Post #5: My Last Class Assignment as a Dominican Student

            The final assignment for this class is to create a series of three web pages in HTML for a library. I decided to use the contents of a webpage from the library where I work, and add 2 pages of my own. With a few exceptions, I succeeded in accomplishing what I set out to do.

            I missed day one of the last weekend class session, which proved to be a bit of an impediment. While I understood the concept of HTML pretty well, I didn’t fully understand the application of tables. Since I wanted my main webpage to have one main column with a background color, and one smaller side column without borders, I made two separate tables. Problem was I only wanted to span 70% of the screen, so the columns didn’t meet up in the middle 70% of the screen. I’m willing to bet there was a simple solution, but I spent the next 2 freakin’ days working on the thing, so I’m pretty sure I missed it. It didn’t help that I had made separate rows for each line of data in the tables. When I finally realized that all I needed was a 2 cell, 1 row table, I was torn between feeling stupid and just not caring anymore.

            I rallied though, and the concept of table application crept in. Along with various web sites, I was getting most of my information from HTML, XHTML & CSS, by Elizabeth Castro, who advocates the use of CSS style sheets for controlling the appearance of the page. I managed to stay away from HTML formatting not widely supported, and was able to create a very brief external style sheet. Still, I don’t fully understand how to define my selectors (although I sound kind of smart using techie terms like that). I applied styles locally when it made sense, but I look forward to learning about constructing selectors in our last class session.

            I really enjoyed designing my web pages, and I can’t wait to slip something into a conversation about “writing code.”