Style Class, Session #1: Class Intro

[foxfirefey]

Welcome to the DW Styles Class! From the number of people answering the poll, this is going to be a fairly large class, even if a lot of you can't make it. Lurking is, of course, okay! I do want to encourage lurkers to ask questions if they have them, however--you don't have to stay out of sight.

This class is geared around learning by doing. The main project of the class is to create a style of your own! The lessons are tools to help you along the way, so the syllabus is subject to change if I feel we're going over a subject too fast and people need more time to adjust. At the end, I'll have treats for people who share layouts with others at dreamwidthlayouts.

Your mentors are, in no particular order: afuna, ninetydegrees, liv, seleneheart, monarchist, exor674, and, well, me. Mentors are here to help me review lesson plans before they go live and help answer student questions--some are CSS only, others know S2. But! If you know the answer to another student's question, please feel free to help them. We all can work together to learn things.

This class is split up into three "tracks" for different experience levels and goals.

Simplified CSS

Designed for people who want an easier introduction in CSS. It involves making style changes to an existing layout with the base CSS included.

CSS only

Designed for people who want to make a layout from scratch based on existing layout HTML--you can do a lot with just CSS. People might need help with an S2 override or two in order to achieve the effect they really want, but overall the goal is to work with CSS.

S2/CSS

Designed for people who want to be experts in changing both the HTML and CSS of their layout, or building in interesting behaviors. S2 is a programming language and once you know it you'll have few limitations (no JS, some CSS cleaning) in making a style exactly the way you want.

Poll #6596 Original Student Desires and Experience Levels

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 151

View Respondents

My class track will be:

View Answers

Simplified CSS
20 (13.4%)

CSS only
17 (11.4%)

S2/CSS
94 (63.1%)

Observation only
18 (12.1%)

I'm interested in this class because:

View Answers

I want to customize my own style
114 (79.2%)

I want to make styles I can share with others
76 (52.8%)

I want to be able to help others with their styles
56 (38.9%)

It's a good way to learn skills I'm interested in, like HTML/CSS or basic programming concepts.
108 (75.0%)

If you have another interest in this class, what is it?

View Answers

CSS Experience

View Answers

None or very little
47 (31.1%)

Beginner
51 (33.8%)

Experienced
44 (29.1%)

Advanced
9 (6.0%)

HTML Experience

View Answers

None or very little
13 (8.6%)

Beginner
51 (33.8%)

Experienced
69 (45.7%)

Advanced
18 (11.9%)

S2 experience:

View Answers

None or very little
107 (70.9%)

Beginner
35 (23.2%)

Experienced
7 (4.6%)

Advanced
2 (1.3%)

Browsers I use or have access to:

View Answers

Chrome
91 (60.3%)

Firefox 3.x
90 (59.6%)

Firefox 4.x
80 (53.0%)

IE6
10 (6.6%)

IE7
12 (7.9%)

IE8
40 (26.5%)

IE9
38 (25.2%)

Opera
54 (35.8%)

Safari
62 (41.1%)

Mobile browsers/devices
66 (43.7%)

Other
13 (8.6%)

My main browser is:

View Answers

Chrome
26 (17.2%)

Firefox 3.x
56 (37.1%)

Firefox 4.x
44 (29.1%)

IE6
0 (0.0%)

IE7
0 (0.0%)

IE8
1 (0.7%)

IE9
1 (0.7%)

Opera
9 (6.0%)

Safari
9 (6.0%)

Mobile browsers/devices
2 (1.3%)

Other
3 (2.0%)

If you answered "Other" for any of the browser questions, what browser(s)?

View Answers

Alright students, as your first exercise I would like you to:

• Say hi, and greet others! Also ask any questions you would like to know before Friday's class on "S2 Background and the Customization Wizard".
• Fill out this poll--it will help me know who has what experience level, and the different reasons people are taking the course for.
• Think about what you want your style to look like, if you'll be making a style for the course!

And now, I'm going through and checking to make sure that all people who answered the original interest poll and don't already subscribe get a reminder to watch this community (unless they have different methods of keeping track)! Hope to hear from you all!

---

Previous: Syllabus

Comments

[dreamatdrew]

HI, I are Drew.
(Fey youze said to....)
(also, on droll, this are how I tracking...)

[foxfirefey]

I did say so! Hi!

[onyxlynx]

Hi, fellow students! Hi, faculty!

(I don't have questions, mostly because I don't know what the questions would be.)

[foxfirefey]

Hellooooo student! What kind of style tweaks are you looking to make?

[ex_pippin880]

I'm gonna be AFK in May -- catching up (if I have time) when I get back is cool, yeah?

[foxfirefey]

Of course! I think you'll be fine for catch up--it's pretty much all background info until June. If you want I can show you the basic ropes of what I'm planning ahead of time--you know where to find me.

[rhi]

Hi, there. I'm Rhi or Gryphonrhi to the LJ folks, and man, I hope you don't mind complete CSS newbies. HTML I'm passable in, but I haven't had to use much CSS so I haven't learned it yet. Since I learn best with a project, this seemed perfect. Thanks for offering the tutorials!

[foxfirefey]

Complete CSS newbies are welcome! The Simplified CSS track is totally designed for that.

[sofiaviolet]

Hi, I'm Sofia!

My CSS and HTML skills are pretty decent but I am entirely self-taught through online tutorials and code snippets, and when I do stuff, it's all trial-and-error until I get results that don't suck.

My S2 experience is pretty much pasting other people's code snippets into layers, and modifying them to do other things. Probably the coolest thing I ever did with S2 was modify someone's code snippet for randomized - I think it was backgrounds or headers, and I made it work for whichever of those it wasn't, and also for text. The hard parts were figuring out where in the layer it needed to go, and how to get it to display text properly.

[foxfirefey]

Sounds like you managed to get really far with S2 on your own!

[pipisafoat]

Hullo, everyone! I do want to make a style for the course, but I don't know what to do yet. I love my dw style too much to give it up unless I make something really fantastic. Thinking ahoy. (Thinking is hard.)

[foxfirefey]

Well, nobody said you had to use the style you make in this class! Making styles for others to use is really shiny, and, like I said, I'll be giving out treats for people who share a style they made in dreamwidthlayouts for others to use.

[fourzoas]

Hi! I've been wanting to learn about style customization for a while now, so I'm glad to have this opportunity!

[foxfirefey]

We are happy to have you with us!

[dragonfly]

Hi everyone. I'm not too bad (self-taught) in HTML, but a CSS newbie, and know nothing about S2. I don't have any immediate thoughts about a new style, but in the interests of learning some CSS and S2 I'm willing to come up with something.

[foxfirefey]

You'll have plenty of time before we get to the part where you'll have to decide on what you want to do for a new style!

[fulminata]

'ello! I'm Amber. I'm quite efficient with CSS and HTML.

My S2 experience is quite bare. I'm familiar with Livejournal's S2, but I know changes have been made. I prefer to go into this thinking I don't know anything about S2 so I don't make any assumptions.

I'm hoping to come away from this better able to answer support questions and do more than just make icons for my graphics comm. :D

[foxfirefey]

I'm totally glad you're going to be a mentor! We have a bunch of CSS newbies.

[epershand]

Hi! My HTML and CSS are quite good--I'm a software engineer who does a fair amount of frontend work, and I've been meaning to teach myself s2 forever without getting around to it.

Really excited for the class!

[foxfirefey]

With previous programming experience, you'll pick S2 up in a jiffy!

[emeraldsnakes]

Hi :D

I've had some basic teaching of CSS and HTML in school last year but as much as I liked puttering around with it I couldn't stand my program. I've always been insanely curious about changing my layout around but I've only been able to manage the basics. This class makes me giddy :D

[foxfirefey]

Any changes in particular you're thinking of?

[subtext]

Hi folks! I have basic html experience and know enough to tweak complex html, and I've done a little with CSS but forgotten most of it in the years since. I'm interested in refreshing and improving my CSS and learning about S2, which I have no experience with.

[foxfirefey]

Well hey, learning CSS a second time around is going to be much easier than the first time!

[sam_gardener]

Hi!
I've been meaning to teach myself S2 but I never get around to it so I want to use this as a motivator. I'm not sure how much time I'll have to put into it but it sounds way more fun than a lot of the stuff I should be doing.

[foxfirefey]

Don't worry--if you're short on time, you can ignore making an entire layout and just do S2 learning exercises and pretty much get what you want out of the class, I think.

[silverflight8]

Hi! I'm silver, I know some CSS and more HTML, and nearly nothing of S2, so this will definitely be helpful :P I'd like to create a custom style but I don't have a paid account; I'm okay with it existing on a txt file.

[foxfirefey]

Well, I'm hoping to set up my development server so that people can create free/paid accounts on that server with a decent amount of layers and tinker around there. That way, people with free accounts won't have to lose out or be too inconvenienced.

[matopia]

Hello everyone! I am very excited for this *geek*!

I have some experience in editing css and I have used html a lot in the past, but I still wouldn't call myself Advanced in hmtl.

I would love to learn to create my own layout from scratch and to share them with others; why I am here. I also like to answer questions my friends sometimes have on their layouts (:

At the moment, no questions...but I'm sure I'll have some as we move forward :D

[foxfirefey]

Fortunately, the amount of HTML knowledge useful for making a style is pretty basic.

I am looking forward to having you in the class!

[six_of_one]

Hi. I took a class in CSS and modified a style until it was unrecognizable from the original, but that's about it. Without practice, everything I learn gets lost. I hope to re-learn enough CSS to build a style from scratch.

[foxfirefey]

I think that's a very doable goal!

[starr_falling]

Hi! I'm starr, I have some experience with HTML but I know nothing about CSS or S2. I'm really looking forward to this, thanks so much for putting it together!

[foxfirefey]

Looking forward to having you!

[syntheid]

Hullo? Um, I have mostly been a tinkerer in HTML and CSS for some time now, but while my HTML skills are generally decent, my CSS (and my minimal knowledge of S2) tends to be sort of "Does this work? No? Maybe this other thing I vaguely know about will work? Fail, fail fail... Success!" and it'd be nice to be more knowledgeable about how exactly to achieve the results I want. I'd also like to finish converting the layout I started, heh (there's a particular snag that's halted my progress that I suspect I could solve if I was more familiar with S2 and CSS concepts), though probably I will start a brand new project specifically for the class.

[foxfirefey]

Oh, what layout are you converting!

[sarken]

Hello! I taught myself HTML and CSS about twelve years ago, and I've kept up with CSS more than HTML. I'm kind of ridiculously excited to learn S2. I spent some time hanging out at s2flexisquares, but it's been a while, and I know things are different over here, so I didn't really feel prepared to jump in and start messing with things.

[foxfirefey]

You are pretty awesomesauce and I'm just waiting to see what you do when unleashed with ULTIMATE STYLE POWER!

[pantswarrior]

Saying hi quickly before bed...

I got my current job in web development largely because of volunteering in the old LJ "customization" category many years ago - I loved making layouts for people, whether through customizing the styles or just using CSS overrides, and that's what started me on learning CSS to begin with.

When LJ went to the S2 system, I was completely baffled, and pretty much learned enough to make a layout that did essentially what I wanted, but was too confused to learn more. With my new job, though, I have gotten the chance to make layouts and learn new skills (currently spending my shifts teaching myself PHP with a bit of MySQL), and I'm remembering how much I like it. I'd just been thinking recently I should really sit down with the S2 system soon and learn how it works - and then I found out about this! Excellent timing. ;)

[foxfirefey]

Sweet! I'm pretty sure you'll pick all of this up quite fast, with some PHP in your background, and lots of CSS experience.

[ex_marlboro922]

Hi, I'm Terry. I'm pretty good with CSS and HTML; I learned most (if not all) of it from various online tutorials. I know next to nothing about S2, though, so I'm really looking forward to this class.

You guys are so amazing for doing this. <3

[foxfirefey]

S2 is a pretty esoteric subject, I'm excited so many people want to learn it!

[chratz]

hey, my name is Chrissie.

I just came over from lj to dw and was looking for dw layouts, when I found your offer for a class and I am very excited about participating. I do know a little bit about html and css, but I haven't used it in years and I really want to relive my knowledge and learn some more. I know nothing about S2 and I really want to, so your class is perfect.
I am hoping to be able to design my own layout and get something that is simple on the eyes, but still beautiful. Helping others with their problems would be interesting as well and I have nothing against sharing my layout if anybody wants to use it, when it's done, but I am not sure, it'll be something people want to use.

nonetheless, I am very excited about all this and I think it's really great of you all to offer this and that we can just sign up and participate, because doing lessons and helping out does take a lot of time. so thank you to all of you!

I am looking very much forward to this experience and I can't wait to get started and maybe get to know other people in the process.
if there is something you want to know about me, just ask and I'll reply as best as I can.
ps: I am not a native speaker, so I apologise for any misunderstandings and/or mistakes.

[foxfirefey]

I think the best thing to do is make something you love--not everybody has the same tastes, but the people whose tastes are like yours will love it, too.

Fun fact: actually, at least two of our mentors do not have English as a first language! And they do just fine, just like you did with this comment.

[vilakins]

Hi, I'm Nico. I've done some customising of my style, and a lot more of my LJ style since I didn't like various features of the Expressive style (like the text wrapping round icons) but that was mainly by lurking on comms and seeing what others did. I'm fairly happy with my DW style as is but I'd love to design something from scratch.

[foxfirefey]

Any ideas of what kind of style you want to design?

[lorax]

*waves hello* I'm Dena, and I'm probably likely to just be a lurker, following along just to see what I can pick up!

[foxfirefey]

Anything you want to pick up in particular?

[ninetydegrees]

Hi, I'm NinetyD! I'm pretty experienced with all three languages but S2 remains a mystery sometimes and I'd like to learn more about it. I'm also here because I like helping people with their styles.

[foxfirefey]

I am so glad you are doing this with us!