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In article <ggl0a2$a70$>,
"Nik Coughlin" <> wrote:

> > Step 1: find a good book which teaches the basics well.
>
> Does anyone have any recommendations? I have a heap of books but none of
> them are aimed at the beginner.
>
> I've looked at a couple but they (the authors) were pillocks.
>

Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML
By Elisabeth Freeman, Eric Freeman

Cascading Style Sheets
By Lie & Bos

might be the go.

--
dorayme

On 27 Nov, 00:00, "Nik Coughlin" <nrkn....@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have 3-4 days to teach a graphic designer as much as possible about HTML
> and CSS

* Where to find the GOOD tutorials and the accurate references
* The right principles and mindset.
* Fluid design and accessibility

* HTML
** Semantic HTML
** Validation for consistency
** Needs for and priniciples of accessibility
** Cool URIs. Why they don't change, why RESTful coding and meaningful
URLs are so important to a usable and indexable site.

* CSS
** Minor set of CSS properties
** CSS syntax & stylesheet organisation
** Cascade, how to structure around it, and good HTML markup styles to
ease doing this
** Fluid design: needs, principles, and how different approaches
change behaviour on resize
** Text sizing & units
** Box model
** Need to add HTML elements to a document for purely presentational
"hooks"
** Get your stinking hands off my browser: Why it's not your choice of
window size or font size
** Porting a <table>
** Implementing a PSD, and how to start chopping a rough layout into
the largest content units to achieve good fluid behaviours
** Why PSD-design is evil. Crayons on paper, no more!


Really this ought to be up on wikibooks...

Andy Dingley schrieb:

> Really this ought to be up on wikibooks...

wiki sucks

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed "Nik Coughlin"
<> writing in news:ggknu8$vu9$:

> I have 3-4 days to teach a graphic designer as much as possible about
> HTML and CSS - obviously not long enough, but I should be able to
> teach them enough to feel comfortable taking it from there themselves,
> yes?
>
> Does anyone have any further suggestions or advice?
>
> Is this too much for 3-4 days, if so what would you cut?
>
> Am I forgetting anything important?
>

1. A link to the W3C HTML and CSS specifications, with a quick lesson in
how to read it.
2. A good text editor. Check to see that your student isn't going to
unlearn everything by using a bad editor.
3. Firefox and Firebug for debugging


--
Adrienne Boswell at Home
Arbpen Web Site Design Services
http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
Please respond to the group so others can share

On Nov 27, 12:00*am, Nik Coughlin wrote:
> This is what I'm thinking:
> .....
> Turning a PSD into an HTML/CSS layout (this is very important to them) - how
> to build a fluid design from a fixed size PSD
> ....
> Am I forgetting anything important?

You could give some examples of PSD features easy
to transform into HTML + CSS,
and others that are difficult.
For example a layout with oblique edges can require a lot
of time and effort to transform to HTML+CSS, and the resulting
files would be large, etc., while a layout with square edges is
much simpler to transform to HTML+CSS, etc.
Or text fonts: elaborate fonts for text might not be supported by a
web browser when transformed to text in an HTML page, etc.
Probably the moral of this would be that it is a good idea
for a graphic designer to have a few Photoshop alternatives
for the graphical representation of a web page,
some of them easy to transform to HTML+CSS.
And for this your course will have to show the importance
of basic principles of HTML+CSS,
like separating presentation from content, or
accessibility to people with disabilities (or to people that use
text-only browsers, mobile phones), etc.

"dorayme" <> wrote in message
news:doraymeRidThis-...
> In article <ggl0a2$a70$>,
> "Nik Coughlin" <> wrote:
>
>> > Step 1: find a good book which teaches the basics well.
>>
>> Does anyone have any recommendations? I have a heap of books but none of
>> them are aimed at the beginner.
>>
>> I've looked at a couple but they (the authors) were pillocks.
>>
>
> Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML
> By Elisabeth Freeman, Eric Freeman

A copy is finding its way into my hot little hands shortly

> Cascading Style Sheets
> By Lie & Bos

I'll look into it, thanks

"Andy Dingley" <> wrote in message
news:58d6fcf2-2807-4b2c-a73d-...
> On 27 Nov, 00:00, "Nik Coughlin" <nrkn....@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I have 3-4 days to teach a graphic designer as much as possible about
>> HTML
>> and CSS
>
> * Where to find the GOOD tutorials and the accurate references
> * The right principles and mindset.
> * Fluid design and accessibility
>
> * HTML
> ** Semantic HTML
> ** Validation for consistency
> ** Needs for and priniciples of accessibility
> ** Cool URIs. Why they don't change, why RESTful coding and meaningful
> URLs are so important to a usable and indexable site.
>
> * CSS
> ** Minor set of CSS properties
> ** CSS syntax & stylesheet organisation
> ** Cascade, how to structure around it, and good HTML markup styles to
> ease doing this
> ** Fluid design: needs, principles, and how different approaches
> change behaviour on resize
> ** Text sizing & units
> ** Box model
> ** Need to add HTML elements to a document for purely presentational
> "hooks"
> ** Get your stinking hands off my browser: Why it's not your choice of
> window size or font size
> ** Porting a <table>
> ** Implementing a PSD, and how to start chopping a rough layout into
> the largest content units to achieve good fluid behaviours
> ** Why PSD-design is evil. Crayons on paper, no more!
>
>
> Really this ought to be up on wikibooks...

Yes. Yes it should. Thanks for your input, it's very much along the lines
I was already thinking

It's grown to 3-4 designers instead of one. I'm getting paid enough to put
some reasonable preparation into it, will certainly consider putting the
work I do somewhere under a CC license, but I may not have time enough to
clean it up to the degree where I'd feel happy turning it loose

"Jan Faerber" <> wrote in message
news:492ea17a$0$2622$ .telekom.at...
> Andy Dingley schrieb:
>
>> Really this ought to be up on wikibooks...
>
> wiki sucks

Why?

"Adrienne Boswell" <> wrote in message
news:Xns9B63745E052FBarbpenyahoocom@69.16.185.250. ..
> Gazing into my crystal ball I observed "Nik Coughlin"
> <> writing in news:ggknu8$vu9$:
>
>> I have 3-4 days to teach a graphic designer as much as possible about
>> HTML and CSS - obviously not long enough, but I should be able to
>> teach them enough to feel comfortable taking it from there themselves,
>> yes?
>>
>> Does anyone have any further suggestions or advice?
>>
>> Is this too much for 3-4 days, if so what would you cut?
>>
>> Am I forgetting anything important?
>>
>
> 1. A link to the W3C HTML and CSS specifications, with a quick lesson in
> how to read it.

I hate the way that they're written, it's horrible. But yes.

> 2. A good text editor. Check to see that your student isn't going to
> unlearn everything by using a bad editor.

Agreed. Will probably go with Notepad++ as it's what I'm most familiar with

> 3. Firefox and Firebug for debugging

Again, agreed

> <> wrote in message
> news:3bf9c9d5-f51b-4e95-a67e-...
> On Nov 27, 12:00 am, Nik Coughlin wrote:
> > This is what I'm thinking:
> > .....
> > Turning a PSD into an HTML/CSS layout (this is very important to them) -
> > how
> > to build a fluid design from a fixed size PSD
> > ....
> > Am I forgetting anything important?
>
> You could give some examples of PSD features easy
> to transform into HTML + CSS,
> and others that are difficult.
> For example a layout with oblique edges can require a lot
> of time and effort to transform to HTML+CSS, and the resulting
> files would be large, etc., while a layout with square edges is
> much simpler to transform to HTML+CSS, etc.
> Or text fonts: elaborate fonts for text might not be supported by a
> web browser when transformed to text in an HTML page, etc.
> Probably the moral of this would be that it is a good idea
> for a graphic designer to have a few Photoshop alternatives
> for the graphical representation of a web page,
> some of them easy to transform to HTML+CSS.
> And for this your course will have to show the importance
> of basic principles of HTML+CSS,
> like separating presentation from content, or
> accessibility to people with disabilities (or to people that use
> text-only browsers, mobile phones), etc.

Yes. Especially for someone coming from a graphic design background, this
is important.