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Monday, June 22, 2009 Making Peace With The Alphabet Gods by Nanette  The ones named CSS and PHP, that is. Oh, we’ll toss in HTML and DHTML as well, but even now I’ll have nothing to do with MySQL. (Let us just hope my database is not struck dead out of pique.) I have a lot of plans for Human Beams but I’ve realized that one holdup has always been that there are many necessary things that I just don’t know how to do, particularly when it comes to the guts of the site, Expression Engine, and how things work. And I should, even if someone else comes along to do them. Thankfully, arin (of arinsattic.com - friend, Expression Engine CMS expert and web designer extraordinaire - you need a site designed, redesigned, or a simple or elaborate CMS set up, go to her, she’ll take care of you) set things up for me here in a way that allows me to change things whenever I want to with a minimum of fuss or knowledge but I still sometimes hit roadblocks. When it comes to changing the CSS I mostly just poke and prod blindly, figuring eventually I’ll hit the right combination to make it do what I want. And I usually do, eventually. What’s really fun is figuring out how to fix all the things I messed up in the process. Also, because of the way I work (very scattershot - new ideas every other day, plans, plans and more plans) I need to know what I am doing and even more, what I am asking others to do, what all it entails. So, to that end this summer I am going to reach out, to the best of my ability, to the alphabet gods and study them, learn them and become, if not expert, at least proficient. And I’m going to do it all right here, in public, flub ups and all. It might be boring to some (including me!) but I figure there are probably others out there who either know nothing at all, or just enough to be dangerous and would maybe like to follow along - plus, I am more likely to not only keep going but attempt to do well if I am putting all my work on public display. I would love to promise that all this will occur in an orderly and sensible fashion, step 1 to step 2 and so on but, well… I need to change things up from time to time so it’ll more likely be just whatever captures my interest for the day. Anyway, since we use Expression Engine (EE), most of the actual structure stuff will relate to that, including the PHP language (I am not sure how interchangeable that is with other software). There is a free Core version available, should you want to try it out. Even though I do know bits and pieces of how to do things, I’m going to start with the basics, the nuts and bolts and go from there. There are, for some reason, not all that many EE tutorials but one free one I have found which will suit my needs perfectly is at Train-ee - Building a Small Business Site. He also has other free and fee tutorials there, but I’m not going to look at them yet - don’t want to get distracted so soon ;). For the CSS I am going to default to my old friend the Web Developers Virtual Library (WDVL), which is where - many, many moons ago - I first learned HTML and other web development stuff. I never learned it as well as I should have, because I discovered WYSIWYG, but that’s not their fault and they have just a huge selection of tutorials and such there, to start with and also move on with, including links to other tutorials. I am going to go through their CSS section and see which would be best to start with. So, anyway, this is my summer (if all goes as planned). Part of it, anyway. I am also going to use this time to build up contacts and partners for future Human Beams plans, to have everything in place and ready to go by mid September, explaining what I am doing as it goes along. One reason for that is so that people who are attracted to the vision of what we are doing and going to be doing will consider donating time and/or money to support it. More on all of this later - our first lesson is soon! |
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