PHP Understood!

I finally figured out PHP. The main issue I kept having was being unable to get any text to appear at all. Using the php command inside Terminal really helped find a few simple syntax errors I could detect without it. I didn't realize how loose php was for a scripting language and that it was literally embedded into code. My php code previously was before the entire html document so nothing would show up and I would only be able to see the text through terminal. The second solution I had to a problem was changing the value of each radio button. Previously I had them as the age range but then it occurred that I could just store them like an array with 0,1,2 for the values.

PHP hates me

I was unable to get the PHP script running, to be honest I'm not sure what my problem was. I was unsure as to process radio button data so I switch the format to a drop down menu because I thought it would be easier. At frst I could get text to appear using the echo command, but after tinkering around for an hour I couldn;t et it to appear with CSS, or without it. My code is posted below:
$age and $name are from the form page but it's strange that the first line of code won't even show on the screen even though there's no arguments to make it not work. I'm flabbergasted by this new and strange language, I looked up multiple tutorials on http://www.tizag.com/phpT/forms.php including:

forms and php
if statements

Overall I have failed at PHP and it's frustrating because it does not seem a very difficult structured language like Action-Script 3.0 which I already know.





$age = $_POST['age'];
$name = $_POST['name'];


echo "Congratulations".$name" you have passed the first test";

if ($age == "0-18")
{
echo "You are too young to be a member!";
}

if ($age == "18-65")
{
echo "Pay your standard dues!!";
}

if ($age == "65+")
{
echo "You get a 10% discount!";
}

?>

CSS Poem format

During this in class I realized the importance of background images.I googled image serached "city aerial" to get the background image. At first I tried to have two seperate images, one for the city and one for the transparent box to house the text in. But instead by taking the photo into photohsop I was able to adjust the image and mask it to give it to the desired look and feel.

I also had trouble thinking that in CSS language I thought font-family was an attribute for css language. I looked up CSS font formatting at http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS1#color, and found that it was the color that was the attribute I was looking for. This improved the legibility dramatically.

I also had trouble centering my main division. I again referenced the internet and found http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS1#margin and found that I had to implement "margin:auto" to properly center the image even on scalign of the window.

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I also found the html validator insides dreamweaver was an excellent tool or validating my webpage.

It was a lesson in the importance of properly implementing background images.

The poem can be found here: CSS Formateed Poem

Zen Garden Critques

Kyle Beikirch and I looked at several Zen Garden CSS designs. Among all of them, my favorite design was the old theater, I felt that this design was the most successful in engaging me and in creating the most realistic virtual space. I was also impressed with the scrolling being contained withing the main divisions. At first we didn't believe it was done with divisions, and viewed the source code to see if frames had been used- they weren't. The sublet stylistic elements of the chairs and stage were very convincing. The only right and left stage graphics seem a bit jagged, and the top seems to simple and vector to be a true recreation of an old theater. Another good small detail is the static within the main division, to give the feel of an old spotty projection. The typography on the actual website is hard to read, and I feel that it could have been positioned better, but solely judging the CSS layout I feel that it is overall successful.

The designed that I did not like was the CSS layout entitled "A walk in the Garden". The Top Image and the overall color scheme is well done. However my main problem is the verticalness of the website. Personally when I go to a website I find scrolling down to be a chore, in this website the entire website is hidden below the original window, which weakens it. Personally I just get impatient and get immedieatly frustrated with the site itself.

CSS rediscovered!

I hadn't used a seperate CSS file since IMM, but after looking over the actual code I found it very easy to apply it to my html file. Using this as a basis it should be fairly easy to adapt this to any number of customizable styles. At first I had trouble getting the columns to all appear, and I kept getting a second column appearing above the header. The problem was I had accidentally created two right columns so it was creating a second one above the first. I fixed this by just creating blank copies of each column: rightcolumn, rightmiddle, leftcolumn, leftmiddle.

The two scripts I used were the time script at the bottom of the page, and the drop down menu for a list of links. In the link-menu I changed the links to show my work, and I also included a link to an in progress flash portfolio that I uploaded to the gibson server now that I learned how to get in via terminal from my home computer.

CSS Home Site

At first my website was just simple text, but after the in class explanation I added a bit of CSS to it to give it a better look and feel. I hadn't used CSS very extensively and didn't really see the overall benefit until the correlation between styles and classes were made. It makes it easy to create a solid unified style by defining styles. I'm excited at the prospect of only having to carefully code a ew style elements then apply those to divisions.

I found the w3 tutorial really helpful in understanding CSS conceptually. (http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp)

First Assignment

I hadn't used html in a while and it was very unfamiliar. I had to revalidate several times to iron out my syntax errors. I had the most trouble getting the text to show up in the body, the problem was that I had forgotten to place the text with an "p" "/p" tag and kept getting validation errors as a result. Overall with the in class linux excerise I feel it was a good review of previous Intro to Multimedia skills.

HTML Recipe

XHTML Recipe