************************************************************
Scary StuffA friend of mine was telling me of their experiences with the attempt to
master the fine art of web page creation.
"
It was intimidating,
"
they
reported,
"
I would get the program open and see the blank page, but I just
couldn
’
t find where to go from there.
There were frames and tables and
things, and I just didn
’
t know what to start with.
"
An excellent point!
They had heard that FrontPage is easy to use and is suitable for beginners.
No argument from me there.
I question, however, whether a product like that
should really be the actual starting point.
When you and I open up a
program like that, it certainly looks easy enough.
We can intuitively tell
from the options and buttons available where we would need to go to
accomplish a specific task, but there, I think, is the heart of the problem.
We already have an understanding of the concept of adding things to a web
page, of the kinds of things we can add to a page, and of the concept of a
file containing text and tags being the equivalent of a page containing
various items.
Without this understanding the picture you would look at in
a program like FrontPage would be daunting
–
a view of some scary stuff!
I like Joe
’
s approach in the primers he wrote for our HTML Goodies site.
They are friendly, easy to follow, step by step instructions.
They provide
the reader with the conceptual understanding they need.
Having mastered the
primers and learned the basics of HTML a fledgling webmaster is excellently
positioned to use a tool like FrontPage, or any other web development
toolset.
I recently wrote a few basics down in newsletter #340 (see the archives) and
at that time I made the following suggestion for a path to follow:
"
The best places to go from here are the Non-Technical Introduction (for
some good background information
—
) and the HTML primers to
learn the code (
https://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutorials/getting_started)
"
I couldn
’
t have said it better myself!
Save the scary stuff for Halloween
–
it
’
ll be here fairly soon!
Thanks for Reading!
–
Vince Barnes
************************************************************
Q & A Goodies***********************************
Questions are taken from submissions to our Community
Mentors. You can ask a Mentor a question by going to
Hello, how can I use a jpeg picture of my own as
<
BODY BGCOLOR=
"
C:WINDOWSDesktopHTMLorange.jpg
"
>
?
A.The first problem is your code instructs the browser where to find the
file on your PC, so it will work only on your PC. You need to use a relative
URL, so you can upload your site to your server and it will still work.
Typically images are in a directory called
"
images
"
which is a subdirectory
of the directory which holds your HTML files, so you should create such a
directory and code the background like so:
<
body background=
"
images/orange.jpg
"
>
.
Also note the the attribute for a background image is
"
background.
"
"
bgcolor
"
is for a background color.
I am having trouble lacing an apostrophe on my web site. How do I make
the apostrophe?
A.You can use the ASCII code equivilent which is
&
#39; and it will make the
apostrophe display. Code it like so:
<
p
>
&
#39;
<
/p
>
for just a plain apostrophe or
<
p
>
Karen
&
#39;s
<
/p
>
To get a name with an apostrophe before the letter s.
Q.When I made my site, I viewed it through IE with the view/text size set
to
"
smaller
"
. When someone views my page with it set to another size, it
displays my site wrong. Is there an HTML or CSS code to combat this problem?
Set your desired text size in the using CSS(Cascading Style Sheet).
It might look something like this:
<
style type=
"
text/css
"
>
<
!
–
body{
font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,san-serif;
font-size: 12px;
color: #000000;
background-color: #FFFFFF;
}
–
>
<
/style
>
If the text is in a table you may not get the desired size. You would need
to create a class and apply it to the
<
TD
>
tag.
<
style type=
"
text/css
"
>
<
!
–
body{
font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,san-serif;
font-size: 12px;
color: #000000;
background-color: #FFFFFF;
}
.large_text{
font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,san-serif;
font-size: 12px;
color: #000000;
background-color: #FFFFFF;
}
–
>
<
/style
>
<
td class=
"
large_text
"
>
I have html pages that are run from the local harddrive and interact with
a backend SCO Unix server. In some pages I store filenames to be used as
bookmarks. Just for reference, here is the code that stores the bookmark
…
<
script language=
"
JavaScript
"
>
var totalscore =
"
0
"
;
var lesson =
"
AP_LES
"
;
var filename = document.location.href;
filename = filename.substr(filename.lastIndexOf(
"
/
"
) + 1);
filename =
"
lessons/ap_les/
"
+ filename;
SaveLesson(lesson,filename,totalscore);
<
/script
>
I have a link to take the end user back to that bookmark.
Unfortunately,
the page that is saved is contained within a frameset.
Here is my code that
opens up a bookmarked page
…
<
script language=
"
JavaScript
"
>
if (lessonlink ==
"
"
)
{
document.write(
"
Try out our self-paced lessons to get up to
speed quickly on your software.
"
);
}
else
{
document.write(sUser +
"
, would you like to
<
a
href=javascript:// onclick=window.open(lessonlink)
>
visit
<
/a
>
where you last
left off?
"
);
}
<
/script
>
Here is my problem
…
the page opens just fine using the filename I am
saving, but I need it to open up within the main frame of my frameset.
How
can I open up a frame set and
target one of the frames with a variable that
stores a filename as it opens?
A.To target a frame in a frameset you will need to reference the name of
the frame you want to affect.
Try this and see if it works:
parent.mainframe.document.write(
"
Try out our self-paced lessons to get up to
speed quickly on your software.
"
);
"
mainframe
"
would be the name of the frame you want to target.
You can also
perform a function in the other frame by doing this:
parent.mainframe.function_name()
You can also populate a variable in the other frame this way:
parent.mainframe.variable_name=
"
some value
"
Or a form element this way:
parent.mainframe.document.form_name.element_name.value=
"
some value
"
Q. I am trying to find a script that will resize the page in a web from one
size to another! I designesd the site in an 800X600 Resolution and when
someone with a 640X480 Resolution views it, the frames page creates 2 scroll
bars instead of just one. I need the web Page to resize the window/web
page/browser depending the user’s resolution.
You could check the width and height of the screen when the page loads
and the resize it this way:
<
script type=
"
text/javascript
"
>
function Resizewin()
{
if(screen.width
<
800||screen.height
<
600)
{window.resizeTo(800,600)}
}
<
/script
>
<
body onLoad=
"
Resizewin()
"
>
News Goodies***********************************
Spam King, Microsoft End Standoff[
August 9, 2005
]
Scott Richter agrees to pay $7 million to get Microsoft off
his case.
Read the article:
[
August 9, 2005
]
The addition of feeds to the news aggregation service lets
users customize their daily doses.
Read the article:
[
August 9, 2005
]
Akonix says Chode-D is moving rapidly over public IM
networks and could hijack users
’
computers.
Read the article:
[
August 9, 2005
]
Symantec unveils the first joint products since acquiring
Veritas last month. The new offerings focus on e-mail security and archiving
and Linux-based storage management.
Read the article:
[
August 9, 2005
]
MIMO in the home gets a work out with this retro-looking
unit that in fact carries all the most up-to-date wireless tech and security
a home could ask for.
Read the article:
[
August 9, 2005
]
The $49.95 Microsoft-compatible package brings a familiar
interface to the open source platform.
Read the article:
[
August 8, 2005
]
The FCC gives broadband and VoIP providers 18 months to
build in network wiretap accessibility.
Read the article:
[
August 8, 2005
]
Search firm looks for growing room in China.
Read the article:
[
August 8, 2005
]
Announcement expected later this week on purchase of social
networking software developer.
Read the article:
[
August 8, 2005
]
The vision of an ex-military contractor for
deploy-anywhere, run-anytime wireless network equipment has come true, and
the first spot to utilize it is
…
a shopping mall.
Read the article:
***********************************
Did you ever wish your newsletter was an easy two way communications
medium?
Ploof! It now is!
If you would like to comment on the newsletter or expand/improve on
something you have seen in here, you can now send your input to:
mailto:nlfeedback@htmlgoodies.com
We already receive a lot of email every day.
This address helps us sort out
those relating specifically to this newsletter from all the rest.
When you
send email to this address it may wind up being included in this section of
the newsletter, to be shared with your fellow readers.
Please don
’
t send
your questions to this address.
They should be sent to our mentors: see
Thanks for all your feedback!
***********************************
Managing Transactions in SQL Server Stored ProceduresIn this week
’
s article we
’
ll continue our look at transactions, examining
how to create, commit, and rollback transactions strictly through stored
procedures. After examining the T-SQL syntax for working with transactions
we
’
ll discuss when one would opt to use transactions directly in stored
procedures versus using them in the ADO.NET layer. Read on to learn more!
Here
’
s a little web logging script that will let you add news links or other
little entries to a section on a web page. The section is displayed by
including a text file in the page that displays the entries. You add new
entries to the include file by simply filling out a web form.
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 now offers great support for and close integration
with XML as a data persistence format. In the first article of his series
examining this new support, Alex Homer offers an overview of how SQL Server
2005 stores XML documents and schemas, examines how it supports querying and
manipulating XML documents, and provides a simple test application that
allows you to experiment with XQuery.
***********************************
On this day in
…
1969Manson and Followers Start Murder Spree
On this date in 1969 five people in the home of film maker Roman Polanski
were murdered by the
"
Manson Family
"
, Charles Manson and his followers.
The
five included Polanski
’
s wife, Sharon Tate, who was pregnant with their
child at the time, and coffee heiress Abigail Folger.
Two days later, they
killed Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in their home.
At both crime scenes, the
murderers wrote messages on the walls using the victims
’
blood.
Some of
those murdered were shot, while others were stabbed to death.
Manson had
previously been
convicted of murder and had served a long sentence in prison, being released
at the age of 33 in 1967.
Manson convinced his hippie followers that a war
between blacks and whites was about to start and that it was their duty to
kill certain prominent white people in a way that would implicate black
radicals and thereby instigate the war.
Manson claimed to be validated by
the Beatles
’
White Album, and in particular the song
"
Helter Skelter
"
.
Manson was found guilty and sentenced to death, but in 1972 his death
sentence was invalidated by the Supreme Court.
He remains in prison today,
with no indication that he will ever be released on parole.
Today was also the day that in:
1638Dutchman Jonas Bronck became the
first European settler in The Bronx, New York;
1673The Dutch
recaptured New York City from the English (renamed it New Amsterdam);
the first ascent of Mont Blanc in the Alps;
1842the border
between the US and Canada was established by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty;
Henry David Thoreau published
"
Walden
"
;
1930Betty Boop
dibuted in Max Fleischer
’
s animated cartoon Dizzy Dishes;
1942Indian
nationalist Mohandes K. Ghandi was arrested by the British;
1965Singapore gained independence from Britain;
1972Rockwell received a
contract from NASA to build the Space Shuttle;
1974Richard Nixon
resigned his presidency, and Gerald Ford became the 38th US President;
the USSR launched Luna 24, the last lunar mission (so far) from
Earth;
1988the day after 8/8/88 New York Lottery
’
s daily number was
888;
1992the 25th Olympic Games closed in Barcelona;
Born today were: in
1593English author Isaac Walton (
"
The Compleat
Angler
"
);
1913singer Harry Mills;
1927MIT AI computer
scientist Marvin Minsky;
1927English actor Robert Shaw; 1938
Australian tennis star Rod Laver; 1944 actor Sam Elliot;
1957actress
Melanie Griffith;
1958actress Amanda Bearse;
1963singer
Whitney Houston;
1966actor Pat Petersen;
1972actress
Elizabeth Vassey;
The original home of HTML tutorials. HTMLGoodies is a website dedicated to publishing tutorials that cover every aspect of being a web developer. We cover programming and web development tutorials on languages and technologies such as HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. In addition, our articles cover web frameworks like Angular and React.JS, as well as popular Content Management Systems (CMS) that include WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla. Website development platforms like Shopify, Squarespace, and Wix are also featured. Topics related to solid web design and Internet Marketing also find a home on HTMLGoodies, as we discuss UX/UI Design, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and web dev best practices.
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