Tim “Invented the Web” Berners-Lee on a way to evolve HTML without the abrupt disorienting changes characterized by the switch the XHTML: Reinventing HTML | Decentralized Information Group (DIG) Breadcrumbs
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Check out this Folder tree with Drag and Drop capabilities based on unordered list tags.
Austin Govella explains why Rapid prototyping tools should NOT generate code:
Why would you need the prototyping tool to generate production code? Is there something about the code they would generate that would make it better than the custom code most applications require? Does the rapid prototyper’s code generator let me tell it how to generate the code, so it codes the way I need it to?
Kaliya “Identity Woman” Hamlin writes:
Webwide distributed SSO is finally happening… Learn more from the core guys behind this emerging standard for user-centric digital identity. August 10th 6-9 in Berkeley at 2029 University, Upstairs. RSVP to me kaliya (at) Mac (dot) com and please pass this along to those who might be interested… OpenID is the emerging standard for web wide distributed single sign-on. It works with OpenID enabled URLs and i-names. The goal of the evening is not to geek out on identity but to connect with developers working on applications that require users to log in. Find out more about what it is… how it works… how you can install it. The incentives to learn are high with the $5000 bounty for having OpenID in Open Source projects. Presenting and answering Questions:If you know a developer - pass the word along.
- David Recordon formerly of Live Journal/Six Appart now of Verisign will be presenting a bit about the origins of OpenID but most importantly how it works… and how you install it.
- Andy Dale from ooTao will talk a bit about i-names and how they work with OpenID2 and looking forward to what comes next after authentication - profile sharing. ooTao is also data sharing, are running ibroker services.
- Scott Keveton from Jan Rain a development shop in Portland that has been ond of the leading instigators of OpenID. He just posted a walk through on his blog.
- Mary Hodder CEO of Dabble will talk about the work happening around the development of itags.
Perhaps the vision of a universal single sign-on on the Web isn’t just a utopian pipedream after all?
(Reposted from The Power of Many.)
Microformats are standards-compliant structures based primarily on ordinary XHTML tag attributes (such as “rel=” in a link tag). The Knowledge@Wharton website features an excellent interview with Tantek ‚elik and Rohit Khare explaining the concept further.
Prototype is “a JavaScript framework that aims to ease development of dynamic web applications,” sporting an “easy-to-use toolkit for class-driven development and the nicest Ajax library around.”
Ruby on Rails features integrated Prototype support, the famous script.aculo.us library is built on Prototype (but I curse Joshua Schachter for ever starting that ridi.culo.us URL trend), Rico offers Ajax components and effects built on Prototype, and so on.
At the Blue Flavor blog, Nick Finck casts another vote for making XHTML wireframes. I have to admit I find this idea appealing. Granted (and he grants this himself), it may not be the right approach for every client, but the prospect of creating blueprints and schematics that don’t get thrown away after they’re approved but that actually help give the web developers a leg up, is mighty appealing:
So why? Why would we want to do XHTML wireframes? Wouldn’t it take more time to do them in XHTML than it would in Visio or something? Well, yes and no. Yes, you would have to code the XHTML, but that would need to be done at some point anyway. Yes it may seem like it’s slower to create wireframes in XHTML but once you have done your first website using this method a lot of the same markup can be repurposed especially when it comes to navigation and various methods of displaying information on a page like multi-column lists and so forth. In the end it’s actually more efficient to be building wireframes in XHTML and even navigation schemas because you can see exactly how it works and you only spend the energy necessary to create it once, not twice (once in Visio and once in XHTML).
(via Thomas Vander Wal)
Today (April 05, 2006) has officially been earmarked as CSS Naked Day. The aim of this project is to promote web standards by showing the world what each site looks like sans markup. Those who sign up for the project agree to remove all CSS styling from their website for that day. The result is well, a site without a style sheet.
Shimone just sent this guide to printing sections of a web page around to our developers’ list with the comment, “You know this is going to come up.”
Panelists
- Aaron Gustafson: Sr Web Designer/Dev, Easy! Designs LLC
- Ed Shull: CEO, USWeb (Web marketing)
- Eric Meyer: Complex Spiral Consulting, Standards Nazi
- Andy Hagans: works in SEO, blogs at Performancing.com
white hat vs. black hat SEO
Shull:
- cloaking (visible only to search engine)
- linkspamming
- comment spamming
- hiding tables in javascript to make the content show up higher in results (“cheating?”)
Meyer:
- blackhat is anyone who’s cheating
- sneaky techniques… at least grayhatting
- I’m asked too speak at search engine conferences for reasons I don’t understand. At one
- I was spammed in person on the conference floor
Hagans: As an SEO I make it my business to know all the weapons in the arsenal. Search engines are getting smarter, so the business case for blackhat getting weaker. I don’t like to get into the moral argument… its gets kind of old.
Professional SEO involves regular testing and writing software. In the long run blackhat doesn’t make sense: you’ll get caught and penalized. Accessibility and web standards = whitehat SEO already.
Copywriting and SEO
Gustafson: Good content for the page, semantic markup all help.
Shull: We work with a lot of publishers (example: Forbes). Copy is the thing. Every title on their page said “Forbes.com.” They were excited to learn they could change it, but they just wanted “Forbes.com: The capitalist tool.” We got them to put the article names up there.
When the Hummer H3 coming out, we let our clients know about search terms coming up in their space. The Forbes article title was “Baby Hummer” which didn’t help them with “Hummer H3.” Instead of “Martha Stewart Goes to Prison,” “Stewart Goes to Prison” [so we had to get them to use better descriptive titles on the web pages].
Meyer: The role of copywriting is to get people to like the site and link to it.
Hagans: I agree: being linkable more important than the code. Re copywriting, you need to understand usability, accessibility, and SEO as well as marketing. Use alt text. Don’t use “click here.”
Meyer: The alt attribute is important. Title is most often used for snarky comments.
Hagans: Linking algorithms have killed most of the old tricks. Using common structural elements: h1, good link anchors are the most important things.
Question: Better to use h1 for name of site or page/article title? Answer: The title.
Descriptive page titles, good navigation, good anchor text
Someone (I forget who): Personally, I love site maps. another way to make sure every page on your site has a link into it
Google allows you to upload an xml version of your sitemap.
Microformats
Meyer: Microformats have a whole lot of potential, not yet a lot of payoff. One example, link rel=”license”, Yahoo has a Creative Commons search that looks for that rel attribute/value.
In the works: hresume. Would enable, for example, a search among resumes of people Jeffrey Zeldman regards as friends
Shull: You can use SEO as a way to sell web standards.
Hagans: Getting to 508 helps, but after that you don’t get much. Still, it’s important to get the low-hanging fruit.
Question: Clients view SEO as a different project. How do you explain to them that it’s inherent in good web design? Answer: Educate them.
Mention of Matt Cutts, Google search engineer who outs black hats on his blog.
For today’s daily Ajax news I recommend Scot Hacker’s notes from a panel I wasn’t able to attend yesterday.
A discussion on a BayCHI mailing list led an Oracle UI engineer to post a link to these user interface guidelines. They present a fascinating look at a meticulously documented set of user-interface standards. The documentation specifies overarching standards, page elements, page-type templates, and numerous process flows. The description of partial page rendering provides a great deal of detail and guidance without ever once mention the A**x word.
On the downside, the actual web page titles are fairly cryptic. Isn’t there a standard for that?
Here are today’s Ajax links:
This concludes the daily Ajax.
Stu Nicholls has created a little web-native video game powered by CSS. It’s maddening, though. I can’t seem to win.
Yahoo! has really taken it to the next level in terms of reaching out to the developer community. As I mentioned earlier, there’s the new User Interface Blog and I coincidentally stumbled on the Graded Browser Support article around the same time.
Digging deeper I found the Design Pattern Library which Yahoo! defines as “an optimal solution to a common problem within a specific context”. The pattern library describes a problem and the best approach to undestanding and solving it.
Current examples include: auto-complete, breadcrumbs, drag and drop modules, module tabs, navigation tabs, object pagination, search pagination, object ratings, and writing a review.
The examples are sectioned into: when to use, the solution, the rationale, and accessibility. A sidebar includes links to related patterns, where Yahoo! has applied it to their own sites, a related blog article, and code examples.
Coupling the Pattern Libraries are the UI Libraries with in-depth examples and BSD-licensed code available for download.
These libraries are shaping up to be an essential resource for developers and designers alike!
Yahoo! Design Pattern Library Yahoo! UI Library
Nate Koechley, Senior Web Developer for Yahoo! has written an interesting (if a bit high-level) article on what he’s calling “graded browser support”. Instead of using the more commong “graceful degradation” approach, Nate looks at browser support using a graded system.
The system puts browsers into 3 seperate categories based on their distribution.
See the article for more information. The graded chart will make a lot more sense after reading it.
Yahoo! Developer Network: Graded Browser Support Yahoo! Developer Network: Browser Grade Chart
