Steve Bryant - HTML

What technologies, other than ColdFusion, should a developer know?

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 10:15:00-0500

Fusion Authority recently ran an article called What's Hot? What's Not? Where Do We Go From Here? subtitled "What technologies, other than ColdFusion, should a developer know?". Mike Henke followed up the theme with a post called "What's Hot & Where do we go from here?". I'm pretty sure I don't have the insight that other people have who have already written on the subject. But it seemed like a fun exercise, so I thought I would toss in my two cents with:

What technologies, other than ColdFusion, am I learning?

I'm not sure what technologies you should learn, but here are the ones that I am learning: [More]

Real World HTML: Client Review

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 11:00:00-0500

In our last "Real World HTML" entry, we created a printable page - finishing up the implementation of the design and the print page. There's nothing left to do now, but show it to the client. I don't think I have ever shown something to a client that hasn't wanted something changed - even if I show them a pixel-perfect match of the original design. In fact, I have been tempted to use the approach Hal Helms mentions for exacting clients (watch for the Rick Roll). In any event, I had no reason to expect this to be any different. [More]

Real World HTML: The Printable Page

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 15:45:00-0500

In our last "Real World HTML" entry, we handled a rounded corner box sitting on a gradient - finishing up the implementation of the design. The only thing that remains now is making the printed page look good. Styling for print should be easy - especially if the HTML is structured well. With that in mind, let's take a quick look at what we have so far. [More]

Real World HTML: Rounded Corners Box

Thu, 13 Jan 2011 13:13:00-0500

In our last "Real World HTML" entry, we handled a funny joining of graphical lines. This time we need to handle some rounded corner boxes sitting on a gradient. Before we go on, let's take a look at the box. [More]

Real World HTML: A Funny Joining of Graphical Lines

Thu, 06 Jan 2011 14:30:00-0500

In our last "Real World HTML" entry, we implemented the skeleton of the site (with a bit of heresy). Now we need to handle a small peculiarity of the design. Before we go on, let's review our design in all three states. [More]

Real World HTML: Columns and Heresy

Thu, 30 Dec 2010 10:00:00-0500

In our last "Real World HTML" entry (a few weeks ago - sorry about that), we implemented the site navigation. Now we need to finish up the skeleton of the site. Before we go on, let's review our design in all three states. [More]

Real World HTML: Navigation

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 11:00:00-0500

In our last "Real World HTML" entry (a few weeks ago - sorry about that), we implemented the graphic-heavy banner for the site. This time we need to implement the site navigation. [More]

Real World HTML: Graphics-Heavy Banner

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 13:00:00-0500

In the first entry on "Real World HTML", we reviewed the design (functionally matching a site I recently completed) that we must implement and created the skeleton HTML and CSS. Now it is time to implement the header (or banner) of the design. Let's start off by taking a look at the banner. Here is the banner in its two states: [More]

Real World HTML

Thu, 04 Nov 2010 11:30:00-0500

HTML5 is currently all the rage. But while people are busy discussing the latest and greatest, maybe it is a good time and step back to look at how to write solid HTML4. Most of the HTML I see, frankly, could use a bit of work. I want durable HTML. Since I don't see that written about enough, I thought I would pick up the gauntlet. First, I should define "Durable HTML". By this, I mean HTML code that can take a hit and withstand the unexpected. For example, what happens if a manually cleared float is added to the main content area of the page. Does it mess up the design? What about a wider-than-expected image or contiguous text string? What if the text is much longer than expected - making your site taller than you originally guessed? What if JavaScript is disabled? How easy is it to make changes that - to the client - look really easy to make? What if they want to change out an image in the header? What if they want to change the width of the site or center it? These are just some of the things that are easy to fail to anticipate when writing your HTML. Very often I see HTML that works, but only if everything continues to be as it was when the code was first written. When that code falls apart, it often does so in glaring ways. The key is to avoid obvious failure. Rather than trying to speak in abstracts, I am going to take a real world example and work through it - using a site I actually did recently for a client (with different text, colors, and images). I will cover exactly what I did on this project for my client as well as things that I might have done differently if I had it to do over again (I usually have at least one of those for any given project). [More]

Favicons as Desktop Icons

Fri, 22 Oct 2010 13:30:00-0500

I recently had a client request a favicon for their site. Normally this is no problem at all, but this time they added a bit of a twist that I didn't notice at first. As it caused me a small headache, I thought I would document here how I solved it for my own future reference. The twist was that they wanted their customers to be able to drag the icon to their desktop to make a desktop link to their site. This is actually a feature of Internet Explorer, so it didn't provide any extra work there. The only problem is that a 16X16 favicon looks really bad when it is made into a 32X32 desktop icon. [More]

Christian Ready presents on HTML5

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 12:00:00-0500

The Tulsa CFUG is proud to host a Connect presentation by Christian Ready on ColdFusion Security tomorrow (September 28, 2010) at 12:30 PM central. The details on are the Tulsa CFUG meetings page. [More]