Revision as of 23:19, 21 August 2006

Course Introduction

Introductions

Introductions of instructor and students in course.

Overview of Course

Required Texts

HTML for the World Wide Web with XHTML and CSS by Elizabeth Castro, ISBN: 0321130073, February 2003 - 5th edition (abbreviated as XHTML in the syllabus)

The Zen of CSS Design: Visual Enlightenment for the Web by Dave Shea and Molly E. Holzschlag, ISBN: 0321303474, 2005 (abbreviated as ZEN in the syllabus)

Highly Recommended Texts

Excerpts from these texts will be given as handouts

Information Architecture for the World Wide Web by Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville, ISBN: 0596000359 (abbreviated as IA in the syllabus)

Pause & Effect: The Art of Interactive Narrative by Mark S. Meadows, ISBN: 0735711712 (abbreviated as PE in the syllabus)

Login Accounts

To use the computers and studios in the Interactive Arts and Media department, you must first have an account with our servers. If you do not have a login account, please fill out the New Account Form.

Website Contracts

You must have a website on our servers for this course. Once you have an account, you can apply for a website by filling out the website contract form. Print the form, fill it out, and submit it to your instructor or Jeff Meyers.

Contact Information Forms

Print and fill out the Contact Information form. Return the completed form to your instructor.

Overview of Syllabus

Walkthrough of syllabus

Questions about Syllabus

Introduction to Website Construction

Introduction

1. Broad context of HTML/XHTML/CSS/XML
2. WYSIWYG editors (such as Dreamweaver) vs. using a text editor

About the Web

1. Brief history of the Internet
2. Internet vs. WWW
3. Evolution of markup - where it came from, where it is going.

Vocabulary

1. Internet
2. WWW
3. FTP
4. Browsers
5. Servers
6. IP address
7. URL

Definitions

Markup

HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is a set of directions that instructs another program (a "user agent" or "browser") to structure content.

Resources and Software

1. Note about available resources at Columbia
   1. Server space (IAM)
2. Recommendations
   1. Text editors (HTMLkit, SCITE)
   2. Image editors (GIMP, Photoshop, ImageReady)
   3. FTP applications (WinSCP, FileZilla)
   4. Server spaces
   5. Domain name services
   6. Redirecting to your site

Quick Overview

HTML Authoring (pdf)

XHTML + CSS

1. Justification: content extracted from presentation
2. Justification II: HTML vs XHTML
3. Basic XHTML/CSS doc formats
4. Single page construction
   1. Basic text editing SCiTE Text Wrangler
   2. Links
   3. Lists
   4. Images
   5. Tables (with caveat)
5. 5. Multiple page construction
   1. Linking between pages
   2. Organizing site structure (and files)
   3. Basic navigation system

Posting to a server, testing

Links

Text Editors

• PC/Linux: SCiTE
• OSX: Text Wrangler

FTP Programs

• PC: Filezilla and winSCP
• OSX Cyberduck

Markup

HTML Authoring (pdf)

Homework

• Create Class Portfolio Website AIM Homework Create Class Website AIM Project 1:Create Class Website
• [AIM Assignment 1] - Web site analysis project

Reading

Self Review

Quick test to review important points from today