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:

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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?

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CSS Experience

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None or very little
47 (31.1%)

Beginner
51 (33.8%)

Experienced
44 (29.1%)

Advanced
9 (6.0%)

HTML Experience

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None or very little
13 (8.6%)

Beginner
51 (33.8%)

Experienced
69 (45.7%)

Advanced
18 (11.9%)

S2 experience:

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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:

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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:

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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)?

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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

[av8rmike]

I heard about this project through the IRC grapevine and figured I would check in here. I'm not very active as a poster or volunteer on DW anymore because I still spend most of my time on LJ. I'm the LJ Support Administrator for Style Systems, I maintain the s2expressive community and have written most of the tutorials there, and occasionally answer questions in the other S2 comms. I mostly look at the programming side (see icon), but I'm not great with design-type stuff. I probably haven't kept up to date enough with the DW-specific stuff to act as a "mentor" but I can answer a lot of the general questions.

This seems like an ambitious project, and I want to thank you for taking it on, Fey!

[foxfirefey]

If you know any people on LJ who might want to take the class, OpenID users are also welcome--even though the course will focus on DW styles, my guess is that LJ users could apply a lot of it to an LJ style instead. I thought about posting to s2styles about it but was really hesitant because it could be seen as evangelizing and I don't want to annoy people.

I don't think you should classify as a mentor just because of the time stuff--BUT I think plenty of the questions will be pretty easy for you, so if you ever want to answer one you see, feel free.

This project DOES feel pretty ambitious because of the sheer amount of people who seem to want to take it, and the scope, but I'm looking forward to it anyway! I figure I can spend a couple hours a week writing lessons and hopefully having fellow mentors will help out with how much time I have to spend fielding questions.

[av8rmike]

I think it would be worthwhile to post to s2styles. Maybe so it isn't seen as "evangelizing", phrase it like "hey we're doing this styles class over at DW, and even though it's geared towards DW, people just looking to learn general styles stuff can observe (I almost said 'audit') or comment, etc. etc."

Sadly, there's not that many people to be annoyed because there just aren't that many people left posting and reading those communities.