619-25503-X and work through that. Unless you want one of those lethal hardcover doorstops full of theory which puts you to sleep, which Que (and Tom Clancy - in his case it's just pages of extranious text. Still a hefty tome in HC.) love to publish.....
--Rod.H (Whoes waiting for PTerry's Unseen University Libary-style printrun)
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Re: Semi-Non-Important Pseudo News
#8
Quote:
that's a requirment of the HTML 4.0 standard, i.e. everything must have a close tag. bug knows why its needed on a line break or horizontal line...
Sounds pretty dumb to me, requiring a close for paragraphs when 99 times out of 100 it's just going to be immediately followed by an open-para tag. Sounds like someone who doesn't code wrote up the standard. Also sounds like I'm not going to bother with HTML4 if I don't have to.
Quote:
That's where Cascading StyleSheets become your friend: define once, use many.
Sure doesn't sound very efficient - I wonder why someone thought setting the font tags over and over with every paragraph was more efficient than setting it once and not messing with it again unless or until something changes. Like HTML4, that sort of wasted space doesn't make me want to do anything with CSS unless absolutely required.
Quote:
Unless you want one of those lethal hardcover doorstops full of theory which puts you to sleep, which Que (and Tom Clancy - in his case it's just pages of extranious text.
I have a couple very serviceable doorstops, I don't need to spend $50 for a hardcover one ^_^
As for Mr Clancy, go give David Weber a read sometime. Talk about extraneous text padding out the novel... (btw - you can buy an e-book version of the pre-edit "advance reader copy" of the next Honor Harrington novel on Baen's website)
Jeanne

www.jhedge.com
go.compuserve.com/Comic
[Image: buddyicon_sm.gif]

[Image: 6bf36ddc1d2c96930d75576c361a9b3f8152885f.gif]Jeanne Hedge
www.jhedge.com

"Believe me, if I have to go the rest of my life without companionship, knowing myself won't be a problem."
-- Gabrielle of Potadeia
Reply
Re: stylesheets
#9
Quote:
If you hand code, and have a decent, low-level HTML book (old books are often the best bet for this) it takes a bit more time to set up and learn, and then takes a *lot* less time to maintain and update.
I initially learned HTML years ago from a copy of "Idiots Guide to HTML" (or was it "HTML for Dummies"? the orange cover one, not the yellow cover one). Still refer to it from time to time because of a handy chart of the codes for the funky ASCII symbols.
Quote:
If you're willing to put a bit of extra time into learning code, especially if you have a coder background, PHP is a ... platform independant, while Javascript is oh so very not.
It's not my server, so I'll have to find out about that.
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If you decide that you want to use any sort of HTML generator, understand that you will never, ever be able to go back, short of a complete rewrite.
I don't know why you say this, because I've done that exact thing many times for people. I will admit that when I do do it, most frequently I'm stripping out all the generator generated garbage for them. Pages end up smaller in size, load faster, and still work fine (and sometimes work on browsers they didn't work on before).
Quote:
Yes, that was the quick answer. Yes, yes I am wordy.
So am I
Jeanne

www.jhedge.com
go.compuserve.com/Comic
[Image: buddyicon_sm.gif]

[Image: 6bf36ddc1d2c96930d75576c361a9b3f8152885f.gif]Jeanne Hedge
www.jhedge.com

"Believe me, if I have to go the rest of my life without companionship, knowing myself won't be a problem."
-- Gabrielle of Potadeia
Reply
Re: stylesheets
#10
ezboards ate this post.
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Re: stylesheets
#11
Quote:
Sure doesn't sound very efficient - I wonder why someone thought setting the font tags over and over with every paragraph was more efficient than setting it once and not messing with it again unless or until something changes. Like HTML4, that sort of wasted space doesn't make me want to do anything with CSS unless absolutely required.
/wince.
Thats not how it works.
heres an example from the default css I use at work.
.red{ color: #CC0000;}.overdue{ color: #CC0000;}.duesoon{ color: #FF6600;}.subTitle { font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; color: #000000; }
This is a short section of a file called interface.css
every html file on the site has an include: interface.css line.
You will notice there are some named styles that look the same, but thats so you can change them independantly in one central location. .overdue could be made to look yellow, for example.
that way you can just do all your html in things that look like this:
Task list
  • Tomorrow's Work
  • Yesterday's Stuff
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Re: stylesheets
#12
Ah, if that (previous poster) didn't help, here's another way to think of CSS, in programming there's codepackages called libaries, one familar to most netzens who code in C/C+ is io.h (note the extention, see a familarity).
Libaries are used to store common code segments & functions that would add extra code to a program.
Um...let's go linux, cause I've lost me thought train. the html page is the kernel, the CSS a module.....
--Rod.H
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Re: Semi-Non-Important Pseudo News
#13
Replying to Jeanne's post...
Quote:
Sounds pretty dumb to me, requiring a close for paragraphs when 99 times out of 100 it's just going to be immediately followed by an open-para tag.
If you're just using the default styles, then it doesn't make much sense, no. But if you start playing with CSS, then it becomes vital - if you have a open-paragraph tag followed by another open-paragraph tag, are you defining two paragraphs in a row or two nested paragraphs?
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Also sounds like I'm not going to bother with HTML4 if I don't have to.
HTML4 isn't that different from what you're using, actually. The biggest thing you have to remember is to close everything that you open (which is just polite... )
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Sure doesn't sound very efficient - I wonder why someone thought setting the font tags over and over with every paragraph was more efficient than setting it once and not messing with it again unless or until something changes.
CSS is designed to set things once and not mess with it again, actually - the programs that set the style on every paragraph are horridly broken.
Using my fanfic CSS as a sample:
body {background-color:white}
I want a white background on all webpages that use this sheet. (Yes, it's the standard, but I've seen some browsers that use light grey instead - I don't want that.)
h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {color:black;font-familyConfusedans-serif}
I want all the header lines to have black letters (the standard), and in a sans-serif font (not the standard).
hr {margin-top:0.4cm;margin-bottom:0.4cm;margin-left:0;margin-right:0;clear: both}
I want all hard separators to have 0.4cm of whitespace above and below them (smaller than the standard), stretch all the way to the left and right sides of the page (longer than the standard), and force the next paragraph to start on a new line rather than wrapping around any tall image above (not the standard).
p {color:black;text-indent:0.5cm;margin:0;font-familyConfusederif}
I want all paragraphs to start with a half-centimeter of white space on the first line, have no white space before or afterwards, and be in a black serif font. (Only the font is standard - the rest is custom.)
snipping a bit...
img {font-size:medium;font-weight:normal;font-familyConfusedans-serif}
I want any text associated with an image to be the same size and boldness as the rest of the text, but in a sans-serif font. (I put this line in for one case - an image of a handwritten line of text. If the image doesn't load, then the ALT tag on the image will show up in the same size font as the rest of the story, so the reader won't have any problem following the story.)

It's only when I want to override any of these for some paragraph that I have to code it on the paragraph; all the others get these automatically.
There are some good tutorials for CSS (and HTML) on the web...
-Rob Kelk
(Edit to have the colon-b pair show up as a colon-b pair instead of a smiley - stupid EZBoard...)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
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