HTML Writers Guild Newsletter Volume 7 Number 9, 19 June, 2001 http://www.hwg.org/ mailto:editor@hwg.org Table of Contents 1. June Town Hall Meeting 2. Tools of the Trade: Bobby, Accessibility Analyzer 3. Summer Special: 15% discount on HWG's Newsletter Sponsorship! 4. Upcoming Online Classes: Take an HWG Class! 5. HTML Writers Guild Platinum Plus MasterCard 6. Why Did I Get This Email? And Other HWG-News FAQs (How to change your email address, how to unsubscribe, and more.) 1. June Town Hall Meeting: Thursday, June 28th (Fred Barnett, Secretary, secretary@hwg.org) Town Halls are informal affairs, where you can talk to the governing board, ask questions, and generally let your opinions be known in a more public forum than email. We hope to see you there! The details on the June town hall meeting are: 28 June Town Hall Meeting Date: Thursday, 28 June 2001 Time: 6:30 p.m. PST, 9:30 p.m. EST Server: HWG Interactive, http://interact.hwg.org/ IRC: irc.hwg.org, port 6667 Channel: #townhall To connect, either go to the URL above and use the Java-based client available via the web, or use your favorite IRC client and join channel #townhall. 2. Tools of the Trade: Bobby, Accessibility Analyzer (Kynn Bartlett, AWARE Center Director, aware@hwg.org) Accessibility is becoming more and more important as the World Wide Web continues to grow -- we are building the new economy and new society, and we can't afford to leave anyone back, least of all people with disabilities. The Web can be a very powerful enabling tool for those with special needs, allowing a degree of independence and equality which is unprecedented in history. However, through careless web development practices, web authors can throw away that remarkable potential, producing web sites which are inaccessible with the assistive technology devices and software used by people with disabilities. Through lack of awareness or careless programming, accessibility hurdles can be introduced which can render a site unusable. To identify these hurdles and allow web developers to fix them relatively easily, the people at the Center for Advanced Special Technology (CAST) have created a program called Bobby. Bobby is a web page analyzer which reviews your web pages and looks for items, such as missing ALT attributes on images, which can prevent access to your site. In addition to automated checking, Bobby also asks specific questions about your content which can't be answered through automatic tests. These constitute a checklist of issues that need to be addressed, and are based on the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. You can also use Bobby to check the size of your page (including images), compatibility with various browser types, and rough conformance with the HTML specification (for more on this, see last issue's Tools of the Trade on the W3C's HTML validator). Bobby runs as a web service to check pages over the Internet, and can also be downloaded and run as a local Java application to check pages on your local machine or on an Intranet. There is no charge for the service or the software, and you can download or access Bobby at: http://www.cast.org/bobby/ For more about web accessibility, please see the Guild's Accessible Web Authoring Resources and Education Center at http://aware.hwg.org/. 3. Summer Special: Sponsor HWG's Newsletter at 15% off! (Kef Moulton, Executive Director, kef@hwg.org) For a limited time - July and August 2001 - you or your organization can sponsor this newsletter and take advantage of a 15% discount. This discount can be used in conjunction with any other discount already earned. The newsletter is published twice a month and is distributed to all of our members, who number more than 124,000 at this time. The Guild accepts advertisement from companies directly related to the Guild's purpose of serving the web authoring community. More details can be found at http://www.hwg.org/opcenter/newsletters/adrates.html or by contacting Kef at kef@hwg.org 4. Upcoming Online Classes: Take an online class! (Gretchen Lowerison, Online Education Director, classes@hwg.org) Through a web-based interface, we offer a broad series of online classes designed to teach you the skills you need, in a way that fits your busy schedule. Our instructors are your fellow Guild members, chosen for their expertise in their field and their willingness to pass along their experience to you. Upcoming courses you can take during June include: Macromedia Flash Wizardry: A Masters Course Dates: June 25, 2001 - August 5, 2001(6 weeks) http://www.hwg.org/services/classes/a222.7.html During the 6 week course, we will study the more obscure "actions" of Flash that few books dare venture into. We will learn Flash 5's new programming language, its syntax and grammar. We will play with variables to acquire information from objects and carry them over to other objects. We will understand how to create such interactive effects as to have animations change according to the mouse's position and movement. We will combine multiple actions and create our own functions and object classes to create complex effects, etc. Photoshop Level 1 Dates: June 25, 2001 - August 5, 2001(6 weeks) http://www.hwg.org/services/classes/g301.2.html This course is designed for graphic designers, web designers, digital artists and photographers with little or no working knowledge of creating or modifying photographs and graphics for the web or print. Students will gain an understanding of the tools required to create, modify and import (scan) custom images and graphics. Some of the more creative aspects of Photoshop including filters, color management/manipulation, layer manipulation, special effects and actions will be explored as well. ImageReady's web features such as animated gifs, roll-overs and slices will be also explored. Style and design concepts will be discussed throughout the course as well. Advanced Perl Programming Dates: June 25, 2001 - August 5, 2001(6 weeks) http://www.hwg.org/services/classes/p201.1.html This course will cover intermediate and advanced Perl programming concepts, including: CDS (complex data structures) Named parameters Modules DBI (databases) Date and time mod_perl (Apache Perl module) Scope (Variable scoping) OO (object oriented programming) Images (GD, ImageMagik) Other topics based on student interest. Beginning PHP Dates: June 25, 2001 - August 5, 2001 (6 weeks) http://www.hwg.org/services/classes/p171.2.html PHP is a server side, embedded scripting language ideal for web development, database interaction and deployment of dynamic web pages/sites. PHP has enjoyed meteoritic growth in the last two years, January 2001 statistics published by Netcraft show 5.8 Million domains running PHP world wide. In this course you'll jump head first into the nuts and bolts of using PHP for web development - we'll move pretty fast and cover a lot of ground. HTML Level II Dates: June 25, 2001 - August 19, 2001(8 weeks) http://www.hwg.org/services/classes/h102.2.html Ready to go beyond HTML I? HTML I covered the Transitional, or "loose" DTD. This class covers the Strict DTD. You'll learn how to use simple Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) techniques within HTML tags so that you will no longer need to use deprecated (obsolete) tags. This will allow your pages to validate correctly with the Strict DTD. Introduction to JavaScript Dates: June 25, 2001 - August 5, 2001 (6 weeks) http://www.hwg.org/services/classes/p151.15.html Designed for the student with little to no working knowledge of JavaScript. Students will learn JavaScript structure and syntax, how to interact with environment variables, use event handlers, perform form validation, create rollover effects and receive an overview of working with cookies. This is a programming class, but you do not have to have programming experience. This is intended for beginners! Introduction to Cascading Style Sheets Dates: June 25, 2001 - August 5, 2001 (6 weeks) http://www.hwg.org/services/classes/h151.15.html Cascading Style Sheets have become an important component of new W3C recommendations. HTML 4.0 Strict relies on Style Sheets for all stylistic presentation, the Web Accessibility Initiative makes use of CSS for improving access for the disabled, and new work on HTML and XML will continue to make heavy use of CSS for the future. In this course, you will learn the basics of separating style from structure within an HTML document. Start with Cascading Style Sheets Level 1 and then move on into the recently approved Cascading Style Sheets Level 2. Creating Web Graphics with Paint Shop Pro Dates: June 25, 2001 - August 5, 2001 (6 weeks) http://www.hwg.org/services/classes/g201.11.html Most web site developers use graphics to enhance their pages. For many, this means that you must rely on previously created graphics that you download from royalty free sites. But there is another alternative - create your own! Paint Shop Pro is a popular and powerful image editing application that allows you to create and modify graphics for your web pages and other documents. It has been compared to programs like Adobe Photoshop and Corel Draw. This course will focus on creating graphics from scratch as well as modifying existing graphics to achieve a variety of effects through the use of tools, color manipulation, filters, masks and textures. Photoshop Level 1 Dates: July 9, 2001 - August 19, 2001(6 weeks) http://www.hwg.org/services/classes/g301.3.html Photoshop 6.0 and ImageReady 3.0 software package is the industry standard program for creating web graphics and for image manipulation. This course is designed for graphic designers, web designers, digital artists and photographers with little or no working knowledge of creating or modifying photographs and graphics for the web or print. Students will gain an understanding of the tools required to create, modify and import (scan) custom images and graphics. Some of the more creative aspects of Photoshop including filters, color management/manipulation, layer manipulation, special effects and actions will be explored as well. ImageReady's web features such as animated gifs, roll-overs and slices will be also explored. Style and design concepts will be discussed throughout the course as well. Using Macromedia Dreamweaver - Part 1 Dates: July 9, 2001 - August 19, 2001(6 weeks) http://www.hwg.org/services/classes/a131.9.html Designed for the student who wishes to evaluate the Macromedia Dreamweaver web design tool. The publicly available 30 day trial version of Dreamweaver 4 will be available for students to use for this 4 week intensive course. Students may use Dreamweaver 3 or Dreamweaver 4 for the class. Topics will include: site management, visual design, tools for creating tables and forms, implementing style sheets, and adding javascript or behaviors. Business Writing Basics Dates: July 9, 2001 - September 2, 2001(8 weeks) http://www.hwg.org/services/classes/b101.14.html In the perfect world, Web developers have the support of other specialists when building sites -- copywriters, graphic designers, network administrators, and so on. In the real world, we all know this rarely happens. Often, you'll get saddled with creating the whole site, including writing the text content of the pages. This course will help you feel more comfortable with that task. Through an audience-centered approach to business writing, you'll improve your ability to create grammatically correct, readable, informative text. Using online readings and short, focused exercises, you'll learn how to analyze your own writing and where to go to find answers to writing questions. Perhaps most importantly, you'll learn how to make your writing process a collaborative venture, obtaining the investment and input of colleagues and site stakeholders. Advanced Web Writing Dates: July 9, 2001 - September 2, 2001(8 weeks) http://www.hwg.org/services/classes/b201.5.html In this course, students will work intensively on the copy for a web project and get the feedback of fellow students and the instructor. We will review subjective and objective tools for identifying and analyzing the audience for a web site. We'll compare and contrast the advice experts give on writing text for the web, along with a variety of web style guides available. In hands-on workshop sessions, each student will work on the text of a landing page, first-level page, and text-intensive page of a current web project. Each student will develop a house style guide for a web site and design the internal editorial process for updating and maintaining the web site. PHP II - The Cool Stuff Dates: July 16, 2001 - August 26, 2001(6 weeks) http://www.hwg.org/services/classes/p181.1.html Did you survive "Beginning PHP" and want to move to the next level? Are you ready to experiment with and learn some of the external programming interfaces for databases, XML, graphics, mail (IMAP/POP) and networking? We'll spend a couple of weeks on the database interface (MySQL principally) with a little SQL thrown in for good measure (this is *not* a SQL class though) and then move on in topic/workshop fashion building on database concepts but exercising different libraries ABCs of e-Commerce Dates: July 16, 2001 - August 26, 2001(6 weeks) http://www.hwg.org/services/classes/b331.1.html Whether you have a business or want to start one, having a web location just makes sense. Many businesses started with a brochure type website - informational and intended to drive customers to make a call or visit their location. With all the competition of items for sale on the web, there is little reason not to offer it to your customers. Introduction to HTML Dates: July 16, 2001 - August 26, 2001(6 weeks) http://www.hwg.org/services/classes/h101.30.html Designed for the student with little to no working knowledge of creating HTML files "by hand." If you're looking to learn HTML from scratch or move beyond using a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editing tool, this is the class for you. Students will be introduced to the structure of HTML documents, good markup techniques, and the concept of validation. Functional topics will include text formatting, using lists, tables, and an introduction to Cascading Style Sheets. Sites that Sizzle: Web Animation with Macromedia Flash 4/5 Dates: July 16, 2001 - August 26, 2001(6 weeks) http://www.hwg.org/services/classes/h101.30.html Designed for the student with little to no working knowledge of creating HTML files "by hand." If you're looking to learn HTML from scratch or move beyond using a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editing tool, this is the class for you. Students will be introduced to the structure of HTML documents, good markup techniques, and the concept of validation. Functional topics will include text formatting, using lists, tables, and an introduction to Cascading Style Sheets. Get more information at: http://www.hwg.org/services/classes/ COURSE FEES Course fees are based on membership level; Full members receive a discounted tuition price, while Trial members pay the standard price. Full membership is only $40 per year, so upgrade your membership before registering, and save money! Payments may be made online via secure transaction; all figures are in U.S. funds. A certificate of completion is available for an additional $5; the request needs to be made at the time of registration. A certificate can be requested after class is completed for $10. Textbooks (when required) are separate and may be purchased through the Guild's online bookstore, The Bookmark. Books should be purchased before the first week of class! In addition, students should have regular access to the web and the ability to post completed assignments on a public (non-Intranet) web server. 5. HTML Writers Guild Platinum Plus MasterCard (Chris Weiss, Controller, chrisw@hwg.org) Show that you are a Guild Member when you "Charge it"! The HTML Writers Guild offers an Affinity MasterCard, with the Guild's name and logo, through MBNA. Some of our members are already showing their Guild colors by being a part of this program - Thank You! Purchases with your HTML Writers Guild Platinum Plus MasterCard support the Guild each time you use your credit card. Through this special arrangement with MBNA, your normal purchases can earn royalties for the Guild, at no additional cost to you! This special "affinity card" features (but is not limited to): * No Annual Fee * Credit Line up to $100,000 with the Platinum Plus(SM) card * Low Annual Percentage Rate (APR) on Cash Advance Checks and Balance Transfers * Platinum Plus Service 24 hours a day To apply for the HTML Writers Guild Platinum Plus MasterCard, call 1 (800) WEB-APPLY now and use priority code "JTX2", or apply via the web here: http://www.webapply.com/hwg/ Please note that all credit card applications are subject to normal MBNA credit approval processes. At the current time, this offer is only open to U.S. residents. Full details on this offer by MBNA are available here: http://www.webapply.com/hwg/ 6. Why Did I Get This Email? And Other HWG-News FAQs (HWG-News Newsletter Editor, editor@hwg.org) This newsletter was edited by Kef Moulton . Some questions you may be asking: Q: Why did I get this mail? A: You received this newsletter because you are a member of the HTML Writers Guild. This message came from HWG-News, the Guild's mandatory mailing list for all members. If you need more information about HWG-News, please see the List Charter at: http://www.hwg.org/lists/hwg-news/index.html Q. Why doesn't this newsletter talk about web design or HTML more? A. The newsletter is the Guild's administrative bulletin to the membership; beyond the HWG News Tips, we don't include specific information on web creation. If you are interested in the topics of Web design and HTML, then you might want to subscribe to some of our discussion lists devoted to those topics. More information on the Guild's offering of discussion lists can be found at: http://www.hwg.org/lists/mailinglists.html Q. How can I find out more about Guild activities? A. The Guild has set up a one-way announcement list, HWG-Announce, that carries bulletins of day-to-day Guild business. For details on how to subscribe, please see: http://www.hwg.org/lists/hwg-announce/ Q: How do I unsubscribe from HWG-News? A: Since this is a required list in order to maintain your Guild membership, unsubscribing is the same as resigning from the HTML Writers Guild. If you have your Member ID and password, to resign your membership in the Guild and to unsubscribe to HWG-News, visit: http://www.hwg.org/member/resign.html Fill in the pertinent information, and submit it. If you don't have a Member ID, or have forgotten your password, send mail to: lost-password@hwg.org with a Subject of: Resign membership. In the body of the message, provide the following information: * Your email address(es) * Your member ID if you have one. * The list of discussion lists you are on. Please remember that unsubscribing to HWG-News automatically resigns you from the Guild. If you have problems with unsubscribing, please contact the password support team for help. Q: How do I change my email address for Guild mailings? A: Full members can update their membership profile at any time by going to this page: http://www.hwg.org/member/profile.html. If you don't know your password, contact the password support team for help. Trial members can send email to to change their email address. Q: Can my company advertise in the Guild's newsletter? A: Yes; the Guild is offering sponsorship opportunities in HWG-News on a limited basis. If you are interested in advertising your web related product or service here, please send email to advertising@hwg.org. Discounts are available to Guild Business and Corporate members, as well as for multiple placements. The Guild's newsletter reaches over 124,000 web authors worldwide each month. (Note: The Guild does not make our member database available for third party use. We have a strong privacy policy and will not release our members' personal information; our mailing list is not for sale. Any questions regarding the Guild's advertising or privacy policies can be directed to advertising@hwg.org.) Q: What if I want to comment on this newsletter? A: The HWG-News Mailing List is a "Read-Only" list -- please do not try to reply to this message directly. If you wish to contact the editor of this newsletter, you may do so by sending email to editor@hwg.org. Each article begins with the contact information for the author as well. Copyright 2001, HTML Writers Guild, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Published twice monthly via email and WWW.