beginner web site maintainer

P

patricci

I accepted responsibility for maintaining unico-tc.com based on the
premise the previous web master would teach me. That did not happen. a
consultant did convert the site to new web site and I struggled along
till I got rid of my Mac and returned to windows7.
I decided to try sea monkey since I love tbird and firefox.
Things were ok for a while and then I do not know what I daid and I
lost headers and type colors on a few pages.
I have not touched it since then as I am afraid to mess it up more.
I have asked club for support $ and got OK for $80.
Now how do I find someone to help me?
I think the structure is complicated side bars and stuff repeated on
all pages etc.
The original site uses css and I have no clue.
Help please.
 
T

TK

I accepted responsibility for maintaining unico-tc.com based on the
premise the previous web master would teach me. That did not happen. a
consultant did convert the site to new web site and I struggled along
till I got rid of my Mac and returned to windows7.
I decided to try sea monkey since I love tbird and firefox.
Things were ok for a while and then I do not know what I daid and I
lost headers and type colors on a few pages.
I have not touched it since then as I am afraid to mess it up more.
I have asked club for support $ and got OK for $80.
Now how do I find someone to help me?
I think the structure is complicated side bars and stuff repeated on
all pages etc.
The original site uses css and I have no clue.
Help please.
Either use a text editor like bluefish found at
http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/download.htmlto compare the pages or print
out the page that works and one that does not and compare them line by
line. The missing masthead pieces are looking for the image in the
wrong directory (should be images/ on one page it is membership_files/,
one is events_files/).

When you do not know what you are doing you have to be more careful.
Copy a file to a safe place *before* you do anything to it. Change
everything in one version and upload it, review it - if it blew up,
upload the safe copy and start over.

As I see it you have two choices, buy HTML for the World Wide Web by
Elisabeth Castro and Eric Meyer on CSS (both available cheap at
Amazon.com) and get to work, or admit you are in over your head and bail
out.
 
I

idle

I accepted responsibility for maintaining unico-tc.com based on the
premise the previous web master would teach me. That did not happen. a
consultant did convert the site to new web site and I struggled along
till I got rid of my Mac and returned to windows7.
I decided to try sea monkey since I love tbird and firefox.
Things were ok for a while and then I do not know what I daid and I
lost headers and type colors on a few pages.
I have not touched it since then as I am afraid to mess it up more.
I have asked club for support $ and got OK for $80.
Now how do I find someone to help me?
I think the structure is complicated side bars and stuff repeated on
all pages etc.
The original site uses css and I have no clue.
Help please.

You could post an url so some ppl could give you a heads up on where to
start.
 
C

C A Upsdell

On 9-7-2011 17:08, idle wrote:
You could post an url so some ppl could give you a heads up on where to
start.
Something like this [http://www.unico-tc.com/] ?

That page has numerous HTML and CSS errors, which will make it harder
for you to maintain the site. See:

http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http://www.unico-tc.com/

http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator?profile=css21&warning=0&uri=http://www.unico-tc.com/

Fixing the errors will give you a better understanding of HTML, CSS, and
the challenge you are facing.
 
R

richard

I accepted responsibility for maintaining unico-tc.com based on the
premise the previous web master would teach me. That did not happen. a
consultant did convert the site to new web site and I struggled along
till I got rid of my Mac and returned to windows7.
I decided to try sea monkey since I love tbird and firefox.
Things were ok for a while and then I do not know what I daid and I
lost headers and type colors on a few pages.
I have not touched it since then as I am afraid to mess it up more.
I have asked club for support $ and got OK for $80.
Now how do I find someone to help me?
I think the structure is complicated side bars and stuff repeated on
all pages etc.
The original site uses css and I have no clue.
Help please.

If you know nothing about coding, why did you accept the challenge?

http://validator.w3.org/

start here. Paste the url in and find your errors.
Obviously, the previous person didn't or there wouldn't be as many errors.
Most of which could be eliminated by changing the document type.

There are a number of very good free editors available.
While seamonkey may suit some, I find it rather crude.

One thing odd I noted was, there is a table data cell which contains
elements of a new web page? This is not acceptable by any means.
While the info may display, it's just a sign of poor coding.

First step in correcting things is to remove the blasted tables.
Learn how to properly use "div" and "ul".

CSS is your friend. It's not that difficult to learn.
 
P

picayunish

On 9-7-2011 17:08, idle wrote:
You could post an url so some ppl could give you a heads up on where to
start.
Something like this [http://www.unico-tc.com/] ?

That page has numerous HTML and CSS errors, which will make it harder
for you to maintain the site. See:

http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http://www.unico-tc.com/


http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator?profile=css21&warning=0&uri=http://www.unico-tc.com/


Fixing the errors will give you a better understanding of HTML, CSS, and
the challenge you are facing.

I'll be highlighting some of the errors.
Add above the <!DOCTYPE... e.g.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding"ISO-8859-1"?> and remove the content-type
meta in the <head>.

In each <BR> tag add "/" before ">" character.

Little bit strange to have 2 pages in 1 html page. Especially for a
non-frame page.


Mine advise to you Patricci.
Study first html and css at e.g. http://www.w3schools.com/ before you
start to maintain the website.

Already mentioned by Richard to use css (style sheets) instead of width,
font, border, etc. in the html pages.

Google for a contact forms. That way you reduce spam into you mailbox ;-)
Instead of using a mailto function at the bottom of the page.
Ask your previous web master what the server script language is (php,
asp or perl). This can be handy for using contact form processing for
sending an email message.
 
B

Beauregard T. Shagnasty

picayunish said:
I'll be highlighting some of the errors.
Add above the <!DOCTYPE... e.g.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding"ISO-8859-1"?> and remove the content-type
meta in the <head>.

In each <BR> tag add "/" before ">" character.

Should we be telling the OP that Transitional is for, well,
transitioning? (oh, I guess he is.) I'd recommend 4.01 Strict myself.
Little bit strange to have 2 pages in 1 html page. Especially for a
non-frame page.

This may be the reason. :)
<meta name="Generator"
content="Internet Assistant for Word Version 3.0">
Mine advise to you Patricci.
Study first html and css at e.g. http://www.w3schools.com/ before you
start to maintain the website.

I believe I am not alone in this group when I say that recommending
w3schools is a Bad Ideaâ„¢ due to the many errors they try to teach.
Remember, they are not related to the W3C in any form.

Try this oft-recommended tutorial: http://htmldog.com/
 
N

Neil Gould

patricci said:
I accepted responsibility for maintaining unico-tc.com based on the
premise the previous web master would teach me. That did not happen. a
consultant did convert the site to new web site and I struggled along
till I got rid of my Mac and returned to windows7.
I decided to try sea monkey since I love tbird and firefox.
Things were ok for a while and then I do not know what I daid and I
lost headers and type colors on a few pages.
I have not touched it since then as I am afraid to mess it up more.
I have asked club for support $ and got OK for $80.
Now how do I find someone to help me?
I think the structure is complicated side bars and stuff repeated on
all pages etc.
The original site uses css and I have no clue.
Help please.
No problem... put on a helmet and your flameproof jammies and hang around
here for a while! ;-)

Seriously, some have recommended reading up on HTML and CSS coding, and
while that is generally good advice, it really is best suited to those
committed to writing code. It's hard to recommend the best study materials
since a lot depends on your learning style and what you already know. Not
that you'll fix your site's problems without doing a good bit of study, but
be prepared for a steep learning curve.

Once you're underway, you'll have to figure out what the original
webmaster's design objective was, whether it was on-target for the
organization, and why s/he did things that way. Chances are that it would be
easier to extract the content start from scratch on the code. At least you
would know why the choices you make are what they are.
 
D

dorayme

picayunish said:
You could post an url so some ppl could give you a heads up on where to
start.

Something like this [http://www.unico-tc.com/] ?

If you could only do one or two simple things quickly, the
biggest improvement that could be achieved would be to *delete
completely* all lines that give line-height and all lines that
give font-size. See for yourself.
 
I

idle

unico-tc.com

Got that after really reading the original post ;)
Advice? If you really don't know anything, it may be best to use a
solution to tidy it all up until you put in the many hours needed to
learn html, php, css and a few other abbreviations ;)
http://wordpress.org/
You could install a wordpress instance and setup pages like a CMS. With
WP, you easily admin it with a WYSIWYG admin GUI that's a no brainer to
learn.
What you've got now, header, 3column layout, footer, can be found in a
ton of free wordpress themes you can install and then customize.
With a day or two of learning, you could have the whole thing fixed,
then jump into picking up everything else you need to make what you want
as the final version.

2cents
 
A

Adrienne Boswell

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed patricci
I accepted responsibility for maintaining unico-tc.com based on the
premise the previous web master would teach me. That did not happen. a
consultant did convert the site to new web site and I struggled along
till I got rid of my Mac and returned to windows7.
I decided to try sea monkey since I love tbird and firefox.
Things were ok for a while and then I do not know what I daid and I
lost headers and type colors on a few pages.
I have not touched it since then as I am afraid to mess it up more.
I have asked club for support $ and got OK for $80.
Now how do I find someone to help me?
I think the structure is complicated side bars and stuff repeated on
all pages etc.
The original site uses css and I have no clue.
Help please.

I see that this site might be using server side includes - that's a good
thing. I am assuming that the header, side navigations and footer are
all include files. That's a good thing, makes things easier.

You might want to try a plain text editor. Although it seems a lot more
confusing, once you realize what you are looking at, fixing things is
MUCH easier. Many plain text editors come with something called Tidy,
and you can run Tidy, especially to clean up the stuff that Microsoft
left behind, things like MsoNormal, and can also upgrade you to CSS, and
give suggestions to fix other problems. Personally, I like HTML-Kit
<http://chami.com/html-kit/>, and for your level I would suggest 292, as
Tools might be a little to difficult for you at this stage.

The other thing I would suggest, is to get away from XHTML and use HTML,
right now, you could use the Transitional doctype, and have to fix only
11 errors. Your pages are in transition right now, so that would be
appropriate. When you feel more confident, you can start using CSS for
presentation, and upgrade to HTML Strict. (I think the W3 made a mistake
calling it strict, strict is a frightening word, "no frills" or "plain"
might have been better.)
 
D

dorayme

Adrienne Boswell said:
Gazing into my crystal ball I observed patricci


... upgrade to HTML Strict. (I think the W3 made a mistake
calling it strict, strict is a frightening word, "no frills" or "plain"
might have been better.)

Yes, not a bad idea Adrienne! "Simple" too would draw in the
crowds.

I repeat my advice to the OP but modify the means by which he
should change it: get someone - plead or bribe the previous
webmaster to do this one thing: remove all lines in the css that
go "font-size: ..." and especially "font-height: ...". Making it
strict, making it valid, no one at all will notice. Removing the
font rules, everyone will notice an improvement in readability
and looks.
 
J

Jukka K. Korpela

Yes, not a bad idea Adrienne! "Simple" too would draw in the
crowds.

Using "Strict" has a long tradition. Even HTML 2.0 had a "Strict"
version, characterized as "the more structurally rigid definition of
HTML". It was described very loosely (pun intended) in the HTML 2.0
specification prose, so to check out what it really meant, you had to
look at the SGML code (and few people knew how to read it). In fact,
even I haven't checked it out, in spite of working with HTML since the
early 1990s and having read and written a few books on it. :)

Out of curiosity, I did so now. Here's what HTML 2.0 Strict meant, in
comparison to HTML 2.0 in the usual sense:

1) A link (<a ...>...</a>) may contain only text-level markup. "Normal"
HTML 2.0 allowed headings too.

2) The <body> element must not directly contain text-level markup,
except <img> elements. Other text must be wrapped in a block container.
So this is similar to the Strict version of HTML 4.01, except for the
<img> issue.

3) The <nextid> element is not allowed (it was an obscure tag that had
become pointless).

Not much, is it? At that time, there was no issue with presentational
markup, because HTML 2.0 mostly had no such thing (though people had
started using some structural elements presentationally, e.g.
<blockquote> for indentation).

The Strict version of HTML 4.01 is basically a combination of two ideas:
the idea that all text should appear in block-level containers (as in
HTML 2.0 Strict but in a stronger sense), and the idea that
presentational markup is bad. Neither idea was applied strictly (pun
intended). Neither idea is particularly brilliant, though it might be
appropriate to say that presentational markup be avoided unless it is
clearly the best way to achieve a goal, given the current status of
support to alternative methods (i.e., CSS).
I repeat my advice to the OP but modify the means by which he
should change it: get someone - plead or bribe the previous
webmaster to do this one thing: remove all lines in the css that
go "font-size: ..." and especially "font-height: ...". Making it
strict, making it valid, no one at all will notice. Removing the
font rules, everyone will notice an improvement in readability
and looks.

I'm afraid the site http://unico-tc.com is so poorly designed that
"fixing" it is a vast job, much bigger than redesigning it along simple
no-nonsense principles. Using Comic Sans, in red color, in copy text on
the main page says it all, or more than I'd care to know.

There is strong evidence for the site having been written and maintained
using DreamWeaver. Whether this connection can be broken depends on what
features are used on the pages. Without a careful study, I would not
recommend trying to maintain it with any other software.

So the OP needs DreamWeaver and a crash course in using it. (It will
cost "a bit" more than $80.) Failing that, it is appropriate to give up
- according to the description, the promise was made under certain
assumptions, so it's best treated as a conditional promise.

It is generally unproductive to "fix" broken design or convert existing
pages from, say, tagsoup pretending to be XHTML 4.01 Transitional into
HTML 4.01 Strict (which is being phased out in favor of HTML5). There is
hardly anything to be won by "cleaning up" the code but a lot one can
lose, like the functionality of the site. Remember that fixing things
always breaks things - even the best people make mistakes, and computers
make their contribution too. (You might fix something if something is
really broken, in a manner that matters, and you know how to fix it, and
you will test things well. But general clean-up is something quite
different.)
 
D

dorayme

Jukka K. Korpela said:
....

The Strict version of HTML 4.01 is basically a combination of two ideas:
the idea that all text should appear in block-level containers (as in
HTML 2.0 Strict but in a stronger sense), and the idea that
presentational markup is bad. Neither idea was applied strictly (pun
intended). Neither idea is particularly brilliant, though it might be
appropriate to say that presentational markup be avoided unless it is
clearly the best way to achieve a goal, given the current status of
support to alternative methods (i.e., CSS).

"Strict" is appropriately descriptive considering the central
facts you describe. Adrienne's point was a public relations one.
<g>

About presentational markup, it is at least a *good* idea to
separate content from presentation, much as it is to make a basic
distinction between what are private matters from what are public
matters. As to how brilliant these ideas are, it depends in part
on how obvious they were before they were articulated by anyone.
Both ideas face difficulties in their implementations. I suppose
I would tend to think of them as brilliant because I have this
slight fear (being that I am so modest) not thinking of them all
by myself.
I'm afraid the site http://unico-tc.com is so poorly designed that
"fixing" it is a vast job, much bigger than redesigning it along simple
no-nonsense principles.

Yes, so next to giving up or making a huge effort, relieving the
suffering of users with the simplest measures is at least
something to do. I confess that on my desk, it just looked much
better with the change I mentioned. At the very least, remove
line-height rules or increase them, no need for units.
 
J

Jukka K. Korpela

2011-07-11 10:46, dorayme kirjoitti:
"Strict" is appropriately descriptive considering the central
facts you describe.

My point was that it isn't awfully descriptive - "Strict" is strict just
in the sense of following more strictly some people's ideas of what
constitutes good HTML. Quite a fee strange technical words have been
created just to avoid the words "good" and "bad", in the mistaken
assumption that your taste becomes objective if you assign
objective-sounding words to them.
Adrienne's point was a public relations one.
<g>

Yes I realized that but wanted to comment on the (non)descriptiveness.
As a buzzword, "Strict" doesn't really work that well, but the suggested
"no frills", "plain", and "simple" aren't much betters.

They could have called it Advanced or Next Generation or Cool. Or maybe
they could have called it eXtended HTML, or XHTML for short, or used a
higher versions - oops, they're doing it _now_. :) (XHTML 1.0 has
Transitional and Strict, but many people believe otherwise. HTML5 is
much like HTML 4.01 Strict with a lot of kludgery and some new elements
and attributes.)
About presentational markup, it is at least a *good* idea to
separate content from presentation, much as it is to make a basic
distinction between what are private matters from what are public
matters.

Taken abstractly, we can formulate such principles. The main problem
with the content vs. presentation issue is that it has been promoted,
even with religious fury, before it was feasible to apply it to all aspects.
 
N

Neil Gould

Jukka said:
2011-07-11 10:46, dorayme kirjoitti:


My point was that it isn't awfully descriptive - "Strict" is strict
just
in the sense of following more strictly some people's ideas of what
constitutes good HTML. Quite a fee strange technical words have been
created just to avoid the words "good" and "bad", in the mistaken
assumption that your taste becomes objective if you assign
objective-sounding words to them.
It's been more than a couple of decades since I've written any SGML DTDs,
but if I recall, there were some serious presentational limitations when
sticking with "strict" usage of the existing SGML elements and attributes.
On the other hand, DTDs that deviated from the "standard" (there never was a
"standard", really) could create a hassle for those writing their own DTDs
to interpret existing SGML documents. So, documents written adhering
"strictly" to the SGML structure were sometimes preferred. The more things
change...
Taken abstractly, we can formulate such principles. The main problem
with the content vs. presentation issue is that it has been promoted,
even with religious fury, before it was feasible to apply it to all
aspects.
It still hasn't reached that level of functionality, and the necessary
structural complexity that has made it more widely applicable has the
down-side of being far more cumbersome than proprietary formatting
instruction sets.
 
D

dorayme

Jukka K. Korpela said:
2011-07-11 10:46, dorayme kirjoitti:


My point was that it isn't awfully descriptive - "Strict" is strict just
in the sense of following more strictly some people's ideas of what
constitutes good HTML.

OK, but perhaps the name of Strict, at the time, was in reference
to there being *less latitude* to do various things. You needed
(or were urged) to do more with less in the HTML itself.
Something slightly more objective.
Yes I realized that but wanted to comment on the (non)descriptiveness.
As a buzzword, "Strict" doesn't really work that well, but the suggested
"no frills", "plain", and "simple" aren't much betters.

They could have called it Advanced or Next Generation or Cool...

I recall a version of Basic for Macs that was called FutureBASIC,
here there was no hint of description of any sort really, just a
modernist sounding name. It was *really strict* compared to say
Microsoft QuickBasic for Macs and I missed the slack ways I had
become accustomed to. (QB stopped being useful when Macs started
sporting PowerPC chips). With QB you could get away with blue
murder, I feel sure some monkey colonies in deepest darkest
Africa had a copy and used it to produce programs. I know I made
all sorts of programs that were useful but I would rather be
tortured in an Egyptian prison than let anyone today see the code.
Taken abstractly, we can formulate such principles. The main problem
with the content vs. presentation issue is that it has been promoted,
even with religious fury, before it was feasible to apply it to all aspects.

Sometimes things less than perfect need promoting, so as to have
something better than before. In Australia, after a furious
fight, there looks like there is going to be a carbon tax
convetring to a carbon trading scheme in 2015. The proposed tax
is seriously weak but it is a start of an important structure.
 

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