| Travaux STAF |
Oooofff,... so that was the first period of my studies STAF. First thing I noticed is that
one quickly revises one's work habits. On the other hand, I am very satisfied with my
progress made within this relatively short time considering that I have been breaking
new ground.
I read in the homework instructions that one is not to supposed to spend days on the
creation of the internet page. But that is actually what I did and what I notice my
fellow students doing. Why? It was simply fun and even as a grown-up I enjoy the pleasure
of easy-to-attain results, the immediate response and the visible impact on the design
even on little modification in HTML programming.
Since I spent most the time available with the construction of the homepage, it is simply
fair that this task receives my most attention in the following review.
Objective:
When I started out, I had nothing else in my mind but understanding the algorithm and
technical features of HTML programming language, picking up some basic knowledge in CSS,
and setting up a simple homepage. My emphasize was on exploring the technical possibilities
rather than on aesthetic aspects.
Conceptual aspects:
I took several aspects into account that appeared imperative to me. [quote] "Simplicity
should be the goal of the design. Users are rarely on a site to enjoy the design,
instead they prefer to focus on the content", is a key statement I jotted down while
browsing in some of the books written by Jakob Nielsen and Donald A. Norman. I kept text
paragraphs short and concise and avoided heavy decoration that may irritate the visitor.
Instead, the access to the content of this page, namely links is highlighted in the middle
in order to easily find one's way through the page. Having that thought in mind, I
individualized the links on the hypertext pages in order to avoid a HOME link on the
frontpage and so on. As well I imputed that the visitor does not want to switch to CV being
on the page 'Travaux STAF'.
Overall, the hypertext pages follow a consistent design (color, character type) and took
into account that other browsers than Netscape 4.7 and IE may interprete the HTML-file
differently. That is why I chose a dark color for the text and used a light color as
background. The background color is actually to please more the eye than default white.
Technical aspects:
It was the first time that I got in touch with HTML. So, reviewing my past four weeks, I
need to conclude that this task gave me a hard time until I found the magnificent
'W3Schools' internetpage which perfectly guided me throughout the setup of my personal
homepage. It helped me to realize most of my ideas in HTML and later on in CSS. I more or
less copied and pasted the general algorithm like those of a table, list, style sheedt.
I am truly grateful of their presence in the internet.
My intention was to become familiar with the language code and therefore I used 'Bloc note'
to write and edit my files. Yet, I did not take advantage of CLARIS, WEBEXPERT, or XEMACS
for this task but certainly will do so in the future when it comes to programming.
Remarks:
My homepage is certainly a compromise between the time available and personal capabilities
in the programming languages which exponentially expanded during the course of the past
two weeks. Overall, I spent a good amount of time trying to understand the language
algorithm. The aspect of learning HTML and CSS stood in the foreground. When the style gains
complexity, I will certainly define my style elements in a separate file. As well I will
clearly define the directory path of those files that are attached to HREF-tags. This
renders double copying of files into other directories redundant and thus saves storage
space (unfortunately, I did not suceed in last-minute).
In brief, it will be interesting to look back on this first accomplishment while
progressively diving into the topic of edcuational technologies.
Reference:
Objective:
Personalisation of the base file and adjustment of the style to the one of the
personal homepage.
Results:
I modified the colors and the character type to those used in the homepage to follow a
consistent design. This was done in Xemacs. In order to understand the algorithm in XML,
W3Schools again provided good help. However, I would not yet be able to program in XML.
Although I did understand that XML is a more sophisticated programming language, it is
also more complex and not so easy to understand as it is HTML and CSS.
Objective:
Setting up an identity, a virtual character that reflects myself, and a personal room in
TecfaMOO that allows meetings.
Results:
As per request I created an identity "Calvin" whose description refects my major interests
and a room "Calvin's home" that allows virtuel meetings. A description is also visible. I
added a notice which gives personal information and can be read by visitors.
Very few command were basically necessary to accomplish this task.
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