Need Help With CSS and Designing

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1

I want to redo my tumblr blog but it requires css and i kinda suck at CSS.
http://strawberricurls.tumblr.com

I was reading something on the net about it but after awhile, all the information started to get kind of hazy.

If you guys could just tell me where i need to start off and what i need to do, i would greatly appreciate it. Thanks

2

It’s not just JavaScript that has issues, the HTML section has deprecated code. While some of their stuff is fine, I would never recommend the site to a beginner who cannot determine the difference between what’s up-to-date and good to go and what’s junk that’ll teach them bad habits. Strong statement yes, but justified. :slight_smile:

3

First off, welcome to SP, Gelizzy. You’re in the right place to learn what you’re looking for. :slight_smile:

The conversation has moved past some of the initial info, but let me go back to the recommendation to use Dreamweaver, etc. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with using DW or other such WYSIWYG editors, but they are much more of a “quick and dirty” approach to crafting Web pages, stylesheets, and so forth. If you want to learn it right, you have to learn it by hand-coding. That means Notepad (or Notepad++, a far better option if you’re a Windows user), some books and online tutorials, and a good bit of patience and perseverance. And a willingness to ask seemingly “stupid” questions in these forums – we’ve all asked them, we’re not going to mock you mercilessly for asking something that an expert should know.

You might even try the tutorial site in my sig.

4

That seems like a bit of a strong statement. I’ll take your word for the JS since I’ve never used it, but some of their stuff is still good. True, best practices have changed, but not all of their stuff is junk.

Although, now that you mention it I did use some PHP they had their and it didn’t work.

5

Great CSS books are right here. I learnt from this book. I like the way the book is broken down into questions. How do a bold text?, How do I make a three column layout?, How do I make a horiztonal navigation? I still refer to it all the time.

6

My first css book was from sitepoint “Build your own Web Site the right way” by Ian lloyd and do a search on google for zencss, it is an eye opener.

7

Gotcha. =) Yea, there is a lot of deprecated stuff on W3Schools, no doubt about that. I think part of the reason they still list all of it is because not everyone’s trying to use the latest standards, which is bad, but your points are all valid.

Google’s feelings regarding W3C are pretty interesting.

I’ve got a site that’s still XHTML 1.0 transitional but it’s not supposed to be too fancy so that’s why.

8

Well W3Schools JavaScript stuff is notoriously poorly produced and seriously outdated and generally obtrusive and they still list deprecated HTML code which shouldn’t be found in ANY website (to name two). While some things may not have changed, best practices have. :slight_smile:

9

SitePoint’s stuff is really good. =) It’s neater and easier to understand in some respects than the stuff on W3Schools.

I must question, though… certain things haven’t changed so I’m not sure what’s out of date… Unless you mean support for HTML5 and CSS3 is weak, although neither of these will likely be adopted via the mainstream for a while since Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8 will likely be around for a while. Internet Explorer 9, knowing Microsoft, will probably have weak support.

Anyway, to the original poster, here are some Free Webmaster Tools. Amaya is a pretty useful WYSIWYG W3C compliant editor. It might help you out with your CSS a bit if you’re struggling.

10

I recommend you check out SitePoint’s CSS reference at the top of this page, it contains a huge array of information on what everything does in CSS. A good book like something in the Head First (HTML and CSS) range or something like CSS Mastery would give you the right start you need too. :slight_smile:

PS: Don’t trust anything you read on W3Schools, the information is severely out of date!

11

Here are some good places to start learning about CSS:

HTML Dog
W3Schools

And here’s the website of a really advanced CSS expert:
http://meyerweb.com/

12

Multiple classes may be given to one element, whereas with ID’s, an individual element may only have one. Also, one may have as many instances of a class in a file as they wish, but an ID must only occur once within a single file. Here’s a simple piece of code that shows where each is commonly used.



<html>
<head></head>
<body>

<div id="wrapper">
  <div id="header">
    <h1 class="green underlined">Hi There!</h1>
  </div>
  <div id="content">
    <p class="first somethingelse">Lorem ipsum dolor...</p>
    <p class="somethingelse">Lorem ipsum dolor...</p>
    <p class="somethingelse">Lorem ipsum dolor...</p>
    <p class="last somethingelse">
      <span class="firstword">Lorem<span> ipsum dolor...
    </p>
  </div>
</div>

</body>
</html>

Hope this helps!

13

I acutally tried that but the layout didn’t show up like i expected it to in the editor. I have microsoft expressions at the current moment

14

Ok so i started reading up on it and i have a question. What’s the difference , in CSS, between an ID and a Class? Can’t you use either or? What makes them different?

15

I actually would like to start from scratch to be honest because i don’t think i want that layout

16

Hey There,

First you have to check if they have a good CSS editor on their site or ask assistance with the administrator. then if you can download the theme and try pimping it using your prepared editor. Mine I used Dreaweaver 8.0

One more you have to check if the theme you chose can be editable or else you can do nothing. By I assume that it can be. So start changing the designs on homepage, body, wrapper if it has one.

Hope that could help :slight_smile: