# Who wants to hold my hand in HTML?



## gvblake22 (May 13, 2011)

I've got some experience coding in VB.NET and VBA, so I know the basic principals of programming but I don't know the syntax of HTML that well (anything past <div>, <p>, <strong>).

I just wanted to put some feelers out in the community here and see if anyone is bored this weekend and wants to Skype me and give me some pointers.

I don't need someone to do a bunch of work, I actually already have a fully functional HTML and CSS template to analyze the code with.  This isn't for class credit or anything either, just personal experience.  All I need is someone to tell me what the different parts of the code are doing and how they relate to the CSS.

Send me a PM if you're interested in spending a few minutes (or as long as you want to waste) holding my hand while wading through some light HTML/CSS code.


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## Kreij (May 14, 2011)

I kind of hard to get people to help by tutoring some times, but if you post code you will get answers pretty quick usually.


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## gvblake22 (May 14, 2011)

Yeah, I've got a couple tutorial examples from the web that I was going over trying to understand.  A fellow TPU'er stepped up to the plate yesterday and gave me a basic crash course by identifying the elements of one of the tutorials and it was very helpful.  Here is one of the examples I've been using so far:
Line 25 Tutorial

One thing that still holds me up is the margin settings in the CSS.  The author of the tutorial sometimes uses two values with auto, sometimes four values with auto, and sometimes four values with no auto.  What does auto do and what is the proper place to use it?


```
#container {
	width: 960px; margin: 0 auto;
}
```


```
#logo {
	margin: 10px auto 0 auto; position: relative; width: 183px;
}
```


```
ul#nav li:nth-child(1) {
			margin: 0 60px 0 0;
		}
```


```
ul#nav li:nth-child(4) {
			margin: 0;
		}
```


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## Kreij (May 14, 2011)

If you don't mind me asking, gvb, who helped you?


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## stinger608 (May 14, 2011)

Hey Blake, whats cooking bro? Nice to see ya man. 

Another great place to learn a ton is through w3schools. You can even jump into an html course for free man. 

http://www.w3schools.com/

And there is a ton of information on the site, and tons of examples as well.


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## gvblake22 (May 14, 2011)

Kreij said:


> If you don't mind me asking, gvb, who helped you?


It was Aleksander Dishnica.  We had a Skype text chat session for over an hour, very nice guy.



stinger608 said:


> Hey Blake, whats cooking bro? Nice to see ya man.


Hehe, just livin' the dream. 



stinger608 said:


> Another great place to learn a ton is through w3schools. You can even jump into an html course for free man.
> 
> http://www.w3schools.com/
> 
> And there is a ton of information on the site, and tons of examples as well.


That is a great souce, which I just found yesterday too.  It has been bookmarked and I will be frequenting that a lot.


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## Kreij (May 14, 2011)

There isn't a "correct" way to use auto, it's based on your needs.
Using a fixed number will set the margin to that many units (ie. pixels or whatever you tell it).
A % will set it as a percent of the containing element
Auto will let the browser decide and is dependant upon the browser (so be careful as things may not always do what you want cross-browser).


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## gvblake22 (May 14, 2011)

Thanks Kreij.
So if you leave out values for some of the margin sides, does it automatically do auto?


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## Kreij (May 14, 2011)

Not necessarily .... Look Here


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## gvblake22 (May 14, 2011)

Kreij said:


> Not necessarily .... Look Here


ah ha!  There it is.  Thanks again Kreij.  I guess I just need to do a little more reading first.


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## Kreij (May 14, 2011)

W3schools is a great site for reference.


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## gvblake22 (May 14, 2011)

Kreij said:


> W3schools is a great site for reference.


I see that!  They do an awesome job of detailing the different elements and giving you working code to play around with.

The only website class I took many years ago just taught us how to use Dreamweaver (still Macromedia back then) and tables to organize everything on the page.  I can't wait to make my first site using legit code!


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## Kreij (May 14, 2011)

I taught myself HTML/CSS using notepad, an ftp client and and an HTML book. 

An interesting site for the possibilites of CSS is called CSS Zen Garden. All of the submission have to use the same text, but can manipulate the layout as they see fit. Some very incredible work.
Click on the entries in the right side section to see them.


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## gvblake22 (May 14, 2011)

Kreij said:


> I taught myself HTML/CSS using notepad, an ftp client and and an HTML book.
> 
> An interesting site for the possibilites of CSS is called CSS Zen Garden. All of the submission have to use the same text, but can manipulate the layout as they see fit. Some very incredible work.
> Click on the entries in the right side section to see them.


That is pretty cool!  I like that you can see the code for each one too.  Great resource.

I downloaded Notepad++ to start my coding adventures and it seems pretty good so far.

I know there are a million web hosts out there and a million good and bad reviews for each one, but what one(s) have you had a good experience with?


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## Kreij (May 14, 2011)

Search on TPU for web host comments. There are several threads.


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## stinger608 (May 14, 2011)

Kreij said:


> W3schools is a great site for reference.



It surely is Kreij!!! I often visit there during my classes to refresh my memory on some things (No comment from Blake on my memory).



Kreij said:


> Search on TPU for web host comments. There are several threads.



I will tell ya one thing though, I have been using JustHost now for about 3 or 4 years, and they have been great to be honest. Very fast, reliable, and a great host of applications, scripting, email, and site builders that come with the basic service.......And really inexpensive also. It costs me about $80 per year is all for unlimited storage, bandwidth, emails, and ftp's just to name a few man.

http://www.justhost.com/

Or if you cannot afford them at the moment, shoot me a PM Blake and I will get ya set up on my host account with your own FTP and such bro.


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## gvblake22 (May 14, 2011)

stinger608 said:


> I will tell ya one thing though, I have been using JustHost now for about 3 or 4 years, and they have been great to be honest. Very fast, reliable, and a great host of applications, scripting, email, and site builders that come with the basic service.......And really inexpensive also. It costs me about $80 per year is all for unlimited storage, bandwidth, emails, and ftp's just to name a few man.
> 
> http://www.justhost.com/


Sorry to continue this thread derailment, but when they say "Unlimited Domain Hosting", does that mean you can have as many different sites on one hosting plan as you want?  Like www.gvblake22.com, www.ilovetpu.com, www.prettehkitteh.com, etc?

*EDIT:*
OMG, that last one is actually a real website!


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## stinger608 (May 14, 2011)

gvblake22 said:


> Sorry to continue this thread derailment, but when they say "Unlimited Domain Hosting", does that mean you can have as many different sites on one hosting plan as you want?  Like www.gvblake22.com, www.ilovetpu.com, www.prettehkitteh.com, etc?
> 
> *EDIT:*
> OMG, that last one is actually a real website!



Yep that is correct Blake. As long as you register a .com etc you can have a 1000 sites running off your original hosting plan.


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## gvblake22 (May 14, 2011)

stinger608 said:


> Yep that is correct Blake. As long as you register a .com etc you can have a 1000 sites running off your original hosting plan.


Perfect, thanks Dano!


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## stinger608 (May 14, 2011)

gvblake22 said:


> Perfect, thanks Dano!



You bet bro, anytime man.


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## gvblake22 (May 14, 2011)

I just found this video series NetTuts+ is doing, it's very helpful for the beginner (like me).


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## stinger608 (May 14, 2011)

gvblake22 said:


> I just found this video series NetTuts+ is doing, it's very helpful for the beginner (like me).



Sweet man, that is a pretty nice site for web coding tutorials man. I bookmarked it

Thanks for sharing bro.


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## Kreij (May 14, 2011)

Since you posted a link to a tut, I won't give you a 4 million point infraction for derailing your own thread. 

There are tons of good tuts on the webz. You will be comfortable with it all in no time.
HTML and CSS are not hard to learn and quite logical in the way things are done.
It's the details (like making it work on all browsers) that will have you ripping your hair out.


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## gvblake22 (May 14, 2011)

Kreij said:


> It's the details (like making it work on all browsers) that will have you ripping your hair out.


I've already noticed that.  It's total bullshit that coders have to duplicate the same lines of code three times for webkit (apple), moz (firefox), and standard.  Did I get that right?


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## Kreij (May 14, 2011)

Pretty much accurate. Welcome to web coding.


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## stinger608 (May 14, 2011)

Kreij said:


> Pretty much accurate. Welcome to web coding.



Yea, can pretty much be a pain in the ass at times


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## Kreij (May 14, 2011)

What you will find it that the HTML is pretty standard.
It's the level of CSS implementation within the various browser versions that will be frustrating.


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## gvblake22 (May 14, 2011)

Yeah, you're right, that's where I keep seeing the -webkit- and -moz- prefixes.  It's funny because before I always thought CSS was just used to style text (colors, sizes, and fonts) and html was used to create everything else.  It looks like it's almost to the point now where it's the opposite, where html is used solely for content, while css is used to arrange the content elements, add styles, create effects, and run scripts.

There does seem like a lot to learn right now, but I can also see that it really isn't that complicated.  Basic things are pretty straight-forward and the tags make sense once you know what is what.  I've already learned so much in just two days.  Just gonna have to keep playing around with it and watch what happens every time I change something.

Thanks for all the help guys, I really do appreciate it.


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## Kreij (May 14, 2011)

HTML 5 is about to become the latest standard and it adds a whole bunch of stuff.
Dont' get too used to anything.


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## stinger608 (May 14, 2011)

Kreij said:


> HTML 5 is about to become the latest standard and it adds a whole bunch of stuff.
> Dont' get too used to anything.




Have you got any good tutorials for HTML5 Kreij? Would like to find some if you know of any


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## gvblake22 (May 14, 2011)

When I was chatting with Aleksander, he was saying that XHTML is even newer still.  Which should I focus my efforts on (or doesn't it really matter between those two)?


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## Kreij (May 14, 2011)

Focus you efforts on learning HTMl and CSS.
There will be changes as the standards evolve, but most of the basic principles will remain.


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## gvblake22 (May 15, 2011)

stinger608 said:


> Have you got any good tutorials for HTML5 Kreij? Would like to find some if you know of any


I found this nice roundup of website tutorials.  The HTML standard seems to vary, but there are still plenty of HTML5 specific ones mixed in there.


Kreij said:


> Focus you efforts on learning HTMl and CSS.
> There will be changes as the standards evolve, but most of the basic principles will remain.


Cool, thanks.


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