[Helpers] Hello

Thu Apr 14 23:45:46 PDT 2005

At 04:20 PM 4/14/2005, you wrote:
>Hello everyone! This is Sachiko.
>
>I just realize the Mystress put the post on the Tea room about web
>help.

   I've just realized... from your post, that there were emails to this 
list I wasn't getting! I just collected them from the archives.

>I've talked with Mystress about my web skills, but I'm going to list
>it up again.
>
>I was once working as web designer... I did a lot of Flash animation
>at that time, but I can of course work on regular html site.

    Flash, wooo.... there is much flash I would love! Once upon a day I 
started doing an anim about aspects of consciousness... never finished 
because it was too big for an anim and I'm not flash capable.

>I host two web site on my own in PHP with MySql data base.
>
>I don't write PHP, Java script, CGI (except html )from scratch, but
>I can understand them to the point where I can alter them.

   Yeah, I can cut and paste a cgi or javascript but I don't really know 
how they work.

>Since I have my own stuff to work right now, I'll pass on the less
>technical stuff.... But I can help with the stuff that PHP chat
>setting (which is very easy to do) and backend stuff that we talked
>about before.

   Yes please!

>It seems like most of us do not have web design experience at all or
>little, so I maybe able to help helpers help Mystress.

  Yay thank you!

>Here you go!
>
>I have read helpers achieve and so some question that I talked with
>Mystress before, so I'll tell you what I remember.
>
>Sandra said:
>>One of the main questions would be what operating system do you
>>use to do your updates? and what program do you use to
>>edit your webpages?
>
>I don't know what operating system Mystress use (I'm assuming it's
>windows) and I forgot which software she said she is using to
>edit....lol

   yup windows xp. I use homesite 4 for most editing, and arachnophilia 
when I need to compare the code for two pages side by side. The server is 
Unix. I use photoshop5 for graphics, but I find paintshop pro has better 
compression, so I run them all through there to get web ready. I also use 
the image slicer and image mapping features of PSP.

>The point is,,,,, it doesn't really matter which operating system you
>or any of us use. It could be windows or Mac or any thing as long as
>the file format and extension is the same.
>
>For example, if the file that you are going to alter is called
>"fst.html" then you will be editing with notepad or any other
>web design software that is available to you. I use Macromedia
>Dreamweaver.
>
>I don't recommend using Microsoft front page. That software adds
>bunch of sh*t tags on the page and very very messy. It is almost
>better to use simple note pad and type everything by hand....

    Yes, or arachnopilia, it is careware. Free but be extra nice to people 
for a day.
   Download it here:
http://www.arachnoid.com/arachnophilia/
I use the pre-java, legacy version but it probably doesn't matter.
http://www.arachnoid.com/arachnophilia/index_old.html

>Any software that you'll be using will add some extra tags here and
>there compare with do it all by hand,

  Arachnophilia won't.

>but if it's clean enough then
>software save some time. If it 's too messy, then it's almost faster
>to just create a new file than cleaning up the mess.

    Yes. The problem I have had in the past is with people using front 
page, or some other program that either adds extra code or changes the line 
breaks.

   Periodically I will need to do some global update with search and 
replace... like when Virtual space bailed and I had to change their link on 
every page, or when I gave up on updating the links on each page and added 
a link to one links page that has them all... Homesite search and replace 
is very specific. If I ask to search for
1234567
it will, but if it finds
1234
567
or
123 45  67
it skips over them, some pages get changed and others don't.  If the line 
breaks and spaces change, then it won't read it as the same... let alone, 
if frontpage or some other program has changed it to read as
123<br>4567

    With FST it is not too bad, but K gateway is about 32,000 pages.
   The good thing is, there is usually a space between the text stuff of a 
page, and the main parts of the code. Volunteers will be mostly working 
with the text content, I think? We shall see!

>Almost every tag has to open and close. ex. <p>test</p>

   Except that one! I don't use closing paragraph tags. You may note that I 
was using two or three nonbreaking spaces to indent... that was before I 
learned the proper way to code indents into my style sheets.

>Next things that you need to match is the encoding. below is the
>this helpers list achieve encoding.
><META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
>
>This tag define the charactor and language of the page. If it's set,
>then when the page is loaded, it will be shown in the language of the
>charactor set.  You do NOT want to change the "charset" of the file.
>
>I just checked the FST page, but it doesn't have meta tag for
>charset... Which I recommend to set one all through the web site.

  It doesn't have one because I dunno which one to use! My webdesign is 
completely self taught.
  In 1996, before I had ever surfed the web I got frustrated with people 
flaking on making a page for me, to advertise my pro-dom work. I borrowed a 
computer and bought the "Idiot's guide to HTML."
    In a month I learned to use the computer, and designed my first 
multi-page website, then I got an internet account. Did not see the point 
of having one before the site was ready! LOL!! I had no idea...

   Each year since I have learned some small skill, like basic cgi, or 
stylesheets, or fancier tables, forms, server side includes. I did try to 
discover my charset once and it just confused me, because it seems I am 
using several versions of html.

>Sandra said:
>>I'm currently using a computer with windows
>>running on it, and it looks to me that you mainly use either Unix or
>>a Linux flavor (but I could be wrong).
>
>I remember that Mystress told me her server is Linux, but I don't
>know what she use at home.... Which shouldn't really matter as far
>as updating the site.....

   For the most part it doesn't matter, except... unix filenames are case 
sensitive, windows are not. My old biz partner used a windows server for 
the vids, mixed case for the filenames and I have been gradually converting 
them to all lower case... which is standard for unix.

>Sandra said:
>>I frankly do not know if the operating system has to be the same
>>for all parties to update webpages.
>
>It doesn't have to be the same. It just there is little difference
>between Windows and Mac when it comes down to imaging.
>
>When you are working with GIF image, there are only 216 colors out
>of 246 colors are the same color in Windows and Mac. So, if you use
>those 40 different colors, either platform will try to match the color
>with whatever it has, which creates dithering.

  yup. Generally speaking, gif is for text images and jpg is for photos or 
art.

>I don't think it is the big issue here in FST web site since image is not
>the first priority.

   Right. Thanks, Sachiko!

>Sachiko
>
>
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