Postion is not how you spell position. I thought I would note that fact as a public service at the top of this post for those finding it at google via “css postion”, “postion available”, “cursor postion”, or any other misspelled phrase using the word postion. I do not condone, nor support the use of the word postion. Bad postion may lead to several side-effects, including headache, nausea, and swelling of the proboscis. Use postion with care. Hopefully this paragraph will move up in it’s search engine postion and prevent future misspelling of the actual word: Position.
Ok, I’m satisfied now. Back to the post.
Things are off to a good start with my new job. I’m learning a lot about CVS, OSX, and Command Line Unix that I didn’t know before. I was working on a logo for a custom motorcycle company yesterday and today I was excited today to get started on a XHTML layout for a new site.
Since they already have an approved storyboard for the site that defines the basic layout, I took a different approach to the project than my usual “Photoshop it up, and break it down into XHTML” approach. Instead, I’ve coded out the basic layout without touching Photoshop, and I’ll go back in and design the content images and backgrounds after it’s done.
In doing so, I’ve run into a problem that has plagued me since I first started with CSS. The word “position”. I can’t spell it. Unless I’m conciously aware that position is “p-o-s-i-t-i-o-n”, I’ll skip the first i and spell it “postion”. For the 5 times I used the position property in the css of this project, I initially spelled it wrong 3 of those times. At one point, I kept bouncing between the browser and the code wondering what went wrong. I felt really dumb after all that…until I Googled “postion”. There are over 695,000 misspelled instances of the word position. There was even a sponsored link titled “Light w/3 Postion Switch”. Thanks Google! I feel much better now.
How is a storyboard different from a wireframe? I’ve never heard of a storyboard being used in webdesign. Please share, if possible.
A storyboard IS basically a wireframe. We start with a Flowmap which we build in OmniGraffle that is part flow chart, part sitemap that just defines the site hierarchy. We then move on to the storyboard (also created with OmniGraffle) which, in my opinion, is like a less detailed version of JSM’s Gray Box Method (…a wireframe). Once that is approved, we do a Photoshop comp and then on to the site design.
Good luck with your new job!
About the wrong spelling of “position”, don’t you use a program that colors the syntax for you?
I’ve been using Dreamweaver lately for writing my xhtml/css, and it does syntax highlighting and even offers a dropdown of options after I’ve entered a valid css property, but somehow I still get it wrong. So what’re you guys writing your css in these days?
I always use Programmers Notepad, a free editor which you can find at http://www.pnotepad.org.
That looks cool… On my PC, I’ve completely replaced the Windows Notepad with Notepad2. It’s actually a crazy task because Windows will restore notepad.exe if you try to change it. Silly Micro$oft.
I’m doing most of the work for my new job on a mac though, so I won’t be able to use Programmers Notepad. BBEdit is a good text editor, but I still prefer (Adobe?) Dreamweaver over it for some reason.
Hi Jason,
I’m designing a website using CSS layout for the first time. I have a simple design which is wrapped in a #container centered on screen. I want all of the site’s content to display within one section (window) of the main design.
My question is:
If the site’s content in made up of div #layers, what need is there to navagate to separate HTML pages? I was told on a Macromedia forum that it would be a nightmare to have a single home page with all your content as #layers… But how else would you do it if you didn’t want the main site container (design) to be reloading every time you navigated? ( I just want the content window to change, with no visual “hicup” of the main header image/navbar/etc)… Any help would be much appreciated!
JL
Although I haven’t ever created a site like that where all the content exists as layers on one page, I know it has been done. If you really want to make that work, you just need to google up or write a bit of javascript to swap out either the visibility or the z-position of the layers, similar to the way old school javascript image swapping works. That visual “hicup” is the reason frames and iframes exist, but I wouldn’t go that route unless it was absolutely necessary. Best of luck, and feel free to post a link when you get it working.
@ Jason:
I feel your pain. I wish the W3C would just ante up and make “postion” an actual keyword, along with “maring” and “realtive”. For a text-editor, TopStyle Pro is my app of choice.
@James:
If you want to reload content without refreshing, you may want to consider Flash as an alternative. Switching layer visibility would be Javascript dependent, which would mean that any user with JS disabled is out of luck.
I chuckled at the post:
I have helped a few British friends with css. I always have to “run away” from the discussion of American (trash to a Brit) English and British (“down rot goofeh” to an American) English. They Brit’s always want to bitch about the prejudice of the W3C in not using the spelling “colour”. I get grief as well from American friends for spellings like “harbour” so go figure, “you say potato I say pohtahtow” and my aunty takes a “bahth” every evening!
Glad to see the (off topic) sub-thread, question of what others are using as text editors for writing CSS. I now have a few devout converts to notetab pro. It does not seem like such a much until you start to play with editing and creating your own “clips”