SiteCrafting

Got API?

An API reference does a method's body good...

gotAPI.com is one of the most useful online resources I've come across, primarily because it places resources spread all over the internet into one simple site. I've been using this for quite some time, and have for the most part I have taken its usefulness for granted. Then it occurred to me that I might not be the only one that could find this tool useful (I know, it was a big 'DUH!' moment). So now I will share this gem with others...

Read more

Comments (1) | Posted in ASP.NET 2.0, CSS, From the Workbench, Javascript, MS SQL Server, MySQL, PHP, Review, Software Engineering, XHTML by Nick Williams

Mar. 12, 2007 at 10:27am

Cleaner forms through collapsible textareas

More form, less space

Some really large forms can be a bit of an eyesore especially to the people filling them out. One thing that always bothered me was how bulbous most textareas had to be just to make enough room for a user to feel they could type what they needed. So I set out to figure a good way to clean up my forms a bit while still allowing the multi-line input of textareas.

Comments (3) | Posted in Coding Techniques, CSS, XHTML by Kevin Freitas

Jan. 18, 2007 at 12:03pm

Email newsletters in Outlook 2007

One thing that we frequently build in conjunction with new websites is a tool for sending out email newsletters. For the most part, we stick to XHTML/CSS and try to stay away from using "old" layout techniques (i.e. tables) for the newsletters. This allows the greatest flexibility between the large number of email clients (e.g. Outlook, AOL, Yahoo!, Eudora, Thunderbird, Pine, etc.). Businesses love being able to quickly communicate with their customers, and email newsletters are a great way to do this. But things are changing, and if you use HTML newsletters, you'll need to make some changes too.

Comments (0) | Posted in CSS, Marketing, XHTML by Mike Ash

Nov. 1, 2006 at 9:16am

Bulletproof HTML Critique

I ran across a neat article from Sitepoint via Stylegala that you all should read on how to make your HTML 'perfect'. In the world of design, the concept of perfect is non-existant. There is no solution that will work for solving every problem, and there are exceptions to every rule. This article is no different. Read the full article, and then check out my comments.
Read more

Comments (3) | Posted in Critiques, CSS, Design, Javascript, XHTML by Dave Poole

Oct. 18, 2006 at 10:46am

Navigation Nightmare pt. 1

Something no developer wants to see...

foreach ($left_elements AS $le) { ?> <table class="leftnav_<?=$le['class']?>"> <tr> <td class="leftnav_<?=$le['class']?>"> <a href="<?=$le['target']?>" class="<?=$le['theme']?>"><?=$le['name']?></a> </td> </tr> </table> <? }

Nobody wants to see that. Especially not seven different times with seven tiny variants covering seven different if conditions.

Each higher 'class' number is a deeper indentation. Apparently it's necessary for this class identification to be repeated for the table, table cell and link. Converting this to a nested list format (part of my current task) is going to be an adventure.

Well... at least it's indented nicely.

Comments (3) | Posted in Coding Techniques, CSS, XHTML by Joe Izenman

Oct. 13, 2006 at 4:56pm

Into the Nested Table Abyss

At least it's clean code!

While I was taking some time to evaluate a 3rd-party application for a customer I took a peak at their site's HTML. I was pretty shocked when I found some very strictly organized code that contained gobs of nested tables. At one count I found a structure that was 10 tables deep! I suppose since enjoying creating clean mark-up and mostly table-less designs for the last few years I've forgotten my roots.
Read more

Comments (2) | Posted in Coding Techniques, CSS, XHTML by Kevin Freitas