A good source of cheap web software.
Site listing all the current special characters and their codes. If you want to use these characters you have to replace them with their codes. The only exceptions are the usual text characters like #'!?+-."()*[]. Of the stuff you usually find on a UK keyboard, the ones to replace are %, £, & and $. Tabs are listed, but don't work well on the web however you handle them.
Obviously some systems have at least 16 Million colours they could show, but many people can only display less on their machines. Even when they can display lots of colours they often look different on a Mac compared to a PC. The solution: use the colours on the Web Color Table. These are the most reliable 255 colors, and if you use these for backgrounds, text and graphics where possible, they're likely to look pretty similar on most machines.
You should never use just colour to convey information ("click on blue links for x, green links for y", for example). Colour-blind people will have a nightmare, and if you're on a publicly funded site you'll be legally (as well as morally!) liable to take note. If you're feeling especially helpful, however, you can also pick your general colours to show up. The links on the site above help with this by listing good colours for different levels of colour-blindness.
The big-cheeses. These are the people in charge of issuing the HTML Reference Specifications, which is where the HTML is defined.
Quite a long and tricky document, as it's written in an official style. However, it's worth trying to understand it if you want to do the really fancy stuff on websites like Definition Lists (which is what this page is). The Specification lists the whole of the language. If it helps, here's an example of the tricker stuff, but you should be able to quess what most of the rest of it means, or experiment with the examples...
<!ELEMENT UL - - (LI)+> Just says you can use an UL and there's LIs associated with them.
<!ENTITY % ULStyle "disc|square|circle"> Wherever you see 'ULStyle' below, you can replace it with 'disc' or the others.
<ATTLIST UL -- unordered lists -- Start of UL definition. UL is for unordered lists.
type (%ULStyle) #IMPLIED -- bullet style -- You can put stuff like <UL type = square> to give the list square markers.
compact (compact) #IMPLIED -- reduced interitem spacing -- There's no default gaps between list items.
>
<!ELEMENT LI - O %flow -- list item --> You can use LIs.
<!ATTLIST LI Start of LI definition.
type (%LIStyle) #IMPLIED -- list item style -- You can put stuff like <LI type = square> to give the item a square marker.
compact See above.
>
Again, quite a long and tricky document, as it's written in an official style. However, like the HTML4 specifications, it's quite useful when you get used to it. Using HTML4 rather than this will guarentee everyone can use your site. You can find the latest information on the W3 HTML site.
META tags are used for lots of things users never see. This includes stuff like how you're seen on Search Engines.
Evolt
Web designers' mail group and site - contains some very useful stuff.
A List Apart
Web design mag. Plenty of good past articles.
UseIt
A mine of useful tips.
Now big business has moved on the web, more and more people are making the distinction between letting you download images etc. to your machine, and you actually using them. This gives detailed info on some of the common misconceptions.
You'd better read these! No flesh or NAZIs!
If you're going to be a web designer, you'll need to study the classics!
CGI Script (see below) counting program from back in the heady days when there were only 100000 pages, still going strong (though it seems to be down at the moment!).
The first ever webcam, used by Cambridge Computer Lab people who were too lazy to walk and see if there was coffee on. Now saved for posterity by these nice people. Destined to be rebuild and rebuild until it becomes a sacred relic.
Who should you blame? This man!
Stuff you may have heard of
JavaScript is a programming language that runs in web browsers and was invented by Netscape. It's based on Sun's Java language, but is completely different and runs in a very different way. It's widely supported, but is very bad for accessibility - how does a blind person understand a button that highlights in red when you put your mouse over it? You should only use it with extreme reluctance. 99% of the time it doesn't look good, it looks like you've done something on the cheap with Dreamweaver! However, if you must use it, you can get free JavaScripts you can cut and paste into your website at the aptly named Cut-and-Paste Javascript.
XML (the eXtensible Markup Language) is a more general version of a markup language that lets you invent your own html-like tags, and defines how to get browsers to recognise them. It's a hefty topic, but this is a good introduction.
Cookies are bits of text websites can store on your computer and read back. They can be used, for example, to set up a page personalised to your tastes. This site has a brief introduction to them and their problems.
A list of the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) registered with the old Internet overview body. You can take your chances with the others if you like, some are very good, but these ones are unlikely to steal your address if it becomes valuable! ISPs supply web addresses and webspace on a commercial basis.
About the only guide to Stylesheets you can rely on most browsers supporting. Written alittle like the HTML Specifications (above). You can find later, less supported specifications at the W3 Stylesheets site.
CGI is the most common mechanism for web browsers to request stuff from programs that run on web servers. The request is made, the program runs, and it returns a webpage to the browser with some computed-on-the-fly answer in it. This is how stuff like counters and web forms work. It's a huge field, but this is a good introduction. You can download free scripts from the classic Matt's Archive. Of course, you'll need to be in charge of a website to use them.
Leeds course teaching Java, the language for writing programs that run in web browsers known as "Applets". This is a different thing from JavaScript, which looks like it but is very much simpler. Java is much more powerful, but much more complex.
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