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Interactive web design takes building web pages and web sites beyond just coding. It moves it to functionality and usability. It focus' on meeting the needs of the customer or user. Let's look at Miami's vacation reporting site in Banner. I can report my vacation and sick time so it's functional but entering time is more cumbersome than it needs to be. See how the next and previous button move. Why can't I see the whole month at once? Why isn't there a dropdown option to select the time allowed? Whenever you have to use words like “make sure do it this way”, you know that you have failed on a usability standpoint.

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Progressive disclosure is an interaction design technique often used in human computer interaction to help maintain the focus of a user's attention by reducing clutter, confusion, and cognitive workload. This improves usability by presenting only the minimum data required for the task at hand.

An example of the use of progressive disclosure is our class website. Menu options are in place to allow students to find what they're looking for. Everything could all be on one page but that would be too much. There's also the option to “Show the entire syllabus” or view one class at a time, allowing the student to see the information the way they want to see it.

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There are several different types of architecture, like Linear, Hierarchy, Web, and Matrix. I don't get heavy into terminology and pedagogy so I just want to address this with the statement that information should be organized and arranged in a way that should be understood. You can look at our class web site to see that the information is lumped together by several categories which happen to be presented as menu options. If you look at my work web page you'll see that it's organized in a very different way. That's because there's a different target audience. In the class site, students are the primary users so things are organized in a way that a student would expect to see the information. Grading is pretty important to a student, so it get's it's own category. My work web page, in contrast is one big page with no menu. That's because I'm the primary user and I use it mainly as bookmarks to get to my favorite sites. Neither way is right or wrong, other than they should meet the needs of the target audience.

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The home page is the main landing page for your site. The identity and styles of home pages change over time but in general I feel that they should not include too much information. I'm personally a bit of a minimalist anyway so I prefer very little content on a home page, and use it as a spring board to get to other information. http://www.harrisonlegacy.com/ is a site that I manage. It's a church web site. The primary target of the site is to introduce the church to potential attendees. It's also used by current members which is why the “GIVE ONLINE” link is on the site. I removed it at one point thinking it was a bit rude to a prospective attendee and heard “where did the link go” from many current members. They used it weekly for their offering. So I added it back, but tried to make it inconspicuous.

Apple is a forerunner in design. They're not perfect, but you can generally gage what's popular in current design based on what they're doing. Let's take a peak at their site. Can you tell what Apple feels is most important? It's hard not to, right?

With Google around, users may not go to your home page first. That's why a good menu system is important. Looking at the church site again, you see that you can get to all of the topics that you might be interested in using the menu system from any page.

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Signals basically concern whether or not something makes sense. It could be something as simple as a label or a picture. On cars that take gasoline, there's usually an indicator on the dashboard that shows which side of the car you use to put the gas in; and it's usually a triangle. Now is that enough? The answer lies in the hands of the person filling up the car. If you've pulled in to the gas station on 'the wrong side', I would say it's not enough.

Computers use something called 'icons'. They're little pictures that signal something. On my Mac, I have a dock that I have configured to show small icons, magnify on hover-over, and automatically hide (among other things). The icons were designed by the company that made the program. Apple went the next step and also displays the name of the program when you hover-over it. That's a good way to bridge the gap between a graphical only solution versus a text only solution.

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Anticipation simply means that you should anticipate how the solution that you're providing will be used. The easiest way to do this is to use it. Does it work like you think it should? Second, have someone else try it. Can they figure it out without you there explaining things? To me, the biggest indicator or a failure in anticipation is the need for 'training'. If the user can't figure out how to use your solution on their own, then the solution does not meet their needs.

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Consistency is at the top of my list of important things when it comes to web design. Are you adding on to an existing site? Then follow the style and design previously set. Are you building a site from scratch? Then create your style and follow it throughout the site. If you're a list-person, meaning you like making lists, make the list and be consistent. If you use complete sentences in your list, ALWAYS use complete sentences. If you don't capitalize a certain word like “howdy”, and you have a good reason to do it (like if it's a catch-phrase used throughout the site), then never capitalize it. Just be consistent.

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You may be the smartest person in the world, but if you use bad spelling or have bad grammar, you won't look smart. Your website is a reflection of you. Having typos is just bad. Have a friend check your page/site. Use a tool like Typosaur.us to check your spelling. Whatever you do, don't have typos.

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I'm using a Mac with OS X 10.11 (El Capitan). Most of the shortcuts that I'm going to show you have been around for many years. On a Mac use the 'command' key to use a shortcut. Similar shortcuts are available on other operating systems as well. On a Windows machine, use the 'alt' key where I reference the 'command' key. Here are my favorites:

• command s to save a document
• command r to reload the page
• command f to find text on a page
• command x to cut text
• command c to copy text
• command v to paste text
• command a to select all
• command + to zoom in (sometimes)
• command - to zoom out (sometimes)
• command q to quit the application
• command w to close the window
• command z to undo the last action
• command n to create a new document, tab, or new Finder window
• command t to create a new tab
• command tab to flip through programs
• command ~ to flip through windows in a web browser
• command option u to see the source code

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You can personalize your Mac so that you can get things done faster. Here are some steps that I follow everytime I setup a new Mac (use 'System Preferences' to make these changes):
Trackpad - turn on everything, then turn off natural scrolling, and turn off swipe between pages
Desktop & Screen Saver - set these and hot corners
Security & Privacy - Require password 5 seconds
Security & Privacy - Unlock and set to 'Mac App Store and identified developers' if you want
Dock - Smaller, Magnification, Double Click a Window's Title Bar to Minimize

Remove icons that I don't use from the dock
Right-click on the icon...options...Remove from Dock
Add Applications Folder to the dock
Click on the background to go to Finder...command N (to open a new folder)...Drag the Applications icon to the dock

Mac Mail - turn off drafts
Mail…Preferences…Accounts…Mailbox Behaviors…(uncheck) Drafts (for each account)

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Since we're using WebDAV, editing and reviewing changes is very fast and easy and since we're using HTML5, CSS3, and PHP in this class, you don't have to wait on compiling anything. I can't believe that people still compile programs. To view changes to a web page, you just reload it. Let's walk through an example:

First, I'll open a web browser, then I'm going to use 'command tab' to switch to the Finder. Then I'll use 'command k' to connect to my web space. Next I'll navigate to the folder and web page that I want to edit. Double-click it to open it, I have PHP files set to open with TextWrangler. Change and save it, 'command tab' to the web browser, 'command r' to reload it. Continue using this method to make changes. Once you practice, you'll be a pro and editing code will be quick and easy.

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Want to open HTML or HTM files with your favorite text editor? On a Mac, navigate to a file of this type in Finder...right-click...Get Info...Open with...(select your favorite text editor)...Change All. That's it.

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Editing code on your local machine is a bad idea for a couple big reasons.
1) It gets confusing. You make changes on your local machine but test the changes for the page on the server but it looks like nothing changed. That's because nothing on the server changed.
2) Reviewing PHP on your local machine isn't that easy. We will be using PHP in the future.
So edit your code on the server. Trust me, you'll be glad you did.

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It's important to know that the rest of the world doesn't necessarily edit web pages with a text editor. Here are some sites that I work on that have different WYSIWYG editors. WYSIWYG stands for 'What You See Is What You Get', an old term that came about as the computer world moved from a text only based world to a graphical based world.

Here's a site that uses a proprietary interface by a company called Elexio. I'll make a simple change and reload the page to review the change.

Here's a site that uses Google. I'll make a simple change and reload the page to review the change.

Here's a Facebook page. I'll make a simple change and reload the page to review the change.

You have a lot more power and control when you're not using someone else's interface, but for people who don't know how to write code, these types of solutions make creating and maintaining a web site something attainable.

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HTML is the content. CSS is the styling. Javascript is an action. The lines are getting more blurred as CSS progresses and becomes more action-oriented. In our class we'll focus on HTML and CSS. We'll also use PHP later in the semester to dynamically build web pages. PHP is very powerful and very cool. Get the HTML and CSS stuff figured out first so you can have fun with PHP when the time comes.

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HTML elements are written with opening and closing tags outside of content in HTML documents. A tag is part of an HTML element.

An opening tag starts with a less than symbol, then has some type of identifier, then ends with a greater than symbol. The closing tag will be very similar, but has a slash after the less than symbol.

If you want something to be bold, use a bold element: This is in bold.

Most elements have an opening and closing tag but there are some that don't like breaks. Some have optional closing tags like list items.

I will be referring to HTML elements as 'tags' throughout this course because that's how I learned them.

Here are some very popular tags:   
bold <b>   
breaks <br>   
paragraphs <p>   
unordered lists <ul> and <li> with a closing </ul>   
ordered lists <ol> and <li> with a closing </ol>   
tables <table> <tr> is the table row, and <td> table data which is the column   
images <img src='FolderName/ImageName.jpg' alt='Image Description'>   
Don't use spaces in file names on the web, that's just a hint that's going to save you a lot of time and effort.   

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Here are some standard tags
nav is for menu navigation
h1 is for the first heading
h2 is for the second heading, and so on
For semantic reasons you should never have an h2 without an h1 first
section is for a section
article is for an article within a section

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Using proper indenting while writing code is very important. It's easy to figure where you're at and what's going on with small pages but start throwing some PHP and Javascript in there and crank up the number of lines in the thousands and you'll understand what I mean.

I like to use two spaces for indenting. Some people use tabs and that's OK too. Whatever you choose, be consistent.

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To view your HTML or the HTML on someone else's page use the inspect HTML option. With Safari you have to turn it on first. Safari...Preferences...Advanced...CHECK in 'Show Develop menu in menu bar'.

I also use Google Chrome. Right-click...inspect.

One of my favorite ways to view code is in a new window. With Google Chrome, option/command/u (all at the same time).

Firefox and Opera also have options to inspect code. I suppose IE may have it too, but I'm not an IE fan.

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After you upload your video to YouTube, Vimeo, or some other video streaming service, you can usually embed it into your web page. YouTube actually gives you the code to embed it. When you do this, your video is still stored on YouTube's servers (their cloud) and streams to the user's computer from their site, even though they're on your site. Pretty cool, eh? I usually warn against including info from other sites but I definitely make the exception when it comes to videos. Having previously managed a video player on my own site, I can tell you it's something that I don't miss at all.

I created a wrapper around the videos used in our class using CSS. You're welcome to steal my code, but you'll need to figure out how on your own.

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The problem with including someone else's library or code in your web page is that you're relying on their service to be up and running and for there site to never go away. You can download other people's information as well. Unfortunately, it's often very bloated (large files) and you end up slowing down your user's experience with a bunch of code that you're not even using.

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My pet peeves? I'm not going to say much more than read my pet peeves. If I had to highlight my top four for the classes that I teach it would be spelling, consistency, broken images, and untested responsive design (we'll get to it later in the class). My last really big pet peeve doesn't really relate directly to our class as much, it's maintainability. There's not much worse than going to a web site and seeing 'upcoming' information for something that weeks, months, or even years old. It removes all validity to the web site. Before you start something, make sure you can finish it; with a website, that means maintaining it.

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I can't teach you everything there is to know about anything when it comes to the land of computing. The web didn't even exist when I went to college. I know, I'm old. You'll be old some day too and your kids will say, you used to do what? Fill in the blank.

Anyway, there are certain things that you'll do over and over, like using the bold tag or a paragraph tag. There are many things that you'll only do once in a while. That's OK. That's where Google searching comes in. Knowing some key words and learning how to spot what you're looking for quickly is the trick. It's a great skill to have. For example, if you want to make your font a different color, try a search for 'css font color'. If you want to build a table, try 'html table'. Stack Overflow is a great resource for answers. I'm sure other's will pop up too as time goes on.

It can be pretty difficult trouble-shooting your own code problems. Think that's hard? Try trouble-shooting someone else's. There are many ways to do things, even many right ways. So if you're having trouble with your code and your peer or even your professor don't know the answer right away, don't be surprised. The best thing to do is to work in baby steps. Change one thing at a time and test it. That way it's much easier to trouble-shoot the problem.

Another thing to keep in mind is not to bang your head against a wall for a long period of time with a problem. I usually give myself a 5 minute internet search if I don't know how to do something. If I still don't have the answer, I look to my peers for help. It's amazing how quickly you'll find the answer if you just give yourself different options.

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  Let's dive into some cascading style sheets.  These are examples from an external style sheet.  Add something like this to your HTML to include an external style sheet:   
  
<!DOCTYPE>   
  
<html lang='en'>   
  
<head>   
  
<link rel='icon' type='image/png' href='favicon.png'>   
  
<link href='minimal_style.css' media='screen' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'/>   
  
<title>201710 IMS222</title>   
  
</head>   
  
The minimal_style.css has the css in it.  The first code that we'll look at is a ul which is an unnumbered list.  Codes here need squiggly brackets around them, then the styling is inside the squiggly brackets.  Each style type is listed on the left followed by a color and the style is on the right followed by a semi colon.   
  
Here we're setting the ul which is an unnumbered list to display.   
  
ul {   
        list-style: display;   
}   
  
Here we're setting the li which is a list item to have a left margin of 2 em.   
  
li {   
        margin-left: 2em;   
}   
  
Here we're setting the nav which is navigation or menu system to be 100% wide, go to the left, have a shadow, a background color, some padding, and align the text.  Look at some additional CSS just to get a feel for what it looks like.   
  
nav {   
        width: 100%;   
        float: left;   
        box-shadow: 0 4px 8px 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2), 0 6px 20px 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.19);   
        background-color: #212121;   
        padding-left:2em;   
        padding-right:2em;   
        text-align: center;   
}   
nav ul {   
        list-style-type: none;   
}   
nav li {   
        width: 20%;   
        text-align: center;   
        float: left;   
        margin-left: 0px;   
}   
nav a {   
        background-color: #212121;   
        padding: 14px 32px;   
        display: block;   
        text-decoration: none;   
        text-align: center;   
        color: #eee;   
}   
nav a:hover {   
        background-color: #192A75;   
}   
  
b {   
        font-family: source_sans_probold;   
        color: #676767;   
}   
h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {   
        font-family: source_sans_probold;   
        color: #192A75;   
}   
h1 {   
        font-size: 2em;   
        line-height: 1.15em;   
        margin: 60px 0px 2px 0px;   
}   
h2 {   
        font-size: 1.25em;   
        line-height: 1.15em;   
        margin: 10px 0px 2px 0px;   
}   
h3 {   
        font-size: 1.01em;   
        line-height: 1.01em;   
        margin: 5px 0px 2px 0px;   
}   
h4, h5 {   
        font-size: 1.00em;   
        line-height: 1.00em;   
        margin: 5px 0px 2px 0px;   
}   
p {   
        line-height: 1.45em;   
        margin-bottom: 20px;   
}   
section {   
        margin: 80px auto 40px;   
        max-width: 1070px;   
        position: relative;   
        padding: 20px   
}  

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 Cascading Style Sheets got their name because they cascade like water.  The style furthest away can get changed by one that's closer.  There are 3 different ways of styling.  External, Internal, and Inline styling.  An external style sheet is a separate document with just CSS in it.  You call it whatever you want, and then reference it in your HTML.  In the example here, I call it: Kirks_External_Style_Sheet.css   
  
<link href='Kirks_External_Style_Sheet.css' media='screen' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'/>   
  
An internal style sheet is at the top of a web page.  It's inside style tags like this:   
  
<style>   
summary::-webkit-details-marker {   
  color: #80C16F;   
  font-size: 125%;   
  margin-right: 2px;   
}   
</style>   
  
Inline styling looks like this:   
  
<p style='margin:3em;'>Blah, blah, blah</p>   
  
The order is external to internal to inline.  So if you have styling for a paragraph <p> in all 3 documents, the internal styling will win.  It's important to note that the cascading piece only over-writes things that are the same.  If you set a color in the external style sheet and don't change the color but set other things in the internal or inline style sheet, the color will still be what you set it as in the external style sheet.  

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The important thing to know about fonts on the web, is that they are a little different than fonts on your computer. If you set a font up on the web, and I don't have that font, the site is not going to look the way you want it to look for me. The two most popular ways to do fonts on the web are Google fonts and TypeKit. Google fonts can be found at https://fonts.google.com/. You embed the font by using something like:



TypeKit is an Adobe option and since I'm not a huge Adobe fan, I'll leave you to figure that one out yourself.

I'm also not a huge fan of embedding fonts because you're relying on someone else's server being up and running for your site to work. That just adds a layer of complexity to your code that may be unnecessary. Try not to go crazy with fonts. 1 or 2 on a web page is plenty.

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Like fonts? Be original. Make your own font. MyScriptFont (at http://www.myscriptfont.com/) is a web site that allows you create a font from your handwriting. Then to convert the font to a web font use the Generator in FontSquirrel (at https://www.fontsquirrel.com/). Give it a shot, it's fun.

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This is what I like to call, life lessons with Kirk. Don't try to be all things to all people. Find what you do well and build on those strengths. This is true for you personally and to your site. Also look for the quick wins, also known as the low hanging fruit. If you can quickly and easily make a change to your website that makes a big difference, go for it. If it's something that's highly involved, put it on the back burner. This is a good lesson for this class, your future jobs, and your future, period. Time management is something we all practice and hopefully improve on. Just remember, every time you say yes to something, that means you're saying no to everything else.

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A persona is basically a made up person that represents the problem that you're trying to solve. Sometimes they're called user stories. I usually just put myself in the shoes of my users and use the product like they would, and think about how I would like it to work. Some places like to do benchmarking (against competitors) but I'm not really a fan of that. Aren't you trying to make something better? Then why would you copy them?

If you're called to do a persona, you'll usually want to come up with a person (name and short background), their problem (as it relates to what you're trying to solve) and their goals (i.e. a solution that you can provide). If you're doing it for a company in the future, you may also include a photo of the person that you're trying to create a persona for.

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3 popular concepts in design are Wireframes, Mockups, and Prototypes. Wireframes can be pencil drawings or line art for how you want your design to look. Mockups are images that move beyond wireframes that give you a better sense of the final design. Prototypes are almost functioning solutions. You may have a database that will be built later; the prototype would be functioning code without the database. Personally I like to dive right in on the code but if you're having trouble seeing the final product, I encourage you to try any or all of these concepts.

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On a Mac, to take a screen shot, use Applications...Utilities...Grab...Capture...Selection. I also use a tool called Skitch which allows for annotations as well. You may use screenshots for a wide variety of reasons. Anytime you use a photo, I recommend keeping it small. 1024 pixels wide is generally acceptable. A jpg is also generally the preferred format. Try to keep photos under ½ MB. There can be reasons to go bigger than that like a photo sharing website, but even then I wouldn't force someone to have to download large photos while just perusing the site.

Name images without spaces. Spaces and the web are not good friends.

All images need to have alt text that describe the image too. Make the photo the size that you want it to be, let the user shrink it down but forcing them to zoom in on a picture will make the picture pixelated. Finally, putting "width='100%'" will keep your photo looking great at all sizes.

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When you evaluate sites you can use the information you've already acquired from this course. Bruce Tognazzini also came up with what he calls the 'First Principles'. You can check it out at http://asktog.com/atc/principles-of-interaction-design/. Bruce has some great ideas. One thing I would like to add is, be nice, especially when you're evaluating your peer's website. People put a lot of time and effort into their work, give them constructive criticism on things that they can do to improve their site.

We've already covered some of my top pet peeve's (spelling, grammar, consistency, file size). I'd like to address content now. If you're site is about art, it should have a lot of art on it. If it's about being an editor for a newspaper, it should have a lot of writing on it. Having the appropriate amount of quantity on a site is just as important as the quality of the content. There's no specific formula for how much you should have. That's where you need to do what makes sense and that's why it's always good to have another pair of eyes look at your work. For all future projects in this class, you should have someone evaluate your work. It can only help you get better.

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Single web pages are OK but it's more fun to create an entire site. There are a number of ways to do that. The silly way is to recreate the menu system on every single page. Let's not do it the crazy way. You can also use an htaccess file to pre-pend and post-pend your web pages with a header and a footer. A third way is to use PHP to 'include' or 'require' another page. We'll try both of these methods in this class. We'll cover the how-to later, I just want you to start thinking about your web pages on a larger scale, as a web site.

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 Responsive Design is a design approach allowing for one web page/site to be viewed easily and equally among many different devices and sizes.  It's essentially the way you make your site mobile friendly.  There was a trend not too many years ago to create a separate mobile (or m.) site specifically for smartphone users.  What a silly idea.  People have a very hard time maintaining one site, what made them think they could maintain two sites?  The other thing is that many things were missing on the mobile site.  Whenever I see a mobile site now, I just shake my head and close the window.   
  
With only a few lines of code you can make your site responsive.  Let's learn about it now.  Put this code on a web page and see how the background (and a few other things) change as you change the page size:   
  
/*Responsive Design Style differences for multiple sizes*/   
@media screen and (max-width:320px){   
  body {   
    background:#000;   
    color: #FFF;   
  }   
  A:hover {   
    color: #CCC;   
  }   
}   
@media screen and (min-width:321px) and (max-width:480px){   
  body {   
    background:#CCC;   
  }   
  A:hover {   
   color: #FFF;   
  }   
}   
@media screen and (min-width:481px) and (max-width:600px){   
  body {   
    background:#FAD2D9;   
  }   
}   
@media screen and (min-width:601px) and (max-width:768px){   
  body {   
    background:#D5FAD2;   
  }   
}   
@media screen and (min-width:769px) and (max-width:1024px){   
  body {   
    background:#77BE94;   
  }   
}   
@media screen and (min-width:1025){   
  body {   
    background:#D2DAFA;   
  }   
}  

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 There are many times on a website that you want to collect data from your users.  To do that, you usually need a form.  Here is a sample form that meets WCAG 2.0 Level AAA standards that covers types of items you would find on a form:   
  
<section>   
<h1>Forms</h1>   
<h2>This is a place holder for a web page that has a completely accessible web form</h2>   
<form name='formMyHDGLocationManager' action='' METHOD='post' ENCTYPE='application/x-www-form-urlencoded'>   
  
<label for='a_text_field_01'>Text field</label>   
<input type='text' name='a_text_field_01' id='a_text_field_01' value=''>   
<label for='a_text_field_02'>Another Text field</label>   
<input type='text' name='a_text_field_02' id='a_text_field_02' value=''>   
  
<fieldset>   
<legendphp>Radio Buttons</legendphp>   
<br><input type='radio' name='gender' id='1st choice' value='1st choice'><label for='1st choice' class='radio'>1st choice</label>   
<br><input type='radio' name='gender' id='2nd choice' value='2nd choice'><label for='2nd choice' class='radio'>2nd choice</label>   
<br><input type='radio' name='gender' id='3rd choice' value='3rd choice'><label for='3rd choice' class='radio'>3rd choice</label>   
</fieldset>   
  
<fieldset>   
<legendphp>Checkboxes</legendphp>   
<br><input type='checkbox' name='1st one' id='1st one' value='1st one'><label for='1st one' class='checkbox'>1st one</label>   
<br><input type='checkbox' name='2nd one' id='2nd one' value='2nd one'><label for='2nd one' class='checkbox'>2nd one</label>   
<br><input type='checkbox' name='3rd one' id='3rd one' value='3rd one'><label for='3rd one' class='checkbox'>3rd one</label>   
<br><input type='checkbox' name='4th one' id='4th one' value='4th one'><label for='4th one' class='checkbox'>4th one</label>   
</fieldset>   
  
<label for='a_dropdown_list'>Dropdown list</label>   
<br><select name='a_dropdown_list' id='a_dropdown_list'>   
<option value='Option 1'>Option 1</option>   
<option value='Option 2'>Option 2</option>   
<option value='Option 3'>Option 3</option>   
<option value='Option 4'>Option 4</option>   
</select>   
  
<p><label for='a_textarea'>Textarea   
<br><textarea name='a_textarea' id='a_textarea' rows='5' cols='55'></textarea></label></p>   
  
<input type='submit' value='Submit'>   
</form>  

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Accessibility is a hot topic these days and I will say, when it comes to design, it does limit your options. Color schemes need to have a lot of contrast. It's a good thing though, because there are tools to check your pages to make sure they're accessible by everyone, which is really the goal. The main tool that I use is the WAVE extension for Google Chrome (http://wave.webaim.org/extension/). With this tool installed, you can even check pages that require you to login first, because the tool runs from your local machine. Install this tool and check some of your web pages.

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Copy KirksSampleSite.zip to your web space and tweak it to make it your own. Change the color scheme and the menu and, of course, the content to your own interest. This is a sample site to show you how to create a whole site, and not just a page. You need to fill it up with something that is of interest to you. Make it yours. Have a peer evaluate it. Have your parents or friends use it and tell you what they think. Are there any typo's? Does it look different enough from the original to know that it's yours? Do you have an appropriate amount of content? Good luck and have fun.

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 PHP is a popular general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited to web development.  It is very powerful and is widely used.  Up to now, all of our content has been static, which means you typed something, saved it, and viewed it on the web.  With PHP, you will begin to use dynamically created content.  You can type something like:   
  
<?php   
echo date('Ymd');   
?>   
  
on your web page and when you view it you'll see today's date in year month day format.  

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 PHP needs to be installed on your website.  At Miami, it's already been installed.  To create a new PHP document, you can just copy an existing document and change the extension to php.  You can begin and end PHP multiple times in the document if you want to, or you can wrap the whole thing in PHP.  To begin PHP type '<?php' and to end PHP type '?>'.  When you're in PHP, you can still create HTML by using 'echo'.  The following will say 'Hello World':   
  
<?php   
echo 'Hello World';   
?>   
  
Now let's put that in bold:   
  
<?php   
echo '<b>Hello World</b>';   
?>   
  
Now let's make it a header:   
  
<?php   
echo '<h1>Hello World</h1>';   
?>   
  
Now let's make a list:   
  
<?php   
echo '<ul><li>John<li>Bob<li>Bill<li>Rick<li>Steve</ul>';   
?>   
  
Here's the same list a few different ways, all with different code formatting but with the same HTML formatting:   
  
<?php   
  echo '<ul>   
        <li>John   
        <li>Bob   
        <li>Bill   
        <li>Rick   
        <li>Steve   
        </ul>   
       ';   
?>   
  
  
or   
  
  
<?php   
  echo '<ul>   
          <li>John</li>   
          <li>Bob</li>   
          <li>Bill</li>   
          <li>Rick</li>   
          <li>Steve</li>   
        </ul>   
       ';   
?>   
  
  
or   
  
  
<?php   
  echo '<ul>';   
  echo '  <li>John</li>';   
  echo '  <li>Bob</li>';   
  echo '  <li>Bill</li>';   
  echo '  <li>Rick</li>';   
  echo '  <li>Steve</li>';   
  echo '</ul>';   
?>   
  
  
or   
  
  
<?php   
  echo '<ul>';   
  echo '  <li>John</li>';   
  echo '  <li>Bob</li>';   
  echo '  <li>Bill</li>';   
  echo '  <li>Rick</li>';   
  echo '  <li>Steve</li>';   
  echo '</ul>';   
?>   
  
Here's a loop to show you some of the power of PHP.   
  
$ThisManyRounds=3;   
for($round=1;$round<=$ThisManyRounds;$round++){   
  if($round==1){$Topic='American Literature';}   
  if($round==2){$Topic='Mathematics';}   
  if($round==3){$Topic='World History';}   
  echo $round.') '.$Topic.'<br>';   
}   
  
See if you can change the loop to show the dates of the last 180 days in the following format:   
Day of the Week, Month-Day-Year   
Good luck.   
  
Here's code to get you started:   
$ShowThisManyDays=30;   
for($day=-10;$day<=$ShowThisManyDays;$day++){   
  $TheDay=date('F m-d-Y, l',   
               mktime(0,   
                      0,   
                      0,   
                      date('m'),   
                      (date('d')+$day),   
                      date('Y')   
                     )   
              );   
  echo $TheDay.'<br>';   
}