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The joy of DLAN (modern web devs please read)

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  The joy of DLAN (modern web devs please read) bit-naughty@hotmail.com - 2016-02-21 09:33 -0800
    Re: The joy of DLAN (modern web devs please read) Calum <com.gmail@nospam.scottishwildcat> - 2016-02-21 20:57 +0000
      Re: The joy of DLAN (modern web devs please read) "Brian Gaff" <briang1@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2016-02-22 11:04 +0000
        Re: The joy of DLAN (modern web devs please read) Calum <com.gmail@nospam.scottishwildcat> - 2016-02-22 12:00 +0000
      Re: The joy of DLAN (modern web devs please read) bit-naughty@hotmail.com - 2016-02-26 07:38 -0800
        Re: The joy of DLAN (modern web devs please read) Calum <com.gmail@nospam.scottishwildcat> - 2016-02-27 13:22 +0000
          Re: The joy of DLAN (modern web devs please read) bit-naughty@hotmail.com - 2016-03-02 02:19 -0800
            Re: The joy of DLAN (modern web devs please read) Calum <com.gmail@nospam.scottishwildcat> - 2016-03-02 13:58 +0000
              Re: The joy of DLAN (modern web devs please read) bit-naughty@hotmail.com - 2016-03-06 22:55 -0800
                Re: The joy of DLAN (modern web devs please read) Guesser <alistair@zxnet.co.uk> - 2016-03-07 10:25 +0000
                  Re: The joy of DLAN (modern web devs please read) bit-naughty@hotmail.com - 2016-03-07 07:03 -0800
                    Re: The joy of DLAN (modern web devs please read) Guesser <alistair@zxnet.co.uk> - 2016-03-07 15:33 +0000
                      Re: The joy of DLAN (modern web devs please read) Calum <com.gmail@nospam.scottishwildcat> - 2016-03-07 17:37 +0000
                Re: The joy of DLAN (modern web devs please read) Calum <com.gmail@nospam.scottishwildcat> - 2016-03-07 18:41 +0000
                  Re: The joy of DLAN (modern web devs please read) bit-naughty@hotmail.com - 2016-03-13 08:55 -0700
                    Re: The joy of DLAN (modern web devs please read) Calum <com.gmail@nospam.scottishwildcat> - 2016-03-13 16:44 +0000
    Re: The joy of DLAN (modern web devs please read) "Brian Gaff" <briang1@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2016-02-22 11:01 +0000
      Re: The joy of DLAN (modern web devs please read) bit-naughty@hotmail.com - 2016-02-26 08:34 -0800
        Re: The joy of DLAN (modern web devs please read) "Brian Gaff" <briang1@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2016-02-28 11:04 +0000
          Re: The joy of DLAN (modern web devs please read) Calum <com.gmail@nospam.scottishwildcat> - 2016-02-28 11:34 +0000

#4100 — The joy of DLAN (modern web devs please read)

I've posted about this before, but I STILL think DLAN was way more fun than modern HTML/CSS/Javascript, almost 30 years ago! In DLAN, you could have boxes on screen, and scroll text onto the box - something you STILL can't do in a modern browser, at least in an easy way...... any of you guys think this too?

I only *recently* learnt how to trigger a CSS transition with Javascript - that too from a Youtube video, whereas my large-as-a-dictionary and complicated Javascript book didn't tell me about that, at least in a way that made it fun... Just wanted to share that.

Btw, do any of you guys understand how text "flows" in a browser? I remember someone telling me that during my last post on this topic here, but I've yet to understand the, well, should I call it an "algorithm"? I mean, it's just that everything inside a DIV just gets printed _inside that box_, right? Is there anything more to it than that? I was just trying to figure out in my head how to make beautiful *dynamic* pages, ie. whatever text would be getting generated inside a PHP program or CGI script or whatever......I'm just trying to get my head around the whole thing, it still leaves me feeling a bit confuzzled... :)

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#4102

On 21/02/2016 17:33, bit-naughty@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> Btw, do any of you guys understand how text "flows" in a browser? I
> remember someone telling me that during my last post on this topic
> here, but I've yet to understand the, well, should I call it an
> "algorithm"? I mean, it's just that everything inside a DIV just gets
> printed _inside that box_, right? Is there anything more to it than
> that?

The basics are pretty simple, but it can get pretty hairy depending on 
what you're trying to achieve...

Everything on the page is laid out using block elements and inline elements.

Blocks are things like paragraphs, headings and divs, and always occupy 
a rectangular area on the page. They can contain any combination of 
other blocks, and inline elements.

By default, a block takes up the full width of its container (which may 
be the page itself), is as tall as it needs to be for all its contents 
to be visible, and sits immediately below the previous block in the same 
container. This is called the "normal flow" of the page. You can take 
blocks out of the normal flow by floating them, or by assigning them a 
fixed or absolute position.

By default, consecutive inline elements in a block (which include things 
like text spans, buttons and input fields) are laid out left-to-right, 
top-to-bottom within their container, and occupy only the space they 
require, which may not be rectangular. Inline elements can only contain 
other inline elements.

But of course, that's only scratching the surface...

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#4105

Yes indeed and those who do floating or conditional positioning need to be 
very sure that a screenreader is able to read the damned thing in the order 
they want them read or the whole thing is completely ridiculous.
 I'm all for simplicity, and scrolling banners and carousel adverts like on 
~Amazon etc can make life a little complicate Ted.
 Brian

"Calum" <com.gmail@nospam.scottishwildcat> wrote in message 
news:nad8cc$kh2$1@gioia.aioe.org...
> On 21/02/2016 17:33, bit-naughty@hotmail.com wrote:
>>
>> Btw, do any of you guys understand how text "flows" in a browser? I
>> remember someone telling me that during my last post on this topic
>> here, but I've yet to understand the, well, should I call it an
>> "algorithm"? I mean, it's just that everything inside a DIV just gets
>> printed _inside that box_, right? Is there anything more to it than
>> that?
>
> The basics are pretty simple, but it can get pretty hairy depending on 
> what you're trying to achieve...
>
> Everything on the page is laid out using block elements and inline 
> elements.
>
> Blocks are things like paragraphs, headings and divs, and always occupy a 
> rectangular area on the page. They can contain any combination of other 
> blocks, and inline elements.
>
> By default, a block takes up the full width of its container (which may be 
> the page itself), is as tall as it needs to be for all its contents to be 
> visible, and sits immediately below the previous block in the same 
> container. This is called the "normal flow" of the page. You can take 
> blocks out of the normal flow by floating them, or by assigning them a 
> fixed or absolute position.
>
> By default, consecutive inline elements in a block (which include things 
> like text spans, buttons and input fields) are laid out left-to-right, 
> top-to-bottom within their container, and occupy only the space they 
> require, which may not be rectangular. Inline elements can only contain 
> other inline elements.
>
> But of course, that's only scratching the surface...

-- 
 -----  -
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...
briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
Blind user, so no pictures please! 

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#4106

On 22/02/2016 11:04, Brian Gaff wrote:
> Yes indeed and those who do floating or conditional positioning need to
> be very sure that a screenreader is able to read the damned thing in the
> order they want them read or the whole thing is completely ridiculous.
> I'm all for simplicity, and scrolling banners and carousel adverts like
> on ~Amazon etc can make life a little complicate Ted.

Indeed. Fortunately HTML 5 makes it easier than ever to separate the 
semantics and layout of a page, but there's always manual grunt work to 
be done to make a site as accessible as it can be.

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#4107

On Monday, February 22, 2016 at 2:27:54 AM UTC+5:30, Calum wrote:
> On 21/02/2016 17:33,  wrote:
>
> 
>  is as tall as it needs to be for all its contents 
> to be visible, 

Ahh this grabbed me - sometimes on Linux with God knows what fonts I have installed, text would flow out of a box - how was this?

>You can take 
> blocks out of the normal flow by floating them, 


This is something I'm curious about - what exactly is "floating"? I've *read* about it, but I still don't think I really *get* it yet..... :(



> 
> But of course, that's only scratching the surface...

OK, is there any webpage I can go to, to get in deeper? I HAVE and have READ a CSS book, but despite being very informative, it wasn't any *fun*.... :(

The main problem seems to be the varying widths of the screen on different monitors.....


Really, I have to say that Flash was cool (though I can't say I ever did anything inside it) - you simply DREW stuff inside it. But I keep hearing it's dying, and people seem to *want* it to....does anyone know why?


Hey thanks tons for your help, man!

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#4109

On 26/02/2016 15:38, bit-naughty@hotmail.com wrote:
> On Monday, February 22, 2016 at 2:27:54 AM UTC+5:30, Calum wrote:
>> On 21/02/2016 17:33,  wrote:
>>
>>
>> is as tall as it needs to be for all its contents to be visible,
>
> Ahh this grabbed me - sometimes on Linux with God knows what fonts I
> have installed, text would flow out of a box - how was this?

That can happen if the box has been set to a specific size. In that 
case, by default the text will overflow out of it, unless you tell it to 
do otherwise (your other options would be to have the text clip or scroll).

> This is something I'm curious about - what exactly is "floating"?
> I've *read* about it, but I still don't think I really *get* it
> yet.....

It basically forces a box over to the left or right side of its 
enclosing box (which may be the page itself), allowing the text to flow 
around it. This is quite a good description:

<https://css-tricks.com/all-about-floats/>

> OK, is there any webpage I can go to, to get in deeper? I HAVE and
> have READ a CSS book, but despite being very informative, it wasn't
> any *fun*.... :(

Hard to recommend anything without knowing what you'd consider 'fun', 
but if you want something a bit more interactive, Bart Busschots is 
currently doing a combined blog and podcast that builds up from HTML 
basics through CSS and (eventually) JavaScript, that might be of interest:
<https://www.bartbusschots.ie/s/blog/programming-by-stealth/>

If you're already comfortable with HTML, you can skip ahead a bit to 
episode 6 or so.

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#4116

On Saturday, February 27, 2016 at 6:52:33 PM UTC+5:30, Calum wrote:

> If you're already comfortable with HTML, you can skip ahead a bit to 
> episode 6 or so.

Thanks for your help. 

So - what exactly is a "class" then? 2 or more things on screen that will look the same, ie. for example, have the same font?

And if there's say, a PHP program outputting a webpage, suppose there's 2 different sections of text on screen, and they will have different fonts etc., then what does it need to do? Will it have to fiddle with _classes_ or _id's_?? How?? (I find the whole thing slightly complicated to visualise inside my head....)

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#4119

On 02/03/2016 10:19, bit-naughty@hotmail.com wrote:
> On Saturday, February 27, 2016 at 6:52:33 PM UTC+5:30, Calum wrote:
>
>> If you're already comfortable with HTML, you can skip ahead a bit
>> to episode 6 or so.
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
> So - what exactly is a "class" then? 2 or more things on screen that
> will look the same, ie. for example, have the same font?
>
> And if there's say, a PHP program outputting a webpage, suppose
> there's 2 different sections of text on screen, and they will have
> different fonts etc., then what does it need to do? Will it have to
> fiddle with _classes_ or _id's_?? How?? (I find the whole thing
> slightly complicated to visualise inside my head....)

Caveat: I'm not a PHP guy :) But in general, the generated HTML should 
include a class or an id attribute for each element that you want to 
apply a specific style to.

Ideally the HTML should also specify a CSS file to apply to that page, 
and it's in that CSS file that you would define what each of those 
sections should look like. But depending on your requirements, you could 
define those the CSS styles directly in the <head> section of the 
generated HTML file instead. It's just usually nicer to keep the content 
(the HTML) and the presentation of that content (the CSS) separate, 
unless there's a good reason not to.

Classes and id's do the same job. They give a name of your choice to an 
HTML element so you can more easily refer to it elsewhere, e.g. to 
specify its initial visual appearance (e.g. using CSS), or manipulate it 
programmatically (e.g. using JavaScript) after the page has been 
rendered in the browser.

The only real difference between classes and ids is that the same id 
cannot be used more than once on a page, but multiple elements on the 
same page can have the same class name. So for example, you might use an 
id of 'copyright-message' for the copyright message that you put at the 
bottom of every page on your website, but you might use a class name of 
'image-with-border' for all the images on your page that you want to 
have the same fancy border.

Technically, that means id's are redundant and you don't *really* need 
to use them at all... you can always just use a class instead, and 
indeed, some web coding style guides recommend doing just that. But they 
can also be quite useful just to remind you (or other people reading 
your code) that 'I gave this thing an id, so it must be the only one of 
this thing on the page'.

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#4121

On Wednesday, March 2, 2016 at 7:28:28 PM UTC+5:30, Calum wrote:


....So I was right about classes then, they _are_ for more than 1 thing on the page that will look the same....?



> Technically, that means id's are redundant and you don't *really* need 
> to use them at all... 


I don't see how - the *simplest* thing any designer can do is to give everything on the page an id and then do whatever in CSS or JS with it - "I want this thing to look like this, and that one to look like that", that's how any designer thinks! No human being thinks in terms of "Oh this thing is _similar looking_ to that thing, so I'll put them both in the same class....." ?


.... and for a dynamically generated page, I think that would be _mandatory_ , to prevent everyone working on the page, front end and back, from going MAD.....

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#4122

On 07/03/2016 06:55, bit-naughty@hotmail.com wrote:
> I don't see how - the *simplest* thing any designer can do is to give everything on the page an id and then do whatever in CSS or JS with it - "I want this thing to look like this, and that one to look like that", that's how any designer thinks! No human being thinks in terms of "Oh this thing is _similar looking_ to that thing, so I'll put them both in the same class....." ?
>
>
> ..... and for a dynamically generated page, I think that would be _mandatory_ , to prevent everyone working on the page, front end and back, from going MAD.....
>

If you want all your page headings to be in red and in your corporate 
font, and all the subheadings to be in grey etc then giving them all the 
same class and setting that once for the whole site in a main stylesheet 
is the only sane way.

On the other hand if you have things that are only used once with a 
style so customised to that particular element that it is of no use 
anywhere else then it probably makes more sense to refer to it by id. 
Though a class with only that element in it would work just as well.


If you really want an extreme example of the benefits of a properly 
conceived stylesheet then just find any webpage created in Microsoft 
frontpage. A large page of tables etc can easily run to megabytes of 
source when every single element has inlined style tags defining the 
font, size, colour, etc!

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#4123

On Monday, March 7, 2016 at 3:55:05 PM UTC+5:30, Guesser wrote:
> On 07/03/2016 06:55,  wrote:
> 
> If you want all your page headings to be in red and in your corporate 
> font, and all the subheadings to be in grey etc then giving them all the 
> same class and setting that once for the whole site in a main stylesheet 
> is the only sane way.
> 

Ahh OK, OK, I see your point...... but that's for *multiple pages* though, not *within* one page.....? (still kindof stinks of "normality", if you ask me :) .... but of course it would be crazy to do a site without..... )

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#4124

On 07/03/2016 15:03, bit-naughty@hotmail.com wrote:
> Ahh OK, OK, I see your point...... but that's for *multiple pages* though, not *within* one page.....? (still kindof stinks of "normality", if you ask me :) .... but of course it would be crazy to do a site without..... )
>

Within one page you want all your paragraphs to be in Helvetica, and you 
want all your unordered list items to have square bullet points.
You want all your images to have a two pixel blue border around them etc. :)

Defining this inline for each one is ugly and leads to ludicrously large 
and unmaintainable page sources. :p

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#4125

On 07/03/2016 15:33, Guesser wrote:

> Defining this inline for each one is ugly and leads to ludicrously large
> and unmaintainable page sources. :p

And that's even if you don't want your page to be responsive, i.e. 
change the layout or appearance of certain elements depending on screen 
size. To do that you usually need to write CSS media queries:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Media_Queries/Using_media_queries

and trying to do that inline would be pretty eye-watering.

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#4126

On 07/03/2016 06:55, bit-naughty@hotmail.com wrote:
> On Wednesday, March 2, 2016 at 7:28:28 PM UTC+5:30, Calum wrote:
>
>
> ....So I was right about classes then, they _are_ for more than 1
> thing on the page that will look the same....?

Yes. Or for things that don't necessarily look the same, but that you 
want to behave as a functional group. For example, you might apply the 
same class to everything on a page that you want to show or hide at the 
same time (using JS or whatever).

Bear in mind also that an element can have more than one class (but not 
more than one ID). So each element can be in zero, one or more of those 
groups, as required.

> I don't see how - the *simplest* thing any designer can do is to give
> everything on the page an id and then do whatever in CSS or JS with
> it - "I want this thing to look like this, and that one to look like
> that", that's how any designer thinks! No human being thinks in terms
> of "Oh this thing is _similar looking_ to that thing, so I'll put
> them both in the same class....." ?

It might be the simplest thing they could do (until they forgot how they 
were coming up with all those unique IDs and accidentally used the same 
one twice). But that would be some time-consuming and error-prone source 
code to type in, and a pain to maintain.

Designers think about visual differences and similarities all the time, 
that's part of their job. That's why good designs don't generally have 
elements that look *almost* the same, or that *almost* line up... humans 
just don't find them pleasing to look at. Every similarity or difference 
on a well-designed page should be clear and intentional.

> .... and for a dynamically generated page, I think that would be
> _mandatory_ , to prevent everyone working on the page, front end and
> back, from going MAD.....

Not really... there are probably thousands of teams around the globe 
doing just this sort of thing every day, quite happily.

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#4127

On Tuesday, March 8, 2016 at 12:11:29 AM UTC+5:30, Calum wrote:


Hey Calum, what's a good website for web developers to hang out at? Like, one with forums and stuff, where I can ask questions like the one I asked you......?


Thanks again for your help, man.

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#4128

On 13/03/2016 15:55, bit-naughty@hotmail.com wrote:
> Hey Calum, what's a good website for web developers to hang out at?
> Like, one with forums and stuff, where I can ask questions like the
> one I asked you......?

I've really only used <https://stackoverflow.com>... not exclusive to 
web development, but plenty of web Q&A going on there.

If you're more of a reddit person, there's 
<https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev>. Or if you fancy an old-school IRC 
chatroom, there's #html5 on irc.freenode.net

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#4104

The point was that Dlan and other display  systems were aimed at the non 
technical.
since the demise of any attempt to make computers fun out of the box with 
simple to learn programming languages, most of the developments have been 
designed, in my opinion, deliberately, to be inpenetrable to normal human 
beings with the possible exception of Python but even that has grown to such 
an extent its still daunting to start.

In a way, some development of visual Basic needs to be written with line 
numbers and more automatic syntax  problem spotters. Considering the 
computing power now in many machines is scandalous that we do not have a 
teaching machine that lets people go at their own pace and allows them to 
make custom build apps  without complex rules and unmemorable commands in 
huge strings in which one extra space or the wrong syntax does not make it 
just lie on the floor waggling its legs, so to speak.
 Brian

<bit-naughty@hotmail.com> wrote in message 
news:ce74b513-fa1e-4971-be03-f0743c4d833e@googlegroups.com...
> I've posted about this before, but I STILL think DLAN was way more fun 
> than modern HTML/CSS/Javascript, almost 30 years ago! In DLAN, you could 
> have boxes on screen, and scroll text onto the box - something you STILL 
> can't do in a modern browser, at least in an easy way...... any of you 
> guys think this too?
>
> I only *recently* learnt how to trigger a CSS transition with Javascript - 
> that too from a Youtube video, whereas my large-as-a-dictionary and 
> complicated Javascript book didn't tell me about that, at least in a way 
> that made it fun... Just wanted to share that.
>
> Btw, do any of you guys understand how text "flows" in a browser? I 
> remember someone telling me that during my last post on this topic here, 
> but I've yet to understand the, well, should I call it an "algorithm"? I 
> mean, it's just that everything inside a DIV just gets printed _inside 
> that box_, right? Is there anything more to it than that? I was just 
> trying to figure out in my head how to make beautiful *dynamic* pages, ie. 
> whatever text would be getting generated inside a PHP program or CGI 
> script or whatever......I'm just trying to get my head around the whole 
> thing, it still leaves me feeling a bit confuzzled... :)

-- 
 -----  -
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...
briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
Blind user, so no pictures please! 

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#4108

On Monday, February 22, 2016 at 4:31:37 PM UTC+5:30, Brian Gaff wrote:
> most of the developments have been 
> designed, in my opinion, deliberately, 

I'm curious - why do you say this? I can't say I've ever thought about it at length, but surely - the more kids that grow up having had FUN with computers, the more web developers and game developers etc. there will be, right? Is there someone that doesn't want that?


Out of curiosity, if I made a website *teaching* web dev to kids, making it fun, the way Spectrum books did for me when *I* was young, d'you think there would be a market for it? This NEEDS to be done, instead of all my web dev books giving me the hellacious time they have..... (well, not ALL the time maybe, but still, you get the idea..)

Where are all the people who wrote those books NOW? What are they up to? Any way I can get hold of some email addresses or something?


>to be inpenetrable to normal human 
> beings with the possible exception of Python but even that has grown to such 
> an extent its still daunting to start.
> 

All I know about Python is that I once went to a bookshop where they had some books on it - 2 were O'Reilly books, one of them was bright pink in colour, and *both of them were fatter than a dictionary*!!!!
That was the end of my interest in THAT subject.....

Yes, I hear what you're saying....

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#4110

Actually, Python is supposed to be simple in that it does not need all the 
constructs to be learned to do basic stuff. However I found so far most 
tutorials are written by people who are very good at it, and not enough time 
is spend making it seem cuddly as the Sinclair books did, a bit at a time. 
Also like many of the languages, syntax is very strict, so is indenting etc. 
This in my view is bad for a language as a tiny mistake can generate runtime 
errors that seem completely impossible to understand.
 It needs an editor that can spot things as you go. It may well have this 
now, but since I'm now blind it could be that its inaccessible.
 Brian

<bit-naughty@hotmail.com> wrote in message 
news:c080ac9c-ed0d-4d4d-a3a1-887ba660fe6b@googlegroups.com...
> On Monday, February 22, 2016 at 4:31:37 PM UTC+5:30, Brian Gaff wrote:
>> most of the developments have been
>> designed, in my opinion, deliberately,
>
> I'm curious - why do you say this? I can't say I've ever thought about it 
> at length, but surely - the more kids that grow up having had FUN with 
> computers, the more web developers and game developers etc. there will be, 
> right? Is there someone that doesn't want that?
>
>
> Out of curiosity, if I made a website *teaching* web dev to kids, making 
> it fun, the way Spectrum books did for me when *I* was young, d'you think 
> there would be a market for it? This NEEDS to be done, instead of all my 
> web dev books giving me the hellacious time they have..... (well, not ALL 
> the time maybe, but still, you get the idea..)
>
> Where are all the people who wrote those books NOW? What are they up to? 
> Any way I can get hold of some email addresses or something?
>
>
>>to be inpenetrable to normal human
>> beings with the possible exception of Python but even that has grown to 
>> such
>> an extent its still daunting to start.
>>
>
> All I know about Python is that I once went to a bookshop where they had 
> some books on it - 2 were O'Reilly books, one of them was bright pink in 
> colour, and *both of them were fatter than a dictionary*!!!!
> That was the end of my interest in THAT subject.....
>
> Yes, I hear what you're saying....

-- 
 -----  -
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...
briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
Blind user, so no pictures please! 

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#4111

On 28/02/2016 11:04, Brian Gaff wrote:
> Actually, Python is supposed to be simple in that it does not need all
> the constructs to be learned to do basic stuff. However I found so far
> most tutorials are written by people who are very good at it, and not
> enough time is spend making it seem cuddly as the Sinclair books did, a
> bit at a time.

For "cuddly" tutorials, the Head First series of books is probably the 
closest I've found to the old Sinclair style, and they have one for Python:
<http://www.headfirstlabs.com/books/hfpython/>

Unfortunately they're probably not so good if you're visually impaired, 
as they rely on a very graphical page layout style (kind of like the old 
Usborne books, but for a more mature audience...)

> Also like many of the languages, syntax is very strict,
> so is indenting etc. This in my view is bad for a language as a tiny
> mistake can generate runtime errors that seem completely impossible to
> understand.
> It needs an editor that can spot things as you go. It may well have this
> now, but since I'm now blind it could be that its inaccessible.

Certainly most decent programming text editors know Python syntax. But 
as you say, there's often not a lot they can do when you get your 
indentation wrong, because the result will often still be syntactically 
correct, and sadly they can't yet read your mind :)

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