October 2012 Meeting Report

We covered a number of topics at the October meeting, and below are notes and links to sites that we referenced.

• Windows 8 apps
  Following up on last month's session, we looked at a 2-part article at Sitepoint on Building a Windows 8 App with HTML5: How to create a small RSS reader:
  Part 1
  Part 2
• HTML5 structural tags
  Following up on our sessions last year, we looked at an alternative view on whether it is advisable to use the new HTML5 structural tags. The article is The truth about structuring an HTML5 page. It is an excerpt from a book entitled The Truth About HTML5. The book can be ordered, and a sample chapter can be downloaded, at the book's website.
• Parallax design
  That website lead us into a discussion of the parallax style of web design. The website above is an example, and more examples are available at 18 Beautiful Examples of Parallax Scrolling in Web Design.
•  Multiple columns
  We finished up by looking at the CSS Multi-column Layout Module. This set of rules is new to CSS3, and it allows a section of a page to be laid out in columns. We compared the previous ways we did this layout, first with tables and then with floated div's. This new module is not supported by all browsers yet. For a review of the rules, take a look at CSS3 Series: Multiple Columns.

October 2012 Meeting Announcement -- CSS3 - New Solutions to Old Problems

The next meeting of the PACS CSS Workshop will be Saturday, October 20, at our usual 9-10 hour. The topic this month will be CSS3 - New Solutions to Old Problems.

We will start with a quick follow up to last month's meeting with an article on building Windows 8 apps. We will look at an alternative opinion on the new HTML5 structural tags that we covered last season. Then we will see how to put multiple background images on an element, something that was not possible before CSS3. Finally, we will look at one of my favorite new tricks with CSS3.

If we have time, I also want to look at a new way to organize your style sheets.

Plus, we may have a special guest appearance via Skype to start the meeting.

September 2012 Meeting Report

Rob Keiser of the PACS Windows SIG was our guest presenter this month. Rob demonstrated how to create apps for the new Windows 8 app store. The foundation for these apps is a combination of HTML5, CSS, and javascript.

Rob's slide deck with links to resources developing apps has been uploaded to the Resources section of this site.

September 2012 Announcement -- Building HTML 5 Apps for the Windows 8 Modern UI

For the September meeting, we will have a special presentation by guest presenter Rob Keiser. Rob is the leader of the PACS Windows SIG. He will give us a brief session on creating apps for the new Modern UI in Windows 8 using HTML 5, CSS 3, and JavaScript. Rob will show us how easy it is to build apps and potentially make some cash using the languages you already know. This presentation will be an interesting and valuable follow up to our sessions last season on HTML 5.

June 2012 Meeting Report

At our June meeting, we concluded our examination of HTML5 with some final thoughts and some suggestions for implementing this new standard. I have posted an outline of the new, simpler syntax for webpages in the Samples section of this site.

We discussed that some of the old syntax requirements are now optional, but in the case particularly of the script designation, continuing to include a type might be advisable. While JavaScript is generally the default language used for web scripting, it is not the only one out there. Some others include JScript from Microsoft and the proposed Dart language from Google (about which not everyone is happy, as indicated in this article from Ars Technica.)

We closed by noting that with the looser syntax rules of HTML5, it is incumbent on editors of websites to establish standards to maintain reliable and consistent code. One such set of rules is laid out in this article.

To finish up the year with a nice review of HTML5, check this webcast from O'Reilly. It runs about an hour and covers many of the topics that we worked on this year.

June 2012 Meeting Announcement -- HTML5 - The Big Wrap-Up

We have spent several meetings looking at HTML5, what it delivers, and what issues it presents. This month we will put it all together to answer questions like what do I use now, and why, and how? We will have those answers, or at least some suggested guidelines, to get us moving forward with this new technology.

If you still have problems with your website after that meeting, be sure to attend the Web Design SIG session Saturday afternoon. The hour will be devoted to real-time problem solving on members' sites. Bring your issues (web-design only, please) to see if we can crowd-source an answer for you.

May 2012 Meeting Report

At our May meeting, we began by listing the issues about using HTML5 that we are going to discuss for the remainder of this season.

We then took a side trip to look at XML and consider if bringing that technology to websites was the goal of the W3C, as suggested by one commentator. We looked at some examples of using XML to handle information that is accessed through a browser:

•  ListGarden - a utility for converting HTML to XML for an RSS feed or for other platforms.
• Google Earth - Google's mapping program in which locations are plotted using KML, an XML-based language. A list of coordinates can be converted to that format using a free utility like csv2kml.
• GetSimple CMS - a content management system that uses an XML database instead of MySQL.

We will put it all together in June to come up with some guidelines about using HTML5.

May 2012 Meeting Announcement -- "X" - What the Web Might Have Been

Last month we briefly discussed XHTML and where the W3C was going with web standards before HTML5 came along. We started down a side track to look at XML and to consider where the web might have headed if development of the XHTML standard had continued.

This month, we will work a little more on XML with some examples of how it is used on the web today. We will then tie everything together to see where XHTML5 stands presently.

All of this will lead us to  the conclusion we are working toward -- what do I use now and why? We will have that answer by the time we break for the summer.

April 2012 Meeting Report

At our April meeting, we finished up from last month comparing how pages validate under different document type declarations. Using both a simple page and one with advanced HTML5 technologies, we saw that while Firefox rendered the pages the same with any doctype, the validation results were completely different.

For more on document types, check the Wikipedia article on the subject.

We then considered the fact that development of  XHTML2 has been discontinued. XHTML has some strict requirements for validation, as outlined at this site, and at a future meeting, we will consider the advantages of that strict markup and whether the looser markup rules of HTML5 might be something to be cautious about.

We finished up by looking at XML to get an idea of where the web might have been going before HTML5. We will have some more to say on that topic in May before we move on to considering best practices for going forward with HTML5.

April 2012 Meeting Announcement -- HTML5 and XML

Last month we played with different variations of document types applied to a sample webpage and then looked at how the differences played out in a browser (none apparent) and a validator (various errors). This month we will finish up with a couple more examples to see why the simple doctype of HTML5 works reliably.

We will then take a side track to look at XML and consider where the web might have been going with XHTML, and maybe where you want to go with XHTML5 -- yes, there is such a thing.