Week 9: Using Dreamweaver

Well, I certainly think this software was appropriately named! Dreamweaver is a miracle worker. As a first time user of the program I found Dreamweaver CS3 to be very user friendly. There were a couple of little quirks, like my Welcome Screen was too large and did not fit the window so I had a hard time trying to use it or even close it; but other than that (which was more than likely user error!), it is a great program. The lesson stressed the importance of “site definition” and I can understand why. Through trial and error so far I have learned how difficult web site creation can be if you don’t know where your files are or if they have been moved. Site definition is a crucial element in using Dreamweaver to manage your files effectively. So far this week I have spent about 9 hours on homework and reading. I am looking very forward to learning more about this program.

Week 8: HTML Page Layout

We are now nearing the end of our HTML basics and will be moving on to Dreamweaver. After the assignment for week 8, I can now control page layout using frames and tables. I found two informative website regarding frames. The first is wonderful at explaining the concept for frames in terms we can all understand (food!). The author is Jill Atkinson and relates frames to a picnic plate (as you can see by the illustration she provides - image on the left) on the Webmonkey site. The second site at W3.org provides a detailed explanation of the importance of utilizing frames and table correctly. One helpful tip is “An HTML document that describes frame layout (called a frameset document) has a different makeup than an HTML document without frames. A standard document has one HEAD section and one BODY section. A frameset document has a HEAD, and a FRAMESET in place of the BODY.” So no need to duplicate.

We also had to critique a local Quad City webiste, which was pretty fun. It looks like the website is inviting critiques and feedback as well, so I made sure to contribute my thoughts. Overall this week, I spent about 10 hours, for some reason I had to do and redo the HTML H assignments in the books several times before I could get them to work properly.

Week 7: Using Forms to control output

This week lesson catered to learning about forms. I learned how to create an HTML document that utilizes a form. Forms are a great way to interact with the user of the site you have created. Forms are relatively easy to create as long as you remember they are all about action. The form is intended to do something like capture information and feedback. For a nuts and bolts tutorial on forms be sure to check out w3schools site to learn more.

In addition this week we were required to start editing our blogs and wikis in HTML. As you can see the font has been edited in this paragraph using HTML. This was a little tricky. At this stage of the game I feel comfortable creating with HTML in notepad, but using in different environments was a little harder than I expected - took a little trial and error. So I found it easier to type what I needed in notepad (since I was already used to it) and then copy to the desired location. Overall this week I spent about 11 hours working on assignments, tweaking, and researching.

Week 6: HTML Tables

Each week HTML seems to make more and more sense (luckily!). This week we acquired the knowledge of learning how to set up tables. This process seemed very similar to creating forms in Word, so it wasn’t too hard to catch on. I am curious to see what happens on the other end (or as our book refers to on page G-16 the back end) of the form/table input once it is received.
We continued this week as well working on our midterm project and made excellent progress, I am very impressed with out group! Over all this week, I only spent about 6 hours; but plan to do more research on tables. I did find another tutorial site other than those suggested by Carrie at Tizag which I found helpful.

Week 5: CSS

This week’s HTML learning was perhaps the most beneficial for me. We began to understand the use of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). The reason these nifty little tools are so beneficial are because they can save you valued time in creating web pages. I also chose this topic for our Technology Blog we created, so for more information please check it out. There is also a terrific link for a great site on CSS listed under the Helpful links section of this blog. This week we also began working on our midterm project which is collaborative and should be quite a bit of fun. In total this week, I spent about 7 hours working on the material.