Welcome to web authoring
Welcome to what it is to be an author! Unlike a book, this piece of work will continue to be in a state of process and evolution. Although its outline has been written, like many aspects of life, it is tentative and subject to changes and edits. As time passes, you may notice a few of them. Enjoy your visits!
The site will seek to demonstrate some of the tools available to designers and developers of today and tomorrow. Featured tools and techniques will be showcased using cutting edge web and image editing programs. Design, layout and organization will be addressed throughout the site. The major focus here is to master the tools and power of Dreamweaver CS4 and the now important CSS.
CSS, according to our friends at Wikipedia, is a style sheet language used to describe the look and format of a document written in a markup language. Its most common application is to style web pages written in HTML and XHTML, but the language can be applied to any kind of XML document.
CSS is designed primarily to enable the separation of document content (written in HTML or a similar markup language) from document presentation, including elements such as the colors, fonts, and layout.
This separation can improve content accessibility, provide more flexibility and control in the specification of presentation characteristics, enable multiple pages to share formatting, and reduce complexity and repetition in the structural content (such as the use of divisions in lieu of tables).
CSS specifies a priority scheme to determine which style rules apply if more than one rule matches against a particular element. In this so-called cascade, priorities or weights are calculated and assigned to rules, so that the results are predictable. The CSS specifications are maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Thank you Wikipedia!
CSS rules are the dominant factor in the re-design of this site. While many rules have been defined in an external file, many pages have several styles embedded for some of the unique aspects and elements used on that particular page. Applied inline styles are defined in the external document for global application purposes.
Using the integrated design tools of Adobe CS4, techniques, processes and workflow patterns are addressed throughout the evolution of this project. Graphic elements have been produced in both Photoshop and Fireworks. Spry widgets have been used throughout the site as organizational tools for consolidating information. The built in Spry style sheets have been modified for design consistency. Third party Javascript from Highslide.com is being used as an image expander to enhance the dynamic experience. Click on the images for a larger view!