PHP

The following screencast is a little intro to what PHP is. It will discuss some of the common things that PHP can do for web designers and explain a little about how it works when interacting with databases. This will just be a short intro, as PHP can do a lot more when it comes to more advanced features, but these will be slightly more common examples that you are using even while reading this blog post.

Screencast Link

Deprecated Tags (part 2)

This is continuing the deprecated tags post from earlier. It shows the list of tags that should not be used and the alternatives for them. Remember, this list isn't the complete thing, but it contains the most common tags that are deprecated.

<center>

As the tag name says, this was used to center items in html. It was one of the most useful tools as it would center just about anything you put inside of it's tags. For text, the alternative would be to put something like "<p align='center'>". This can also be done by css by using the "text-align:center;" code. Different browsers display the same code in weird ways so it is a hassle trying to find the correct usage that will work on each of the browsers you need it on.

<font>

Ages ago, people would use this code like <font color='someColor'> to give the text inside of it a certain color. Now that is accomplished with CSS. You would use the appropriate tag in the css style, and add the code "color:someColor;" to change it. The bonus to this, is that it affects everything on the page with that tag, and you no longer need to put the <font> tag in each section you needed it on.

<dir> and <menu>

The 'dir' and 'menu' tags were used to create unordered lists. These would be just bullets organized in one column to list items. The alternative is a shorter <ul>. You would add that to start a tag, then for each item in the tag, you use <li></li>. I'm not sure why there were 2 tags to accomplish the same thing, but now it's much easier to remember since this tag is for "U"nordered "L"ists.

Deprecated Tags (part 1)

From a past post, a couple comments led to me thinking this would be helpful, so here it is. This is a list of tags that were once used, but are now deprecated. Deprecated tags are tags that are no longer used and may someday be not functional. You could use them, as they do work, but it's best to revert to the new version which often offers more customization. I'm splitting this into 2 posts because of the amount of time it took to type up. I will finish the other part later when I find time. This list isn't complete, but it contains the most common tags that are deprecated.

<i>

This tag was used to give text a slanted look. "i" is short for italicize as most people know how it looks like. The alternative to this is now <em>. "em" stands for emphasized text. It is used the same way the 'i' tag has been used (and still used on applications like Myspace).

<u> and <strike>

These tags was used for decorating text with lines, and though underlining it still works, it is not recommended, even if you use the alternative. People generally refer to underlined text as links and could cause the person you are trying to get to read it some strain. The alternative to the 'u' tag is using Cascading Style Sheets. It takes a bit more time to type but offers more benefits. Using css, and the text "text-decoration:underline", one can achieve the same effects. The text-decoration can do four different techniques:

text-decoration:overline
text-decoration:line-through
text-decoration:underline
text-decoration:blink

<b>

Also known as the bold tag, this was used to .... well ... make text bold. The alternative is the <strong> tag, but this can also be achieved using css. Using css, it can do more than just make something bold. CSS allows you to specify a number for the boldness, 400 being normal, 700 being regular bold. Though using any of the numbers, and varieties, I have not noticed anything different so it could be browser specific.

PHP

Otherwise known as PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor, is by far one of the most useful languages out there. There's practically no limit to the number of things it can do. For instance, using this blog deals with PHP. You would enter information like a blog title, and description and once you hit submit, the information is all stored in a database. The database is basically a giant table where you got different columns for things like "post number", "post title", "date of posting", "labels", etc. You could even create your own blog, quite simply from scratch. You would have to do this is you get the teacher Amir Khawaja for a GRC276 class.

The most important thing to learn, besides the codes to use, is how to use it. If you know how it will gather the information and display it, the job is half done. For the blog example, you would have these steps to understand:

1. Knowing how the information input gets stored in the database
2. Knowing how to read / access the information in the database
3. Knowing how to display the information that has been read / accessed

If you understand how something will do it's job, finding the code in a book, or online can easily be done. Then if you encounter an error, you know how it should work and can (sometimes) simply solve it.

Answers to Questions (2/11/2010)

I'll try to answer all the questions you ask me, by simply making a new post, so you wouldn't have to search through blog posts to find the answer hidden in the comments area. I also might include comments to things talked about in previous posts, which I'll copy the original text so you know what it is I'm referring to. It'll seem more organized :)



JudyNV: Quick question. How big is the learning curve to move from DW CS3 to CS5?

Dreamweaver CS5 is suppose to come out around April or May if it gets released on time, so I can not comment on that, but as for CS4, the curve isn't very steep. Aside from a couple new features and a new look, a lot has stayed the same. The Put file area, where you upload the files, hasn't changed, nor has the css. You can still view the code, split, and design views, but a new feature is the live view, which can show you exactly what you would see if you previewed it in a browser. My main problem was that, if you had PHP in the page, it wouldn't display properly. I'm really looking forward to see what kind of features CS5 will bring. Some people have assumed some things, while others are telling of stuff they found out from a "friend of a friend". Some rumors have it that Dreamweaver will pump up the support of Web standards and Cascading Stylesheets. We can only wait and see, while praying they don't remove some neat features that we use now. :(


KAckroyd: CSS and all of the rest of that is so daunting for me.

I really like css, though the daunting never stops. One of the most recent things I have been working on is a type of javascript/php thing where certain drop down boxes show up if certain options are selected. One major problem I had with that was the drop down boxes were each in a cell in a table. When they went "visible", all of a sudden, they were outside of the div area. An hour or so later, I finally found the answer. This is kinda like learning a new language (It actually is a new language I guess). You may know thousands of words, but there will always be a couple words/phrases you'll have to look up. Hopefully, I can be of some help :)