S2 Background and the Customization Wizard

[foxfirefey]

Class Notes

As of this writing, around 118 of you have signed up for a layout making track--84 of you for the S2/CSS track--and I made sure to say hi to everybody that commented to introduce themselves! I also noticed a lot of you don't have very much CSS experience--and learning these skills is an important reason many of you are taking the course. I think this means I'll turn the next week's HTML and CSS overview; Examining with browser developer tools class into two weeks, so that I have enough time to cover the subject in more detail and give students more study time, as well as give some more time for mentors to answer questions that come up.

You can use the syllabus at any time to jump between lessons or see what's coming up. The previous class is the Class Intro.

( S2 Background )

( The Customization Wizard )

Exercises

Exercises for this class are all optional. They're tools to help direct you in your learning, but nobody is grading you on them!

Note: These exercises involve changing the display layout of a journal. If you don't want to do these exercises on your Dreamwidth account, you can create a temporary account on my development server for this purpose--just don't use the password you use for Dreamwidth. It won't be around when I set up the main installation for this class, though.

• Look through the Base layouts section of the customization wizard. Apply three different layouts. (Ignore Zesty, it's the odd one out of all the layouts.)
• For each layout you apply, change some options in the Customization Wizard Sections--especially from the Page Setup, Presentation, and Modules sections. Observe the effects.
• For at least one layout that offers it, use the Image section to set a page background image and a header. (I have some background patterns from dinpattern.com up here for you to use if you want.)
• Just for fun, turn off the layout's CSS in the Custom CSS function for a layout, and see what happens! You'll see quite a difference; all the effects of that layout have been created by CSS.
• Ask any questions you might have!

ETA: If you discover something in the customization wizard that isn't working as it should that somebody hasn't already reported in the comments, I'll give you 10 DW points!