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Home > Teaching > St. Louis Community College > Web Design Certificate > Archives > Fall 2003 Syllabus

Web Design Syllabus, Fall 2003

Topic: Introductions & Beginnings
Date: Monday, 8 September 2003, & Wednesday, 10 September 2003
Software: TextPad, Mozilla
Book: Chuck Musciano & Bill Kennedy's HTML & XHMTL: The Definitive Guide, 4th Edition.
HTML: html, head, body, p, br, hr, character entities
In class:

  • Email Listservs
  • Recommended Software
  • Simple Web Page 1

Readings for next class (unless otherwise stated, you will NOT be quizzed over the contents of these readings):

  • Definitely look through this
    • HTML School ~ http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp
  • HTML references: look & bookmark
    • HTML 4.01 Quick List ~ http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_quick.asp
    • The Complete HTML 4.01 Reference ~ http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_reference.asp
    • HTML 4.01 Entities Reference ~ http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_entitiesref.asp
  • Colors
    • HTML Colors ~ http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_colors.asp
    • HTML Color Values ~ http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_colorsfull.asp
    • HTML Color Names ~ http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_colornames.asp
  • Examples
    • HTML Examples ~ http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_examples.asp
    • Simple Web Page 2 ~ Look at the source code

Topic: Hand-coded HTML
Date: Monday, 15 September 2003, & Wednesday, 17 September 2003
Software: TextPad, Mozilla, Tidy
Book: Jennifer Niederst's Web Design in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference.
HTML: ul, ol, li, img, b, i, center, a
In class:

  • Install Mozilla
  • Configure Mozilla
  • Definitions
  • Greeking
  • Simple Web Page 2
  • "Basic HTML"

Readings for next class:

  • HTML
    • HTML ~ Lots of links to other HTML resources
    • Block-Level and Inline Elements ~ http://www.ahuka.com/htmllevel1/blocklevel.html
  • Mozilla
    • 101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that IE cannot ~ http://www.xulplanet.com/ndeakin/arts/reasons.html
    • Another Look at Mozilla ~ http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/04/04/index4a.html?tw=authoring
  • Advanced only!
    • The Absolute Minimum Every Software Developer Absolutely, Positively Must Know About Unicode and Character Sets ~ http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Unicode.html ~ A pretty detailed piece about character encodings. Read it if you're feeling hardcore.

Topic: Hand-coded HTML
Date: Monday, 22 September 2003, & Wednesday, 24 September 2003
Software: TextPad, Mozilla
Book: Louis Rosenfeld & Peter Morville's Information Architecture for the World Wide Web (2nd Edition), Jakob Nielsen's Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity, and Steve Krug & Roger Black's Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability.
HTML:
In class:

  • Mozilla Sidebars
  • W3C MarkUp Validation Service
  • Choosing a DOCTYPE (see also Fix Your Site With the Right DOCTYPE!)
  • Using Character Encodings (see also Character encodings)
  • Configuring Windows To Show Extensions
  • TextPad Configuration

Readings for next class:

  • True Colors ~ http://www.newarchitectmag.com/documents/s=4455/new1013636396/index.html ~ A brief article covering the ideas & problems of "Web-safe colors".
  • Dreamweaver
    • Why is Dreamweaver the Best WYSIWYG Editor?
    • Macromedia Dreamweaver MX ~ http://www.macromedia.com/software/dreamweaver/ ~ Especially check out the Feature Tour
    • Dreamweaver 4 Overview ~ http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/01/01/index1a.html ~ It's a bit outdated now that Dreamweaver MX has come out, but it's still worth reading.
  • Middleware
    • Relational Databases ~ http://www.computerworld.com/databasetopics/data/story/0,10801,55918,00.html ~ A brief introduction to relational databases.
    • The Major Leagues ~ http://www.intelligententerprise.com/cgi-bin/printable.cgi?file=../030301/604e_business1_1.shtml ~ A brief overview of the Python programming language, especially for Web development.
    • PHP links from WebReference.com ~ "PHP is a powerful, free, server-side programming language …"

Topic: Middleware ~ Dreamweaver
Date: Monday, 29 September 2003, & Wednesday, 1 October 2003
Software: TextPad, Mozilla
Book: Eric S. Raymond's The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary and Chris Dibona & Mark Stone's (Eds.)Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution.
HTML:
In class:

  • Connecting the World: A Brief Intro to Concepts of Web and Database Integration (91kb OpenOffice.org, 210 kb PDF, or 140 kb Flash)

Readings for next class:

  • How to Read W3C Specs ~ http://www.alistapart.com/articles/readspec/ ~ If you're going to be hardcore, you need to know how to read W3C specifications.

Topic: Dreamweaver
Date: Monday, 6 October 2003, & Wednesday, 8 October 2003
Software: Dreamweaver
Book:
HTML:
In class:

Readings for next class:

  • Mulder's Stylesheets Tutorial ~ http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/98/15/index0a.html?tw=stylesheets ~ A really good tutorial through quite a bit of CSS. Highly recommended. And no, it's notthat Mulder.
  • CSS Tutorial ~ http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp ~ An excellent set of tutorials about all aspects of CSS.
  • Linking Style Sheets to HTML ~ http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/css/style-html.html ~ A clear explanation of the various ways to incorporate CSS into your Web pages. I recommend usually linking to an external style sheet.
  • CSS—Cascading Style Sheets ~ Lots of links to great CSS resources. Dive in and explore.

Topic: CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)
Date: Monday, 13 October 2003, & Wednesday, 15 October 2003
Software:
Book:
HTML:
In class:

  • CSS Overview (259 kb OpenOffice.org, 396 kb PDF, or 338 kb Flash) ~ An overview of CSS for Web developers

Readings for next class:

  • Learning to Design Web Pages with Style ~ http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6618&mode=thread&order=0
  • Fonts
    • Combined font survey results ~ http://www.codestyle.org/css/font-family/sampler-CombinedResults.shtml ~ Which fonts are most popular on all computer operating systems?
    • CSS font-family glossary ~ http://www.codestyle.org/css/font-family/Glossary.shtml ~ An excellent overview of terms
    • Anchor Points: Fonts & font foundries ~ http://www.codestyle.org/css/font-family/AnchorPoints.shtml ~ Popular fonts & the companies who make them

Monday, 20 October 2003, & Wednesday, 22 October 2003 ~ No class

Topic: CSS
Date: Monday, 27 October 2003, & Wednesday, 29 October 2003
Software:
Book:
HTML:
In class:

Readings for next class:

  • SimpleQuiz ~ Short quizzes on the best way to format HTML & CSS, followed by the best responses. It will make you think!

Topic: CSS
Date: Monday, 3 November 2003, & Wednesday, 5 November 2003
Software:
Book:
HTML:
In class:

Readings for next class:

  • What Is Content Management? ~ An attempt to give a brief overview, and focused on the CMS we'll be using.

Topic: Intro to CMS (Content Management Systems)
Date: Monday, 10 November 2003, & Wednesday, 12 November 2003
CSS mini-project due
Software:
Book:
HTML:
In class:

Topic: CMS macros
Date: Monday, 17 November 2003, & Wednesday, 19 November 2003
Software:
Book:
HTML:
In class:

  • http://macros.userland.com/basic/ ~ The basic macros you need to create your CMS site.
  • http://manila.bryanconsulting.com/stories/storyReader$16 ~ Some details on the Print This Page macro.
  • http://manila.bryanconsulting.com/stories/storyReader$12 ~ Some details on the Email This Page macro.

Readings for next class:

  • Win the SPAM Arms Race ~ http://www.alistapart.com/articles/spam/ ~ How to encode your email address using simple HTML & JavaScript, so spammers can't harvest it from your Web pages.

Topic: CMS templates
Date: Monday, 24 November 2003, & Wednesday, 26 November 2003
Software:
Book:
HTML:
In class:

Readings for next class:

  • XHTML Basic: Modularization in Action ~ http://www.newarchitectmag.com/documents/s=4598/new1013637074/index.html ~ "By far, the best example of modularization to come out of the W3C is XHTML Basic, which uses modules specifically to create a language geared for wireless design".
  • Semantic obsolescence ~ http://diveintomark.org/archives/2003/01/13.html#semantic_obsolescence ~ Warning: profanity is used. He is mad! Keep in mind he's talking about XHTML 2.0.
  • XHTML 2 and all that ~ http://www.zeldman.com/daily/0103b.shtml#skyfall ~ The antidote to Mark's rant above. Again, keep in mind that he's discussing XHTML 2.0.

Topic: The Future … is here now: XHTML & XML
Date: Monday, 1 December 2003, & Wednesday, 3 December 2003
Software:
Book: Elliotte Rusty Harold's The XML Bible, 2nd Edition.
HTML:
In class:

  • XHTML and XML ~ An overview of XML and XHTML for Web developers new to the subjects. (251 kb PDF or 119 kb Flash)
  • PHP links from WebReference.com ~ "PHP is a powerful, free, server-side programming language …"
  • Web Design Class Evaluation

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