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| -rw-r--r-- | tutorials/www/how-to-use-the-internet.html | 249 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | tutorials/www/quick-intro-html-css.html | 475 |
3 files changed, 1094 insertions, 134 deletions
diff --git a/tutorials/www/how-to-make-this-site.html b/tutorials/www/how-to-make-this-site.html index c3290e9..2fcc26f 100644 --- a/tutorials/www/how-to-make-this-site.html +++ b/tutorials/www/how-to-make-this-site.html @@ -6,12 +6,153 @@ <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=yes" /> <title>how-to-make-this-site</title> <style> + html { + line-height: 1.5; + font-family: Georgia, serif; + font-size: 20px; + color: #1a1a1a; + background-color: #fdfdfd; + } + body { + margin: 0 auto; + max-width: 36em; + padding-left: 50px; + padding-right: 50px; + padding-top: 50px; + padding-bottom: 50px; + hyphens: auto; + overflow-wrap: break-word; + text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; + font-kerning: normal; + } + @media (max-width: 600px) { + body { + font-size: 0.9em; + padding: 1em; + } + h1 { + font-size: 1.8em; + } + } + @media print { + body { + background-color: transparent; + color: black; + font-size: 12pt; + } + p, h2, h3 { + orphans: 3; + widows: 3; + } + h2, h3, h4 { + page-break-after: avoid; + } + } + p { + margin: 1em 0; + } + a { + color: #1a1a1a; + } + a:visited { + color: #1a1a1a; + } + img { + max-width: 100%; + } + h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 { + margin-top: 1.4em; + } + h5, h6 { + font-size: 1em; + font-style: italic; + } + h6 { + font-weight: normal; + } + ol, ul { + padding-left: 1.7em; + margin-top: 1em; + } + li > ol, li > ul { + margin-top: 0; + } + blockquote { + margin: 1em 0 1em 1.7em; + padding-left: 1em; + border-left: 2px solid #e6e6e6; + color: #606060; + } + code { + font-family: Menlo, Monaco, 'Lucida Console', Consolas, monospace; + font-size: 85%; + margin: 0; + } + pre { + margin: 1em 0; + overflow: auto; + } + pre code { + padding: 0; + overflow: visible; + overflow-wrap: normal; + } + .sourceCode { + background-color: transparent; + overflow: visible; + } + hr { + background-color: #1a1a1a; + border: none; + height: 1px; + margin: 1em 0; + } + table { + margin: 1em 0; + border-collapse: collapse; + width: 100%; + overflow-x: auto; + display: block; + font-variant-numeric: lining-nums tabular-nums; + } + table caption { + margin-bottom: 0.75em; + } + tbody { + margin-top: 0.5em; + border-top: 1px solid #1a1a1a; + border-bottom: 1px solid #1a1a1a; + } + th { + border-top: 1px solid #1a1a1a; + padding: 0.25em 0.5em 0.25em 0.5em; + } + td { + padding: 0.125em 0.5em 0.25em 0.5em; + } + header { + margin-bottom: 4em; + text-align: center; + } + #TOC li { + list-style: none; + } + #TOC ul { + padding-left: 1.3em; + } + #TOC > ul { + padding-left: 0; + } + #TOC a:not(:hover) { + text-decoration: none; + } code{white-space: pre-wrap;} span.smallcaps{font-variant: small-caps;} span.underline{text-decoration: underline;} div.column{display: inline-block; vertical-align: top; width: 50%;} div.hanging-indent{margin-left: 1.5em; text-indent: -1.5em;} ul.task-list{list-style: none;} + .display.math{display: block; text-align: center; margin: 0.5rem auto;} </style> </head> <body> @@ -19,21 +160,29 @@ <h2 id="toc-title">Contents</h2> <ul> <li><a href="#background">Background</a></li> -<li><a href="#what-is-a-web-server-and-how-do-i-run-one">What is a web server and how do I run one?</a> +<li><a href="#what-is-a-web-server-and-how-do-i-run-one">What is a web +server and how do I run one?</a> <ul> -<li><a href="#getting-from-localhost-to-the-internet">Getting from localhost to the internet</a></li> +<li><a href="#getting-from-localhost-to-the-internet">Getting from +localhost to the internet</a></li> </ul></li> -<li><a href="#how-can-i-make-this-server-available-on-the-internet-cheaply-and-independently">How can I make this server available on the Internet <em>cheaply</em> and <em>independently</em></a> +<li><a +href="#how-can-i-make-this-server-available-on-the-internet-cheaply-and-independently">How +can I make this server available on the Internet <em>cheaply</em> and +<em>independently</em></a> <ul> -<li><a href="#can-i-run-a-web-server-at-home">Can I run a web server at home</a></li> +<li><a href="#can-i-run-a-web-server-at-home">Can I run a web server at +home</a></li> <li><a href="#so-what-should-i-do">So what should I do</a></li> </ul></li> <li><a href="#whats-a-domain-name">What's a "Domain Name"</a></li> -<li><a href="#setup-https-and-tls-for-some-sense-of-security">Setup HTTPS and TLS, for some sense of security</a></li> +<li><a href="#setup-https-and-tls-for-some-sense-of-security">Setup +HTTPS and TLS, for some sense of security</a></li> <li><a href="#perspective">Perspective</a></li> <li><a href="#references">References</a> <ul> -<li><a href="#terms-of-service-for-certain-isps">Terms of service for certain ISPs</a> +<li><a href="#terms-of-service-for-certain-isps">Terms of service for +certain ISPs</a> <ul> <li><a href="#verizon">Verizon</a></li> <li><a href="#optimum">Optimum</a></li> @@ -46,27 +195,94 @@ </nav> <h2 id="background">Background</h2> <p><em>TL;DR get to </em><a href="#thepoint">the point</a></p> -<p>I think it was roughly the end of high school when I first had the idea I wanted to make <em>some</em> kind of website. This would be around 2010 and I did what I thought would be a good idea and bought a book on the subject: "Web Sites for Dummies." I was dummy after all...</p> -<p>I got up to hyper linking with the "a" tag until I hit a wall. I don't want to link the exact page since I don't want to get sued, but it basically read:</p> +<p>I think it was roughly the end of high school when I first had the +idea I wanted to make <em>some</em> kind of website. This would be +around 2010 and I did what I thought would be a good idea and bought a +book on the subject: "Web Sites for Dummies." I was dummy after +all...</p> +<p>I got up to hyper linking with the "a" tag until I hit a wall. I +don't want to link the exact page since I don't want to get sued, but it +basically read:</p> <pre><code>Web design programs: - Adobe Dreamweaver - Adobe Contribute - Microsoft Expression Web</code></pre> -<p>Well, damn. I didn't have any of those. And as a stingy high school kid, I didn't want to buy anything. So I shelved that book and forgot about for a while since making a website seemed too expensive and needed too much flashy software to make it. I knew nothing about free software at that age, other than music software like Audacity which is what I was into at the time.</p> -<p>A few years later I caught a bit of a poetry bug--and maybe a bit of a snooty college kid bug--and tried to run a blog. At that point, I had learned about WordPress, which lets you easily make a space for sharing writing, media, content, whatever really. And it's free as in <em>freedom</em> as I understand since it's licensed under the GPL (if you want to take the time to deploy it yourself). But they also give out free .wordpress domains and some storage space with a snazzy dashboard to manage it all.</p> -<p>I had fun with that one, I don't update it anymore, but it's still up at <a href="https://postquantumpoetry.wordpress.com">postquantumpoetry.wordpress.com</a>. WordPress got closer to what I wanted, but it still wasn't <em>really</em> my site; it was WordPress's site unless I wanted to pay the hosting and domain fee. It's pretty modest, but I wasn't sold on sticking with a .com or .space domain, or even sticking with WordPress. I was getting tired of blogging anyway. I was getting more interested in the stuff that made it work; it seemed a lot more fruitful than writing to no one.</p> -<p>It's now 2021, five years later, when I write this (and this website isn't even finished yet). So what led me down the rabbit hole again? It probably started where the last one left off, when I decided I wanted to switch to more practical IT things over the academic things I had previously wanted to pursue. I signed up for a Cybersecurity program, somehow got in, and eventually managed to land an entry-level SOC role after graduating. At this point, it was getting a little weird that I had no web presence, especially after I decided to take down most of my social media accounts a few years ago.</p> -<p>So I was back at "how do I make a website," again, but this time, I at least had some understanding of what a server was and how networks work. And more importantly, I had a better idea of what it meant for a computer to be <em>mine</em>.</p> +<p>Well, damn. I didn't have any of those. And as a stingy high school +kid, I didn't want to buy anything. So I shelved that book and forgot +about for a while since making a website seemed too expensive and needed +too much flashy software to make it. I knew nothing about free software +at that age, other than music software like Audacity which is what I was +into at the time.</p> +<p>A few years later I caught a bit of a poetry bug--and maybe a bit of +a snooty college kid bug--and tried to run a blog. At that point, I had +learned about WordPress, which lets you easily make a space for sharing +writing, media, content, whatever really. And it's free as in +<em>freedom</em> as I understand since it's licensed under the GPL (if +you want to take the time to deploy it yourself). But they also give out +free .wordpress domains and some storage space with a snazzy dashboard +to manage it all.</p> +<p>I had fun with that one, I don't update it anymore, but it's still up +at <a +href="https://postquantumpoetry.wordpress.com">postquantumpoetry.wordpress.com</a>. +WordPress got closer to what I wanted, but it still wasn't +<em>really</em> my site; it was WordPress's site unless I wanted to pay +the hosting and domain fee. It's pretty modest, but I wasn't sold on +sticking with a .com or .space domain, or even sticking with WordPress. +I was getting tired of blogging anyway. I was getting more interested in +the stuff that made it work; it seemed a lot more fruitful than writing +to no one.</p> +<p>It's now 2021, five years later, when I write this (and this website +isn't even finished yet). So what led me down the rabbit hole again? It +probably started where the last one left off, when I decided I wanted to +switch to more practical IT things over the academic things I had +previously wanted to pursue. I signed up for a Cybersecurity program, +somehow got in, and eventually managed to land an entry-level SOC role +after graduating. At this point, it was getting a little weird that I +had no web presence, especially after I decided to take down most of my +social media accounts a few years ago.</p> +<p>So I was back at "how do I make a website," again, but this time, I +at least had some understanding of what a server was and how networks +work. And more importantly, I had a better idea of what it meant for a +computer to be <em>mine</em>.</p> <p>Even though--let's be real--it <em>still isn't.</em></p> -<p>I can't get high-speed Internet easily which I need to host a server long-term so I'm stuck using some else's computer, otherwise called a Virtual Private Server (VPS). Even if I could host at home, I'm still at the mercy of my ISP.</p> -<p>Because of that, I think it's important to understand that "running your own website" is not just a <em>technical</em> ordeal, but also an <em>economic</em> one since you have to carefully think about what it means to you to <em>own</em> your server, your software, and your hardware. That doesn't mean it's hard to do, just that there's options.</p> +<p>I can't get high-speed Internet easily which I need to host a server +long-term so I'm stuck using some else's computer, otherwise called a +Virtual Private Server (VPS). Even if I could host at home, I'm still at +the mercy of my ISP.</p> +<p>Because of that, I think it's important to understand that "running +your own website" is not just a <em>technical</em> ordeal, but also an +<em>economic</em> one since you have to carefully think about what it +means to you to <em>own</em> your server, your software, and your +hardware. That doesn't mean it's hard to do, just that there's +options.</p> <p><a id="thepoint"></a></p> -<h2 id="what-is-a-web-server-and-how-do-i-run-one">What is a web server and how do I run one?</h2> -<p><em>TL;DR a web server is just a program that lets other computers on a network view files in a chosen folder. All you need to do is download a web server: apache and nginx are popular ones, but you can easily program your own with web frameworks like <a href="https://flask.palletsprojects.com/en/2.0.x/">Flask</a> or <a href="https://facil.io/">Facil</a></em></p> -<p>You can run a web server for free right now. These instructions will be for Linux just for consistency since I'm as used to setting this up on a Windows server. If you've never used Linux, don't be scared! It's very easy to setup and manage in Windows now with Windows Subsystem for Linux. If you're on Windows, follow their guide <a href="https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install">here</a>. It should be pretty straightforward, but if you have any issues: 1) Make sure you check your Windows version as noted in the "Prerequisites," 2) Try a different distribution, like Debian with <code>wsl --install -d Debian</code>. Once you're at a command prompt, come back here.</p> -<p>There are many web servers out there, but I like nginx since the configuration file is a bit easier to read than others. So let's install it.</p> +<h2 id="what-is-a-web-server-and-how-do-i-run-one">What is a web server +and how do I run one?</h2> +<p><em>TL;DR a web server is just a program that lets other computers on +a network view files in a chosen folder. All you need to do is download +a web server: apache and nginx are popular ones, but you can easily +program your own with web frameworks like <a +href="https://flask.palletsprojects.com/en/2.0.x/">Flask</a> or <a +href="https://facil.io/">Facil</a></em></p> +<p>You can run a web server for free right now. These instructions will +be for Linux just for consistency since I'm as used to setting this up +on a Windows server. If you've never used Linux, don't be scared! It's +very easy to setup and manage in Windows now with Windows Subsystem for +Linux. If you're on Windows, follow their guide <a +href="https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install">here</a>. It +should be pretty straightforward, but if you have any issues: 1) Make +sure you check your Windows version as noted in the "Prerequisites," 2) +Try a different distribution, like Debian with +<code>wsl --install -d Debian</code>. Once you're at a command prompt, +come back here.</p> +<p>There are many web servers out there, but I like nginx since the +configuration file is a bit easier to read than others. So let's install +it.</p> <pre><code>$ sudo apt install nginx</code></pre> -<p>On Ubuntu or Debian, nginx puts the default server configuration in the folder "/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default". Open that in a text editor like vim or nano, and you should see something like this (neglecting the commented lines starting with "#"):</p> +<p>On Ubuntu or Debian, nginx puts the default server configuration in +the folder "/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default". Open that in a text +editor like vim or nano, and you should see something like this +(neglecting the commented lines starting with "#"):</p> <pre><code>server { listen 80 default_server; listen [::]:80 default_server; @@ -81,15 +297,31 @@ try_files $uri $uri/ =404; } }</code></pre> -<p>For now, you don't need to change anything, so don't worry about what it means.</p> -<p>But do note the directory set on "root." This is where the web server looks for files and folders. You can change this, but usually, you don't need too. Any files or folders you put under "/var/www/html" will be included as part of the web server when viewed in a web browser.</p> -<p>So let's put some stuff there! If you're on WSL as mentioned before, you can access your C drive at "/mnt/c". So let's say you had a folder of cat pics in "C:\Users\username\Desktop\cats"; you can copy this into your website by running:</p> +<p>For now, you don't need to change anything, so don't worry about what +it means.</p> +<p>But do note the directory set on "root." This is where the web server +looks for files and folders. You can change this, but usually, you don't +need too. Any files or folders you put under "/var/www/html" will be +included as part of the web server when viewed in a web browser.</p> +<p>So let's put some stuff there! If you're on WSL as mentioned before, +you can access your C drive at "/mnt/c". So let's say you had a folder +of cat pics in "C:\Users\username\Desktop\cats"; you can copy this into +your website by running:</p> <pre><code>$ cp -vr /mnt/c/Users/username/Desktop/cats /var/www/html</code></pre> -<p>Run the server, then go to your web browser and type: "http://localhost". You'll find a directory with your files in it! And you can access them at "http://localhost/foldername/filename.extension". Following our previous example, you can get your cats at "https://localhost/cats".</p> -<h3 id="getting-from-localhost-to-the-internet">Getting from localhost to the internet</h3> -<p>The problem is, only you and others on your home network can visit your site right now.</p> -<p>Your computer's most likely behind your router's firewall, which will not allow any traffic in. You'll need to forward a port from your router (port 80 is for HTTP) to point to the device hosting the server.</p> -<p>Router's differ when it comes to to exact configuration, but MOST routers will have some kind of steps similar to this:</p> +<p>Run the server, then go to your web browser and type: +"http://localhost". You'll find a directory with your files in it! And +you can access them at "http://localhost/foldername/filename.extension". +Following our previous example, you can get your cats at +"https://localhost/cats".</p> +<h3 id="getting-from-localhost-to-the-internet">Getting from localhost +to the internet</h3> +<p>The problem is, only you and others on your home network can visit +your site right now.</p> +<p>Your computer's most likely behind your router's firewall, which will +not allow any traffic in. You'll need to forward a port from your router +(port 80 is for HTTP) to point to the device hosting the server.</p> +<p>Router's differ when it comes to to exact configuration, but MOST +routers will have some kind of steps similar to this:</p> <ol type="1"> <li><p>Click "Advanced" then click "Firewall"</p></li> <li><p>Scroll to the add new rule form</p></li> @@ -100,7 +332,10 @@ <li>forward to address/device: your device's local ip</li> <li>forward to/destination port: 80</li> </ul> -<p>You can get your device's local ip by typing "ipconfig" (Windows) or "ip a" (Linux). Typically it is listed first and will start with "192.168" or "10.0" but it depends on the manufacturer. Here's my output at home for example:</p> +<p>You can get your device's local ip by typing "ipconfig" (Windows) or +"ip a" (Linux). Typically it is listed first and will start with +"192.168" or "10.0" but it depends on the manufacturer. Here's my output +at home for example:</p> <pre><code>1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000 link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00 inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo @@ -115,74 +350,199 @@ valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever 3: wlp5s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN group default qlen 1000 link/ether 82:e2:e4:c2:0c:a1 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff permaddr 98:de:d0:f3:d6:ea</code></pre> -<p>The device "enp7s0" is my Ethernet adapter (starts with an 'e') and my current local ip address for the device is shown. If you use wifi, it will likely start with a "wl." Set the forwarding rule according to this value.</p> -<p>Now get your <em>public</em> ip address at this site https://who.is/ and share it with your friends. Watch in horror as they access all the files in the directory you launched the server!</p> -<h2 id="how-can-i-make-this-server-available-on-the-internet-cheaply-and-independently">How can I make this server available on the Internet <em>cheaply</em> and <em>independently</em></h2> -<p><i> TL;DR Expense scales with independence. It's possible to become your own service provider, get IP addresses from ICANN, your own hardware to host it, to host your cat pics; but it's also a lot of time, work and money to do all that (<a href="https://hackaday.com/2018/09/20/one-mans-journey-to-become-his-own-isp/">this guy</a> did it apparently, and so did <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_Farms">Null</a>)</p> -<p>Most likely you'll want to rent someone else's server, usually a VPS. </i></p> -<p>Once you understand the basic installation above, you can now populate your site with content just by adding HTML files to your web directory. You can use an HTML editor to write these, or you can download a full content management system to help you. Here are some options I know about:</p> -<ul> -<li><strong>You can just write the damn HTML and use apache or nginx</strong></li> +<p>The device "enp7s0" is my Ethernet adapter (starts with an 'e') and +my current local ip address for the device is shown. If you use wifi, it +will likely start with a "wl." Set the forwarding rule according to this +value.</p> +<p>Now get your <em>public</em> ip address at this site https://who.is/ +and share it with your friends. Watch in horror as they access all the +files in the directory you launched the server!</p> +<h2 +id="how-can-i-make-this-server-available-on-the-internet-cheaply-and-independently">How +can I make this server available on the Internet <em>cheaply</em> and +<em>independently</em></h2> +<p><i> TL;DR Expense scales with independence. It's possible to become +your own service provider, get IP addresses from ICANN, your own +hardware to host it, to host your cat pics; but it's also a lot of time, +work and money to do all that (<a +href="https://hackaday.com/2018/09/20/one-mans-journey-to-become-his-own-isp/">this +guy</a> did it apparently, and so did <a +href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_Farms">Null</a>)</p> +<p>Most likely you'll want to rent someone else's server, usually a VPS. +</i></p> +<p>Once you understand the basic installation above, you can now +populate your site with content just by adding HTML files to your web +directory. You can use an HTML editor to write these, or you can +download a full content management system to help you. Here are some +options I know about:</p> +<ul> +<li><strong>You can just write the damn HTML and use apache or +nginx</strong></li> </ul> -<p>This honestly is not that hard, it just takes long and takes away from the joy of writing in my opinion. I personally have set up my own little system where I write content in markdown and templates in the Jinja template language to render it automatically. But if your content is short and sweet, or you're mostly hosting files, writing a few basic HTML files in vim or notepad and adding some CSS goes a long way. I wrote my own view of the topic in the context of how I wrote this site <a href="/tutorials/www/quick-intro-to-html-css.html">here</a>. And you can find a number of great guides on how to write files, copy them and manage them in the <a href="#references">references</a>.</p> -<p>One easy way to create HTML templates with these servers is through the use of "Server Side Includes," which essentially let you past one html document into another. This varies by server, for example, nginx has their own options and syntax detailed <a href="https://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_ssi_module.html">here</a>.</p> +<p>This honestly is not that hard, it just takes long and takes away +from the joy of writing in my opinion. I personally have set up my own +little system where I write content in markdown and templates in the +Jinja template language to render it automatically. But if your content +is short and sweet, or you're mostly hosting files, writing a few basic +HTML files in vim or notepad and adding some CSS goes a long way. I +wrote my own view of the topic in the context of how I wrote this site +<a href="/tutorials/www/quick-intro-to-html-css.html">here</a>. And you +can find a number of great guides on how to write files, copy them and +manage them in the <a href="#references">references</a>.</p> +<p>One easy way to create HTML templates with these servers is through +the use of "Server Side Includes," which essentially let you past one +html document into another. This varies by server, for example, nginx +has their own options and syntax detailed <a +href="https://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_ssi_module.html">here</a>.</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://neocities.org/"><strong>Neocities</strong></a></li> </ul> -<p>Neocities is based on the old Geocities from the mid 90s which allows simple static hosting and features and amazing array of creative projects. Everything is managed through the website, and you can pay to set your own custom <a href="#whats-a-domain-name">domain name</a>.</p> +<p>Neocities is based on the old Geocities from the mid 90s which allows +simple static hosting and features and amazing array of creative +projects. Everything is managed through the website, and you can pay to +set your own custom <a href="#whats-a-domain-name">domain name</a>.</p> <ul> <li><strong>Wordpress</strong> (but this time, you set it up)</li> </ul> -<p>Before wordpress was a social media blogging thingamajig, it was just a content management system to spin up a pretty blog. You can download and install Wordpress by following:</p> +<p>Before wordpress was a social media blogging thingamajig, it was just +a content management system to spin up a pretty blog. You can download +and install Wordpress by following:</p> <p>https://wordpress.org/support/article/how-to-install-wordpress/</p> -<p>The benefit of installing yourself is enormous, since you have full control and can even edit the source if you have the guts.</p> +<p>The benefit of installing yourself is enormous, since you have full +control and can even edit the source if you have the guts.</p> <ul> -<li><a href="https://guides.github.com/features/pages/"><strong>Github pages</strong></a></li> +<li><a href="https://guides.github.com/features/pages/"><strong>Github +pages</strong></a></li> </ul> -<p>In addition to hosting code repositories, you can host small sites on github for mostly free. I've never used it, but I definitely would if I needed something like a small wiki.</p> -<p>But once you have stuff to share, how do you keep this stuff online?</p> -<h3 id="can-i-run-a-web-server-at-home">Can I run a web server at home</h3> -<p>Technically yes, but practically probably not. At least not at a lot of extra cost to you. If you do want to host a small thing at home, like some text or some cat pics, a <a href="/tutorials/tor/how-to-host-a-tor-hidden-service.html">tor hidden service</a> is a great option.</p> -<p>I spent a lot of time searching on this (you can find a full list of references at the bottom), and I've even tested a little bit by hosting game servers and web projects for code jams, but the problem is twofold. First, if you are in the United States and not a business, you probably have a standard plan with one of the major ISPs (Verizon, Optimum, etc.). This limits you in a few ways.</p> -<ul> -<li><p>Your bandwidth is limited, which limits the amount of people you can serve at one time <em>and</em> the rate you can transfer data to them. Think laggy games and videos that take 10 years to download.</p></li> -<li><p>Your ISP probably explicitly does not allow this (at least in the US). I have <em>never</em> had my ISP complain about hosting small personal servers at home, but I imagine if I hosted higher traffic things, I would have some problems.</p></li> +<p>In addition to hosting code repositories, you can host small sites on +github for mostly free. I've never used it, but I definitely would if I +needed something like a small wiki.</p> +<p>But once you have stuff to share, how do you keep this stuff +online?</p> +<h3 id="can-i-run-a-web-server-at-home">Can I run a web server at +home</h3> +<p>Technically yes, but practically probably not. At least not at a lot +of extra cost to you. If you do want to host a small thing at home, like +some text or some cat pics, a <a +href="/tutorials/tor/how-to-host-a-tor-hidden-service.html">tor hidden +service</a> is a great option.</p> +<p>I spent a lot of time searching on this (you can find a full list of +references at the bottom), and I've even tested a little bit by hosting +game servers and web projects for code jams, but the problem is twofold. +First, if you are in the United States and not a business, you probably +have a standard plan with one of the major ISPs (Verizon, Optimum, +etc.). This limits you in a few ways.</p> +<ul> +<li><p>Your bandwidth is limited, which limits the amount of people you +can serve at one time <em>and</em> the rate you can transfer data to +them. Think laggy games and videos that take 10 years to +download.</p></li> +<li><p>Your ISP probably explicitly does not allow this (at least in the +US). I have <em>never</em> had my ISP complain about hosting small +personal servers at home, but I imagine if I hosted higher traffic +things, I would have some problems.</p></li> </ul> <h3 id="so-what-should-i-do">So what should I do</h3> -<p>As mentioned above, it kind of depends on what your hosting. A small game server can be run just fine from home. A website with an email server and other bells and whistles is another thing.</p> -<p>In those cases most people will find it cheapest to rent from a VPS provider. VPS stands for "Virtual Private Server," which just means an Internet-connected server stored somewhere in someone's private data center. You pay them for the storage and to keep your server online and accessible.</p> -<p>Once you've got enough content and a way to manage it, all you have to do is just copy all that stuff over to your VPS. Usually that looks like:</p> +<p>As mentioned above, it kind of depends on what your hosting. A small +game server can be run just fine from home. A website with an email +server and other bells and whistles is another thing.</p> +<p>In those cases most people will find it cheapest to rent from a VPS +provider. VPS stands for "Virtual Private Server," which just means an +Internet-connected server stored somewhere in someone's private data +center. You pay them for the storage and to keep your server online and +accessible.</p> +<p>Once you've got enough content and a way to manage it, all you have +to do is just copy all that stuff over to your VPS. Usually that looks +like:</p> <ul> <li>Installing a web server and a CMS tweaked to your liking</li> <li>Copying over your stuff to the web directory</li> <li>Opening up your ports to the outside world.</li> </ul> -<p>And in a nutshell that's it. There's fancy stuff of course, like you'll want a <a href="#whats-a-domain-name">domain name</a> probably and I'll talk about that too, but at this point, your stuff is on the Internet! Just tell your friends to paste in your public ip address (your VPS provider will tell you this) and there's your stuff!</p> +<p>And in a nutshell that's it. There's fancy stuff of course, like +you'll want a <a href="#whats-a-domain-name">domain name</a> probably +and I'll talk about that too, but at this point, your stuff is on the +Internet! Just tell your friends to paste in your public ip address +(your VPS provider will tell you this) and there's your stuff!</p> <h2 id="whats-a-domain-name">What's a "Domain Name"</h2> -<p>Expecting people to save your IP address is not really a good idea though. It's better to have an easy name they can remember. Enter DNS: the Domain Name System. If an IP address is a telephone number, DNS is the telephone book. ICANN and IANA host the top level servers, which point to local domain registries who buy names like "mjfer.net" on behalf of their customers.</p> -<p>The actual business of domain names is complicated and not something I understand all that well. But setting up a domain name to point to an IP address is typically easy, once you've chosen a domain registrar (just search that online and you'll find a ton) and name you like. Be aware that shorter names are rarer and usually more expensive and different TLDs--that is, the ending parts like ".net" and ".io,"--will be priced differently.</p> -<p>Once you have a domain name, you'll need to set up a DNS record. Again, this varies a bit based on the provider, but all will have some kind of text input or API where you can edit DNS records. You'll want to make two records</p> +<p>Expecting people to save your IP address is not really a good idea +though. It's better to have an easy name they can remember. Enter DNS: +the Domain Name System. If an IP address is a telephone number, DNS is +the telephone book. ICANN and IANA host the top level servers, which +point to local domain registries who buy names like "mjfer.net" on +behalf of their customers.</p> +<p>The actual business of domain names is complicated and not something +I understand all that well. But setting up a domain name to point to an +IP address is typically easy, once you've chosen a domain registrar +(just search that online and you'll find a ton) and name you like. Be +aware that shorter names are rarer and usually more expensive and +different TLDs--that is, the ending parts like ".net" and ".io,"--will +be priced differently.</p> +<p>Once you have a domain name, you'll need to set up a DNS record. +Again, this varies a bit based on the provider, but all will have some +kind of text input or API where you can edit DNS records. You'll want to +make two records</p> <ul> <li><p>A Type A that will be your main record</p> <ul> <li><p>set the HOST to your domain name (like mjfer.net)</p></li> <li><p>set the ANSWER to your IP address (like 8.9.36.54)</p></li> </ul></li> -<li><p>A CNAME record, that will help point to all your other records</p> +<li><p>A CNAME record, that will help point to all your other +records</p> <ul> -<li><p>set the HOST to your domain name, with a wildcard subdomain (like *.mjfer.net)</p></li> +<li><p>set the HOST to your domain name, with a wildcard subdomain (like +*.mjfer.net)</p></li> <li><p>set the ANSWER to your main record (like mjfer.net)</p></li> </ul></li> </ul> -<p>The reason for the second record is in case you want to set subdomains on the same IP address like "git.mjfer.net".</p> -<p>Wait a few minutes for the DNS servers to update and you should now be able access your server by name.</p> -<h2 id="setup-https-and-tls-for-some-sense-of-security">Setup HTTPS and TLS, for some sense of security</h2> -<p>A decade of half-though through security advice has convinced everyone that HTTPS and <em>only</em> HTTPS is secure. This is simply not true. Using HTTP alone doesn't inherently make you insecure and using HTTPS doesn't automatically guarantee the app your communicating with is secure.</p> -<p>What HTTPS means is that the <em>data you send to the server</em> and the <em>data the server sends back</em> is encrypted. This only provides security in contexts where you're entering information like a credit card number or a password; or in the reverse case when the server is authenticating you. In those cases <em>you need HTTPS</em>. But if you're just requesting a text document, or a cat picture, and not sending any data, HTTP is perfectly acceptable for retrieving that information. HTTPS is also no guarantee that the information your retrieving is actually what you want. There's plenty of malware and other nasty things over HTTPS, just because it's sent encrypted doesn't make it safe.</p> -<p>Web browsers have largely responded to this fact by assuming that HTTP is always insecure and printing a warning when you visit a site without HTTPS enabled. Unfortunately, most users interpret this to mean the site is somehow dangerous, even if it doesn't collect any information about the user. Because of that, most you will want to go the extra mile to make your visitors feel warm and fuzzy inside and implement HTTPS.</p> -<p>Fortunately, this is now much easier than is used to be thanks to <a href="https://letsencrypt.org/">LetsEncrypt</a>. LetsEncrypt generously serves as a free certificate authority, which allows you to generate signed certificates that are recognized by every web browser in the world. The tool they recommend, <a href="https://certbot.eff.org/">certbot</a> is painless to install. I've rarely had to do much more than "certbot certonly" and follow the prompts to get a certificate. Once you've obtained one, add it to <a href="https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/ssl/ssl_howto.html">apache</a> or <a href="https://www.nginx.com/blog/nginx-ssl/#Examples">nginx</a>, switch the port to 443 instead of 80 and bam, you've got HTTPS!</p> +<p>The reason for the second record is in case you want to set +subdomains on the same IP address like "git.mjfer.net".</p> +<p>Wait a few minutes for the DNS servers to update and you should now +be able access your server by name.</p> +<h2 id="setup-https-and-tls-for-some-sense-of-security">Setup HTTPS and +TLS, for some sense of security</h2> +<p>A decade of half-though through security advice has convinced +everyone that HTTPS and <em>only</em> HTTPS is secure. This is simply +not true. Using HTTP alone doesn't inherently make you insecure and +using HTTPS doesn't automatically guarantee the app your communicating +with is secure.</p> +<p>What HTTPS means is that the <em>data you send to the server</em> and +the <em>data the server sends back</em> is encrypted. This only provides +security in contexts where you're entering information like a credit +card number or a password; or in the reverse case when the server is +authenticating you. In those cases <em>you need HTTPS</em>. But if +you're just requesting a text document, or a cat picture, and not +sending any data, HTTP is perfectly acceptable for retrieving that +information. HTTPS is also no guarantee that the information your +retrieving is actually what you want. There's plenty of malware and +other nasty things over HTTPS, just because it's sent encrypted doesn't +make it safe.</p> +<p>Web browsers have largely responded to this fact by assuming that +HTTP is always insecure and printing a warning when you visit a site +without HTTPS enabled. Unfortunately, most users interpret this to mean +the site is somehow dangerous, even if it doesn't collect any +information about the user. Because of that, most you will want to go +the extra mile to make your visitors feel warm and fuzzy inside and +implement HTTPS.</p> +<p>Fortunately, this is now much easier than is used to be thanks to <a +href="https://letsencrypt.org/">LetsEncrypt</a>. LetsEncrypt generously +serves as a free certificate authority, which allows you to generate +signed certificates that are recognized by every web browser in the +world. The tool they recommend, <a +href="https://certbot.eff.org/">certbot</a> is painless to install. I've +rarely had to do much more than "certbot certonly" and follow the +prompts to get a certificate. Once you've obtained one, add it to <a +href="https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/ssl/ssl_howto.html">apache</a> +or <a href="https://www.nginx.com/blog/nginx-ssl/#Examples">nginx</a>, +switch the port to 443 instead of 80 and bam, you've got HTTPS!</p> <h2 id="perspective">Perspective</h2> -<p>What I tried to present here was the brief overview of how you get from files on your computer to files accessible of the Internet. The full picture though is something you need to seek out yourself. I intend to add more guides on how I manage this site, but there is so much material out there already it hardly feels worth adding to. I hope at the very least to have got you through the start.</p> +<p>What I tried to present here was the brief overview of how you get +from files on your computer to files accessible of the Internet. The +full picture though is something you need to seek out yourself. I intend +to add more guides on how I manage this site, but there is so much +material out there already it hardly feels worth adding to. I hope at +the very least to have got you through the start.</p> <h2 id="references">References</h2> <ol type="1"> <li>https://dataswamp.org/~solene/2021-07-23-why-selfhosting-is-important.html</li> @@ -192,8 +552,12 @@ <li>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICANN</li> <li>https://landchad.net/</li> </ol> -<h3 id="terms-of-service-for-certain-isps">Terms of service for certain ISPs</h3> -<p>There's always more ISPs out there, but I went the one's I'm most familiar with in my area. I'll probably expand this as I go, let me know if there are important ones in your area worth listing here for others.</p> +<h3 id="terms-of-service-for-certain-isps">Terms of service for certain +ISPs</h3> +<p>There's always more ISPs out there, but I went the one's I'm most +familiar with in my area. I'll probably expand this as I go, let me know +if there are important ones in your area worth listing here for +others.</p> <h4 id="verizon">Verizon</h4> <ul> <li>https://www.verizon.com/support/lte-home-internet-legal/ diff --git a/tutorials/www/how-to-use-the-internet.html b/tutorials/www/how-to-use-the-internet.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9f0e227 --- /dev/null +++ b/tutorials/www/how-to-use-the-internet.html @@ -0,0 +1,249 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="" xml:lang=""> +<head> + <meta charset="utf-8" /> + <meta name="generator" content="pandoc" /> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=yes" /> + <title>how-to-use-the-internet</title> + <style> + html { + line-height: 1.5; + font-family: Georgia, serif; + font-size: 20px; + color: #1a1a1a; + background-color: #fdfdfd; + } + body { + margin: 0 auto; + max-width: 36em; + padding-left: 50px; + padding-right: 50px; + padding-top: 50px; + padding-bottom: 50px; + hyphens: auto; + overflow-wrap: break-word; + text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; + font-kerning: normal; + } + @media (max-width: 600px) { + body { + font-size: 0.9em; + padding: 1em; + } + h1 { + font-size: 1.8em; + } + } + @media print { + body { + background-color: transparent; + color: black; + font-size: 12pt; + } + p, h2, h3 { + orphans: 3; + widows: 3; + } + h2, h3, h4 { + page-break-after: avoid; + } + } + p { + margin: 1em 0; + } + a { + color: #1a1a1a; + } + a:visited { + color: #1a1a1a; + } + img { + max-width: 100%; + } + h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 { + margin-top: 1.4em; + } + h5, h6 { + font-size: 1em; + font-style: italic; + } + h6 { + font-weight: normal; + } + ol, ul { + padding-left: 1.7em; + margin-top: 1em; + } + li > ol, li > ul { + margin-top: 0; + } + blockquote { + margin: 1em 0 1em 1.7em; + padding-left: 1em; + border-left: 2px solid #e6e6e6; + color: #606060; + } + code { + font-family: Menlo, Monaco, 'Lucida Console', Consolas, monospace; + font-size: 85%; + margin: 0; + } + pre { + margin: 1em 0; + overflow: auto; + } + pre code { + padding: 0; + overflow: visible; + overflow-wrap: normal; + } + .sourceCode { + background-color: transparent; + overflow: visible; + } + hr { + background-color: #1a1a1a; + border: none; + height: 1px; + margin: 1em 0; + } + table { + margin: 1em 0; + border-collapse: collapse; + width: 100%; + overflow-x: auto; + display: block; + font-variant-numeric: lining-nums tabular-nums; + } + table caption { + margin-bottom: 0.75em; + } + tbody { + margin-top: 0.5em; + border-top: 1px solid #1a1a1a; + border-bottom: 1px solid #1a1a1a; + } + th { + border-top: 1px solid #1a1a1a; + padding: 0.25em 0.5em 0.25em 0.5em; + } + td { + padding: 0.125em 0.5em 0.25em 0.5em; + } + header { + margin-bottom: 4em; + text-align: center; + } + #TOC li { + list-style: none; + } + #TOC ul { + padding-left: 1.3em; + } + #TOC > ul { + padding-left: 0; + } + #TOC a:not(:hover) { + text-decoration: none; + } + code{white-space: pre-wrap;} + span.smallcaps{font-variant: small-caps;} + span.underline{text-decoration: underline;} + div.column{display: inline-block; vertical-align: top; width: 50%;} + div.hanging-indent{margin-left: 1.5em; text-indent: -1.5em;} + ul.task-list{list-style: none;} + .display.math{display: block; text-align: center; margin: 0.5rem auto;} + </style> +</head> +<body> +<nav id="TOC" role="doc-toc"> +<h2 id="toc-title">Contents</h2> +<ul> +<li><a href="#why">Why?</a></li> +<li><a href="#how-to-use-a-web-browser">How to use a web +browser</a></li> +<li><a href="#how-to-use-a-search-engine">How to use a search +engine</a></li> +<li><a href="#how-to-read-and-find-scholarly-articles">How to read and +find scholarly articles</a> +<ul> +<li><a href="#how-to-use-wikipedia">How to use Wikipedia</a></li> +<li><a href="#how-to-find-articles-with-google-scholar">How to find +articles with Google Scholar</a></li> +</ul></li> +<li><a href="#advanced-topics">Advanced Topics</a> +<ul> +<li><a href="#how-to-use-tor-to-browse-anonymously">How to use tor to +browse anonymously</a></li> +</ul></li> +</ul> +</nav> +<h2 id="why">Why?</h2> +<p>Changing times and a forgetful youth have forced me to write this +guide.</p> +<p>I am increasingly disturbed by the amount of people I meet (young and +old) that navigate their lives at least in part online, but are unable +to use the internet for it's intended purpose: finding infomation. +Writing to someone or posting a picture of your cat seems to be second +nature for most people, but converting a picture from a PDF or looking +up a study (or even a word!) you saw in an article is something else +entirely.</p> +<p>For the most part, it is not anyone's fault or laziness. It's the +fault of what the internet <em>has become</em>. For one, there's just so +much more <em>stuff</em> now; it's hard to know exactly where to start +and who to trust. And so much of that stuff is now <em>garbage</em>, +either in the way it's presented--with disruptive ads that don't close +correctly--or in the way it's written--vague, misleading, or straight +incorrect. But for seconds: no one really teaches you how to use this +thing do they? There are no courses on "How to use a search engine" or +"How to find good posts on a forum," yet these are the kinds of skills +you really need if you want to navigate the modern world without getting +constantly distracted, misled, or totally lost.</p> +<p>There are of course, countless guides on "netiquette" geared towards +every possible internet subculture you can find. While many of them have +influenced this document and give many helpful tips on writing good +informative posts, none of them really go over what I think is most +important: what to do with the information you're reading.</p> +<p>This will probably be an evolving document as new services and +websites become available (or go down), but much of this material in the +beginning should be pretty generally applicable no matter what services +are available.</p> +<h2 id="how-to-use-a-web-browser">How to use a web browser</h2> +<h2 id="how-to-use-a-search-engine">How to use a search engine</h2> +<p>As for which search engine to use: you should use all of them, until +you get the results you need. In my experience, none of the major search +engines are particularly good and I get inconsistent searches on all of +them depending on what I'm searching. There is much preaching these days +about privacy concerns, but to be honest I don't believe any service is +more "private" than another. These are all privacy nightmares, your best +bet is to just search often and as varied as you can.</p> +<h2 id="how-to-read-and-find-scholarly-articles">How to read and find +scholarly articles</h2> +<h3 id="how-to-use-wikipedia">How to use Wikipedia</h3> +<p>A common complaint lodged at me whenever I recommend Wikipedia is +that it's not a source of truth since they found X mistake somewhere, or +made Y edit when they were a teenager that's still there. No one has +ever (or should ever) claim Wikipedia is reliable. Frankly, you should +not consider <em>any</em> source to be reliable, but that's a separate +issue. If you know how to use Wikipedia you can use it to get closer to +a true understanding of whatever you're studying.</p> +<p>For starters, as a general rule, you should not trust anything you +read on a topic that is less than 20 years old. We're still living +through the history at this point and new things can come to light.</p> +<h3 id="how-to-find-articles-with-google-scholar">How to find articles +with Google Scholar</h3> +<h2 id="advanced-topics">Advanced Topics</h2> +<h3 id="how-to-use-tor-to-browse-anonymously">How to use tor to browse +anonymously</h3> +<p>Many in the advertising world will boast about using a VPN for +anonymity, or using a VPN in conjuction with Tor to "increase privacy." +This is simply a misunderstanding of terms. A VPN provides +<em>privacy</em> of the user's connection since it provides +encryption--only the VPN provider can "see" what is searched. The goal +of Tor is <em>anonymity</em> not privacy. Anonymity means "no one knows +who you are" not "no one knows what you're doing." Technically, traffic +is encrypted between nodes of the Tor service, so some level of privacy +is provided as well, but this is most effective when using hidden +services, not using Tor in general.</p> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/tutorials/www/quick-intro-html-css.html b/tutorials/www/quick-intro-html-css.html index 53073d3..7d74dff 100644 --- a/tutorials/www/quick-intro-html-css.html +++ b/tutorials/www/quick-intro-html-css.html @@ -6,12 +6,153 @@ <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=yes" /> <title>quick-intro-html-css</title> <style> + html { + line-height: 1.5; + font-family: Georgia, serif; + font-size: 20px; + color: #1a1a1a; + background-color: #fdfdfd; + } + body { + margin: 0 auto; + max-width: 36em; + padding-left: 50px; + padding-right: 50px; + padding-top: 50px; + padding-bottom: 50px; + hyphens: auto; + overflow-wrap: break-word; + text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; + font-kerning: normal; + } + @media (max-width: 600px) { + body { + font-size: 0.9em; + padding: 1em; + } + h1 { + font-size: 1.8em; + } + } + @media print { + body { + background-color: transparent; + color: black; + font-size: 12pt; + } + p, h2, h3 { + orphans: 3; + widows: 3; + } + h2, h3, h4 { + page-break-after: avoid; + } + } + p { + margin: 1em 0; + } + a { + color: #1a1a1a; + } + a:visited { + color: #1a1a1a; + } + img { + max-width: 100%; + } + h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 { + margin-top: 1.4em; + } + h5, h6 { + font-size: 1em; + font-style: italic; + } + h6 { + font-weight: normal; + } + ol, ul { + padding-left: 1.7em; + margin-top: 1em; + } + li > ol, li > ul { + margin-top: 0; + } + blockquote { + margin: 1em 0 1em 1.7em; + padding-left: 1em; + border-left: 2px solid #e6e6e6; + color: #606060; + } + code { + font-family: Menlo, Monaco, 'Lucida Console', Consolas, monospace; + font-size: 85%; + margin: 0; + } + pre { + margin: 1em 0; + overflow: auto; + } + pre code { + padding: 0; + overflow: visible; + overflow-wrap: normal; + } + .sourceCode { + background-color: transparent; + overflow: visible; + } + hr { + background-color: #1a1a1a; + border: none; + height: 1px; + margin: 1em 0; + } + table { + margin: 1em 0; + border-collapse: collapse; + width: 100%; + overflow-x: auto; + display: block; + font-variant-numeric: lining-nums tabular-nums; + } + table caption { + margin-bottom: 0.75em; + } + tbody { + margin-top: 0.5em; + border-top: 1px solid #1a1a1a; + border-bottom: 1px solid #1a1a1a; + } + th { + border-top: 1px solid #1a1a1a; + padding: 0.25em 0.5em 0.25em 0.5em; + } + td { + padding: 0.125em 0.5em 0.25em 0.5em; + } + header { + margin-bottom: 4em; + text-align: center; + } + #TOC li { + list-style: none; + } + #TOC ul { + padding-left: 1.3em; + } + #TOC > ul { + padding-left: 0; + } + #TOC a:not(:hover) { + text-decoration: none; + } code{white-space: pre-wrap;} span.smallcaps{font-variant: small-caps;} span.underline{text-decoration: underline;} div.column{display: inline-block; vertical-align: top; width: 50%;} div.hanging-indent{margin-left: 1.5em; text-indent: -1.5em;} ul.task-list{list-style: none;} + .display.math{display: block; text-align: center; margin: 0.5rem auto;} </style> </head> <body> @@ -26,18 +167,21 @@ <li><a href="#tables-and-links">Tables and Links</a></li> <li><a href="#and-everything-else...">And Everything Else...</a> <ul> -<li><a href="#shortlist-of-text-and-formatting-tags">Shortlist of Text and Formatting Tags</a></li> +<li><a href="#shortlist-of-text-and-formatting-tags">Shortlist of Text +and Formatting Tags</a></li> </ul></li> <li><a href="#html-metadata">HTML Metadata</a></li> </ul></li> <li><a href="#css">CSS</a> <ul> -<li><a href="#add-style-without-css">Add style <em>without</em> CSS</a></li> +<li><a href="#add-style-without-css">Add style <em>without</em> +CSS</a></li> <li><a href="#basic-formatting">Basic Formatting</a></li> <li><a href="#image-formatting">Image Formatting</a></li> <li><a href="#making-custom-classes">Making Custom Classes</a> <ul> -<li><a href="#use-the-div-tag-to-make-sections">Use the div tag to make sections</a></li> +<li><a href="#use-the-div-tag-to-make-sections">Use the div tag to make +sections</a></li> </ul></li> <li><a href="#mobile-optimization">Mobile Optimization</a></li> </ul></li> @@ -50,30 +194,70 @@ </ul></li> </ul> </nav> -<p><em>Note: you should run the examples to see how they work. You can either write the files yourself and open them in a web browser, or use an online HTML editor like</em> <a href="https://html-css-js.com/"><em>this one</em></a></p> -<p>As you can see from the current state of this site, I'm not exactly exactly the most skilled web designer. But I struggled through the basics enough to get an idiot's sense of front-end web design, so that perspective might be useful if you have no clue where to start with this like I did.</p> -<p>The building blocks are very simple, <em>but there's a lot of blocks</em>. The <a href="https://dev.w3.org/html5/spec-LC/semantics.html#semantics">HTML5 specification</a>, which most browsers are built around, defines the semantics of elements that can should be rendered by a web browser. CSS similarly defines the <em>attributes</em>--or styles--that can be applied to those elements in a format specified <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/CSS1/">here</a>. I've never gotten deep into the weeds like professional designers do--and to be honest, I don't really want to. But I <em>do</em> like understanding how things work. And getting a unique custom HTML site is something anyone with a text editor and a web browser can get done in a weekend.</p> +<p><em>Note: you should run the examples to see how they work. You can +either write the files yourself and open them in a web browser, or use +an online HTML editor like</em> <a +href="https://html-css-js.com/"><em>this one</em></a></p> +<p>As you can see from the current state of this site, I'm not exactly +exactly the most skilled web designer. But I struggled through the +basics enough to get an idiot's sense of front-end web design, so that +perspective might be useful if you have no clue where to start with this +like I did.</p> +<p>The building blocks are very simple, <em>but there's a lot of +blocks</em>. The <a +href="https://dev.w3.org/html5/spec-LC/semantics.html#semantics">HTML5 +specification</a>, which most browsers are built around, defines the +semantics of elements that can should be rendered by a web browser. CSS +similarly defines the <em>attributes</em>--or styles--that can be +applied to those elements in a format specified <a +href="https://www.w3.org/TR/CSS1/">here</a>. I've never gotten deep into +the weeds like professional designers do--and to be honest, I don't +really want to. But I <em>do</em> like understanding how things work. +And getting a unique custom HTML site is something anyone with a text +editor and a web browser can get done in a weekend.</p> <h1 id="web-browsers-render-code">Web browsers render code</h1> -<p>The specifications linked above are followed religiously by major web browsers like Chromium, Firefox, and Safari so that each symbol defined in the standard defines font, graphics, animations, layouts and all kinds of neat stuff you can stick in an HTML document. But what is that exactly?</p> +<p>The specifications linked above are followed religiously by major web +browsers like Chromium, Firefox, and Safari so that each symbol defined +in the standard defines font, graphics, animations, layouts and all +kinds of neat stuff you can stick in an HTML document. But what is that +exactly?</p> <h2 id="html">HTML</h2> -<p>An HTML file is just a text file that follows the format of HTML. HTML stands for "Hyper Text Markup Language" and is very much like standard programming languages in that it maps symbols to things you actually see in your browser. It is not a true programming language since you can't run it or compile it on it's own like a typical computer program. You need another program, a web browser, to make sense of it.</p> +<p>An HTML file is just a text file that follows the format of HTML. +HTML stands for "Hyper Text Markup Language" and is very much like +standard programming languages in that it maps symbols to things you +actually see in your browser. It is not a true programming language +since you can't run it or compile it on it's own like a typical computer +program. You need another program, a web browser, to make sense of +it.</p> <h3 id="basic-format">Basic Format</h3> -<p>All HTML files start with the following (note: the spacing does not matter, it's just spaced for readability):</p> +<p>All HTML files start with the following (note: the spacing does not +matter, it's just spaced for readability):</p> <pre><code><html> <body> <!-- stuff you see goes here --> </body> </html></code></pre> -<p>You'll notice two <em>tags</em> here. An "html" tag, and a "body" tag, both of which are closed with "</html>" and "</body>" to signify where the sections end. The HTML document proper is anything between the HTML tags. The body of the document contains the actual content that the user sees. For example:</p> +<p>You'll notice two <em>tags</em> here. An "html" tag, and a "body" +tag, both of which are closed with "</html>" and "</body>" +to signify where the sections end. The HTML document proper is anything +between the HTML tags. The body of the document contains the actual +content that the user sees. For example:</p> <pre><code><html> <body> <h1>My Great page</h1> <p>My great paragraph</p> </body> </html></code></pre> -<p>We've introduced two more tags here, both of which are closed within the body section. The "h1" tag defines a "Heading" which tells the browser to render the text big and bold, like a document title. You can define subheadings just by using a different number like "h2" instead of "h1." The second tag "p" defines a paragraph, which by default, renders the text normally. Check out how it looks so far by saving the above text in a file called "page.html" and open it in your browser.</p> +<p>We've introduced two more tags here, both of which are closed within +the body section. The "h1" tag defines a "Heading" which tells the +browser to render the text big and bold, like a document title. You can +define subheadings just by using a different number like "h2" instead of +"h1." The second tag "p" defines a paragraph, which by default, renders +the text normally. Check out how it looks so far by saving the above +text in a file called "page.html" and open it in your browser.</p> <h3 id="tables-and-links">Tables and Links</h3> -<p>We can do a lot more than text of course. Let's walk through some more tags in this example:</p> +<p>We can do a lot more than text of course. Let's walk through some +more tags in this example:</p> <pre><code><html> <body> <h1>My Great page</h1> @@ -101,30 +285,76 @@ </center> </body> </html></code></pre> -<p>We added a few things here, but it's the same pattern right? <open></close>.</p> -<p>We started by adding a "center" tag, which does what you think: it aligns the content to the center of whatever screen it's being viewed on. This is applied to the table and all the text within the table.</p> -<p>The next is the "table" tag which, you guessed it, arranges elements in rows and columns like a data table. The "table" tag always comes with two sub tags for the row and column: "tr" and "td." You always write the row first and put each "data" column inside (I'm guessing the "d" in "td" stands for data; I'm actually not sure). By default, "td" works a lot like "p" does--it'll just spit out whatever text you put in.</p> -<p>To spice things up though, I introduced a new element instead; probably the most important feature of HTML. The "a" tag lets you link to other documents on your site, or <em>to any other URL in the world</em>. On it's own, the "a" tag doesn't do anything special. We need to use the tag with an <em>attribute</em>--an extra word that comes after a--in order to make it work for us. A more basic example might be this:</p> +<p>We added a few things here, but it's the same pattern right? +<open></close>.</p> +<p>We started by adding a "center" tag, which does what you think: it +aligns the content to the center of whatever screen it's being viewed +on. This is applied to the table and all the text within the table.</p> +<p>The next is the "table" tag which, you guessed it, arranges elements +in rows and columns like a data table. The "table" tag always comes with +two sub tags for the row and column: "tr" and "td." You always write the +row first and put each "data" column inside (I'm guessing the "d" in +"td" stands for data; I'm actually not sure). By default, "td" works a +lot like "p" does--it'll just spit out whatever text you put in.</p> +<p>To spice things up though, I introduced a new element instead; +probably the most important feature of HTML. The "a" tag lets you link +to other documents on your site, or <em>to any other URL in the +world</em>. On it's own, the "a" tag doesn't do anything special. We +need to use the tag with an <em>attribute</em>--an extra word that comes +after a--in order to make it work for us. A more basic example might be +this:</p> <pre><code><a href="https://example.com">Example</a></code></pre> <p>Which you'll see as:</p> <p><a href="https://example.com">Example</a></p> -<p>The "href" attribute doesn't <em>have</em> to point to some other website; it can point to anything. For example, you might want to link to picture your cat (maybe hosted at "/var/www/cat.jpg"). You would do it like this:</p> +<p>The "href" attribute doesn't <em>have</em> to point to some other +website; it can point to anything. For example, you might want to link +to picture your cat (maybe hosted at "/var/www/cat.jpg"). You would do +it like this:</p> <pre><code><a href="/cat.jpg">example</a></code></pre> <p>You can also link an email like this</p> <pre><code><a href="mailto:email@example.com">example email</a> </code></pre> -<p>Let's say you had a barebones site with 5 HTML files named: index.html, about.html, faq.html, cats.html, vidya.html. You can make a neat little navbar just using "a" tags like this:</p> +<p>Let's say you had a barebones site with 5 HTML files named: +index.html, about.html, faq.html, cats.html, vidya.html. You can make a +neat little navbar just using "a" tags like this:</p> <pre><code><a href="/index.html">home</a> - <a href="/about.html">about</a> - <a href="/faq.html">faq</a> - <a href="/cats.html">cats</a> - <a href="/vidya.html">vidya</a></code></pre> <h3 id="and-everything-else...">And Everything Else...</h3> -<p>There are many other tags out there, many of which I don't know, and one which I mentioned before, but didn't explain yet: the "img" tag. In the earlier example with "cat.jpg" we linked <em>to</em> the image, but if we want to render it, we need to use "img" with it's main attribute "src." The "src" attribute works like "href" does as it points to the path where the image is. Note the "img" tag is also a bit different since it doesn't have a closing tag. This is intentional. Other tags were enclosing sections of text and content. This is simply <em>inserting</em> an element right into the document.</p> -<p>What you can do with the "img" tag, and what you can do with HTML tags in general, is limited only by the browser that's reading the HTML. The Mozilla Firefox "img" tag has a <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/img">long page</a> on all the different attributes and effects you can apply to images.</p> -<p>There are many places you can get all the common elements laid out for you, and it's important to bookmark those and refer to them frequently when you're thinking about designing your webpage. A common referral from search engines is <a href="https://www.w3schools.com/">https://www.w3schools.com/</a>, which is a great resource. I personally like to look at the HTML elements reference of a common web browser like <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element">Firefox's</a> so I know exactly which elements work.</p> -<p>If you're like me, a referral to a long reference manual can sometimes seem kind of daunting. So if you're feeling that way, here's a quick table of the HTML elements I tend to use a lot and how I use them for formatting text. I won't go into <em>interactive</em> elements like buttons and text input since that will involve another programming language like PHP, Javascript, or Python.</p> -<h4 id="shortlist-of-text-and-formatting-tags">Shortlist of Text and Formatting Tags</h4> +<p>There are many other tags out there, many of which I don't know, and +one which I mentioned before, but didn't explain yet: the "img" tag. In +the earlier example with "cat.jpg" we linked <em>to</em> the image, but +if we want to render it, we need to use "img" with it's main attribute +"src." The "src" attribute works like "href" does as it points to the +path where the image is. Note the "img" tag is also a bit different +since it doesn't have a closing tag. This is intentional. Other tags +were enclosing sections of text and content. This is simply +<em>inserting</em> an element right into the document.</p> +<p>What you can do with the "img" tag, and what you can do with HTML +tags in general, is limited only by the browser that's reading the HTML. +The Mozilla Firefox "img" tag has a <a +href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/img">long +page</a> on all the different attributes and effects you can apply to +images.</p> +<p>There are many places you can get all the common elements laid out +for you, and it's important to bookmark those and refer to them +frequently when you're thinking about designing your webpage. A common +referral from search engines is <a +href="https://www.w3schools.com/">https://www.w3schools.com/</a>, which +is a great resource. I personally like to look at the HTML elements +reference of a common web browser like <a +href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element">Firefox's</a> +so I know exactly which elements work.</p> +<p>If you're like me, a referral to a long reference manual can +sometimes seem kind of daunting. So if you're feeling that way, here's a +quick table of the HTML elements I tend to use a lot and how I use them +for formatting text. I won't go into <em>interactive</em> elements like +buttons and text input since that will involve another programming +language like PHP, Javascript, or Python.</p> +<h4 id="shortlist-of-text-and-formatting-tags">Shortlist of Text and +Formatting Tags</h4> <center> <table border="1px" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tr> @@ -199,14 +429,22 @@ The items in those lists <iframe> </td> <td> -Embeds another html file in the current one. Here's your IP from ipaddress.sh:<br> <iframe src="https://ipaddress.sh/"></iframe> +Embeds another html file in the current one. Here's your IP from +ipaddress.sh:<br> <iframe src="https://ipaddress.sh/"></iframe> </td> </tr> </table> </center> <h3 id="html-metadata">HTML Metadata</h3> -<p>Everything we discussed so far was only about <em>one section</em> of the HTML document: the "body." We haven't touched the "head" at all. If we can put all our content in the body, what do we even need it for?</p> -<p>Even though (most) of the things in the head aren't rendered by the browser, it still provides useful information to the browser and to search engines indexing the site that can improve the user experience. The most common thing you'll see in the head section is the site's title, and something called "meta" tags. As usual, it's best to see an example:</p> +<p>Everything we discussed so far was only about <em>one section</em> of +the HTML document: the "body." We haven't touched the "head" at all. If +we can put all our content in the body, what do we even need it for?</p> +<p>Even though (most) of the things in the head aren't rendered by the +browser, it still provides useful information to the browser and to +search engines indexing the site that can improve the user experience. +The most common thing you'll see in the head section is the site's +title, and something called "meta" tags. As usual, it's best to see an +example:</p> <pre><code><html> <head> <title>My Great page</title> @@ -222,21 +460,51 @@ Embeds another html file in the current one. Here's your IP from ipaddress.sh:<b <p>My great paragraph</p> </body> </html></code></pre> -<p>Note that the "meta" tag works like the "img" tag did and has no closing tag.</p> -<p>The first tag in the head is the "title" tag. This is the title of document as it will appear when the page is opened in a browser tab. It is also the title that will show up in search engines. Otherwise, it has no effect on the content rendered.</p> -<p>Likewise, the proceeding "meta" tags also send info to the browser and to search engines for convenience. Most sites will have tags with the attributes "name" and "content" as set above. The first one we see sets the content type of the document. This is a bit redundant, but making it as well as the character set explicit is useful for older web browsers that need it.</p> -<p>Next up are some tags as a courtesy to search engines. The one named "description" is the short description you're familiar with from search engine results. The "keywords" are a comma separated list of word you want associated with the content of your site--this is again another hint to search engines when they add your site to their database. "Author" serves a similar purpose.</p> -<p>That last meta tag looks a bit funky, but it's purpose is to assist in scaling your website on all devices. For a standard browser on a desktop, it just sets the zoom of the text 100% (be default). On mobile, it will adjust accordingly.</p> -<p>As is the trend, "meta" is just a building block on which you can build a lot of functionality. Be sure to check the references at the end for a full treatment of the topic.</p> +<p>Note that the "meta" tag works like the "img" tag did and has no +closing tag.</p> +<p>The first tag in the head is the "title" tag. This is the title of +document as it will appear when the page is opened in a browser tab. It +is also the title that will show up in search engines. Otherwise, it has +no effect on the content rendered.</p> +<p>Likewise, the proceeding "meta" tags also send info to the browser +and to search engines for convenience. Most sites will have tags with +the attributes "name" and "content" as set above. The first one we see +sets the content type of the document. This is a bit redundant, but +making it as well as the character set explicit is useful for older web +browsers that need it.</p> +<p>Next up are some tags as a courtesy to search engines. The one named +"description" is the short description you're familiar with from search +engine results. The "keywords" are a comma separated list of word you +want associated with the content of your site--this is again another +hint to search engines when they add your site to their database. +"Author" serves a similar purpose.</p> +<p>That last meta tag looks a bit funky, but it's purpose is to assist +in scaling your website on all devices. For a standard browser on a +desktop, it just sets the zoom of the text 100% (be default). On mobile, +it will adjust accordingly.</p> +<p>As is the trend, "meta" is just a building block on which you can +build a lot of functionality. Be sure to check the references at the end +for a full treatment of the topic.</p> <h2 id="css">CSS</h2> -<p>In our last example, I left one tag left untreated, because it segways into yet another format of file closely linked to HTML: Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).</p> -<p>The "link" tag in the metadata sections can link any external resource. It's commonly used to make a "favicon" for example, which is the icon you see in the tab of an open page.</p> +<p>In our last example, I left one tag left untreated, because it +segways into yet another format of file closely linked to HTML: +Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).</p> +<p>The "link" tag in the metadata sections can link any external +resource. It's commonly used to make a "favicon" for example, which is +the icon you see in the tab of an open page.</p> <pre><code><link rel="icon" href="/favicon.ico"></code></pre> -<p>In the last example, we instead make a reference to a CSS formatted style sheet. Like HTML, CSS is just a text file written in a specific syntax. CSS allows you to set attributes to <em>all</em> tags in a specific document and create a unifying style for all your pages.</p> +<p>In the last example, we instead make a reference to a CSS formatted +style sheet. Like HTML, CSS is just a text file written in a specific +syntax. CSS allows you to set attributes to <em>all</em> tags in a +specific document and create a unifying style for all your pages.</p> <pre><code><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/static/main.css"></code></pre> -<p>As before, "href" points to the file to be linked. In this example, we place our CSS in a text file called "main.css" in the "static" directory of "/var/www/html".</p> +<p>As before, "href" points to the file to be linked. In this example, +we place our CSS in a text file called "main.css" in the "static" +directory of "/var/www/html".</p> <h3 id="add-style-without-css">Add style <em>without</em> CSS</h3> -<p>Before we make CSS files, I want to stress the point that all this stuff is defined in HTML. You can set these attributes directly in any tag we talked about in the last section. For example:</p> +<p>Before we make CSS files, I want to stress the point that all this +stuff is defined in HTML. You can set these attributes directly in any +tag we talked about in the last section. For example:</p> <pre><code><p style="color:red">this text is red</p> <p style="color:red;background-color:blue">this background is blue</p> <p style="color:red;background-color:blue;text-align:center">this text is centered</p> @@ -261,9 +529,14 @@ this text is centered rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color:yellow;background-color:red;text-align:justify;width:100%" > And this links to sonichu </a></p> -<p>This is useful if you want to play around with one section of the text, but annoying if you want a style to apply to every paragraph. Instead, we tag a list of tags and set <em>all</em> their attributes using a CSS file.</p> +<p>This is useful if you want to play around with one section of the +text, but annoying if you want a style to apply to every paragraph. +Instead, we tag a list of tags and set <em>all</em> their attributes +using a CSS file.</p> <h3 id="basic-formatting">Basic Formatting</h3> -<p>For any HTML tag, you can set an attribute that applies everytime it appears in an HTML document that links to the CSS file. A common formatting I use for paragraphs is:</p> +<p>For any HTML tag, you can set an attribute that applies everytime it +appears in an HTML document that links to the CSS file. A common +formatting I use for paragraphs is:</p> <pre><code>p { margin-top: 1.5%; margin-bottom: 1.5%; @@ -276,16 +549,23 @@ this text is centered white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-all; }</code></pre> -<p>I get pretty much all the attribute names just by looking them up <a href="https://www.w3schools.com/CSSref/default.asp">here</a>. But in order these lines:</p> +<p>I get pretty much all the attribute names just by looking them up <a +href="https://www.w3schools.com/CSSref/default.asp">here</a>. But in +order these lines:</p> <ul> -<li>Add padding to the text lines to fill any empty space with space characters (this make the background look like a block)</li> +<li>Add padding to the text lines to fill any empty space with space +characters (this make the background look like a block)</li> <li>Increase the font size a bit more than normal</li> -<li>Set the background color gray, chosen from an <a href="https://www.w3schools.com/colors/colors_picker.asp">HTML color picker</a></li> +<li>Set the background color gray, chosen from an <a +href="https://www.w3schools.com/colors/colors_picker.asp">HTML color +picker</a></li> <li>preserve white space, like the pre tag does</li> <li>break long lines, even in the middle of words</li> </ul> <h3 id="image-formatting">Image Formatting</h3> -<p>Images get more styles in CSS than I can document in detail, but one important bit you'll want to probably add to all images is the following.</p> +<p>Images get more styles in CSS than I can document in detail, but one +important bit you'll want to probably add to all images is the +following.</p> <pre><code>img { max-width: 100%; height: auto; @@ -297,8 +577,11 @@ this text is centered <li>automatically scales the height of the image on zoom</li> <li>automatically scales the width of the image on zoom</li> </ul> -<p>The reason I like this is that when user's zoom on your image, or view on mobile, the image scales to fit the screen; it never gets cutoff or distorted.</p> -<p>In addition to this basic stuff, you can style your images heavily using the filter option like so:</p> +<p>The reason I like this is that when user's zoom on your image, or +view on mobile, the image scales to fit the screen; it never gets cutoff +or distorted.</p> +<p>In addition to this basic stuff, you can style your images heavily +using the filter option like so:</p> <pre><code>img.gray { filter: grayscale(100%) }</code></pre> @@ -306,60 +589,124 @@ this text is centered <p><img style="filter:grayscale(100%)" src="https://archive.md/zP2NL/9d16630c80f93351469867fde13ea5199cd1f483.jpg" /></p> -<p>You can read lots more options for image formatting <a href="https://www.w3schools.com/css/css3_images.asp">here</a> and about the filter property <a href="https://www.w3schools.com/CSSref/css3_pr_filter.asp">here</a></p> +<p>You can read lots more options for image formatting <a +href="https://www.w3schools.com/css/css3_images.asp">here</a> and about +the filter property <a +href="https://www.w3schools.com/CSSref/css3_pr_filter.asp">here</a></p> <h3 id="making-custom-classes">Making Custom Classes</h3> -<p>Sometimes, you might want to apply an effect to some elements but not others. An example on this site, I dim the icons a bit so they can appear nice on dark theme browsers just as well. But I don't want to dim <em>all</em> images like in the following example:</p> +<p>Sometimes, you might want to apply an effect to some elements but not +others. An example on this site, I dim the icons a bit so they can +appear nice on dark theme browsers just as well. But I don't want to dim +<em>all</em> images like in the following example:</p> <pre><code>img { filter: invert(50%); }</code></pre> -<p>For one, that will only dim black-and-white images; anything else will just turn to mush like this:</p> +<p>For one, that will only dim black-and-white images; anything else +will just turn to mush like this:</p> <p><img class="icon" src="https://archive.md/zP2NL/9d16630c80f93351469867fde13ea5199cd1f483.jpg" /></p> -<p>Instead, I'd like it to just apply to select elements; I can do so by extending the tag with a class. On the CSS side:</p> +<p>Instead, I'd like it to just apply to select elements; I can do so by +extending the tag with a class. On the CSS side:</p> <pre><code>img.icon { filter: invert(50%); }</code></pre> <p>And to implement it in HTML:</p> <pre><code><img class="icon" src="/static/rss.svg" /></code></pre> <p><img class="icon" src="/static/rss.svg" /></p> -<h4 id="use-the-div-tag-to-make-sections">Use the div tag to make sections</h4> -<p>You can use the class property on <em>any</em> HTML tag, but you can also make general purpose classes that apply to a group of elements. Let's say you wanted to center a heading, a paragraph, and a picture, and constrain them to only part of the page, so that there's some margins on the left and right. We can put them all in one content section like this:</p> +<h4 id="use-the-div-tag-to-make-sections">Use the div tag to make +sections</h4> +<p>You can use the class property on <em>any</em> HTML tag, but you can +also make general purpose classes that apply to a group of elements. +Let's say you wanted to center a heading, a paragraph, and a picture, +and constrain them to only part of the page, so that there's some +margins on the left and right. We can put them all in one content +section like this:</p> <pre><code>.content { text-align: center; max-width: 85%; }</code></pre> -<p>Notice, no leading tag. This can be applied to <em>any</em> element, but usually we use a placeholder tag called "div." You can think of "div" like a divider for content of similar style. In the present example, we can use the class we made with a div tag:</p> +<p>Notice, no leading tag. This can be applied to <em>any</em> element, +but usually we use a placeholder tag called "div." You can think of +"div" like a divider for content of similar style. In the present +example, we can use the class we made with a div tag:</p> <pre><code><div class="content"> <h1>My cat</h1> <p>He's a cool cat</p> <img src="/cat.jpg" /> </div></code></pre> <h3 id="mobile-optimization">Mobile Optimization</h3> -<p>In early development, reading this site on my phone was a painful experience. Fortunately, in addition to some tricks above like the "viewport" meta tag, there exist parts of the CSS specification that allow you to directly manipulate your website based on properties of the user's device or web browser.</p> -<p>I won't go into as gory details as <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/mediaqueries-4/">here</a> or <a href="https://3body-net.medium.com/building-mobile-optimized-layouts-with-css-html-1a736d779b1b">here</a>, but for your basic smartphone, you can copy and paste this block:</p> +<p>In early development, reading this site on my phone was a painful +experience. Fortunately, in addition to some tricks above like the +"viewport" meta tag, there exist parts of the CSS specification that +allow you to directly manipulate your website based on properties of the +user's device or web browser.</p> +<p>I won't go into as gory details as <a +href="https://www.w3.org/TR/mediaqueries-4/">here</a> or <a +href="https://3body-net.medium.com/building-mobile-optimized-layouts-with-css-html-1a736d779b1b">here</a>, +but for your basic smartphone, you can copy and paste this block:</p> <pre><code>@media screen and (max-device-width: 480px) { // override your tags here body { font-size: 125%; } }</code></pre> -<p>This basic example makes the text slightly bigger on smartphone screens, but you can change everything you need to. I typically find I need to adjust the padding or the margins since it seems mobile browsers add a little more style than a typical desktop web browser.</p> -<p>It's also a good idea in general to put percentages as the values for your CSS attributes, so that size is always defined relative to all the other elements. This makes functions like zoom work a lot better. You can for example put a pixel value like this:</p> +<p>This basic example makes the text slightly bigger on smartphone +screens, but you can change everything you need to. I typically find I +need to adjust the padding or the margins since it seems mobile browsers +add a little more style than a typical desktop web browser.</p> +<p>It's also a good idea in general to put percentages as the values for +your CSS attributes, so that size is always defined relative to all the +other elements. This makes functions like zoom work a lot better. You +can for example put a pixel value like this:</p> <pre><code>body { font-size: 14px; }</code></pre> -<p>But this binds the size to 14 pixels which may look great on desktop, but small on a smart phone.</p> +<p>But this binds the size to 14 pixels which may look great on desktop, +but small on a smart phone.</p> <h2 id="how-to-look-things-up">How to look things up</h2> -<p>This is a frowned upon, poorly taught skill that any person on this side of the century needs. As I said at the outset, the blocks are simple, but <em>there are a lot of blocks</em>. We've gone over a few that make the site you're looking at what it is. But you're going to need to seek out the rest on your own if you want to make your own unique designs.</p> -<p>Your browser is more powerful then I let on earlier. It does just render code, <em>it can edit it too</em>. You might be familiar with the developer console. Most browsers I know can access this just by right clicking anywhere on a page and hitting "Inspect" or "view in Developer Console," or something like that. At the very least, you should have the option to "view page source." You can view the HTML, CSS, and various other things that you're seeing on the webpage written out in code in the developer console. Double click a value and you'll notice <em>you can change it</em>. A really fun way to learn this stuff is messing with other people's websites--don't worry, it's totally okay to change the HTML! It only changes the document being rendered on <em>your end</em>. Once you refresh your changes are gone. Why don't you try it here?</p> +<p>This is a frowned upon, poorly taught skill that any person on this +side of the century needs. As I said at the outset, the blocks are +simple, but <em>there are a lot of blocks</em>. We've gone over a few +that make the site you're looking at what it is. But you're going to +need to seek out the rest on your own if you want to make your own +unique designs.</p> +<p>Your browser is more powerful then I let on earlier. It does just +render code, <em>it can edit it too</em>. You might be familiar with the +developer console. Most browsers I know can access this just by right +clicking anywhere on a page and hitting "Inspect" or "view in Developer +Console," or something like that. At the very least, you should have the +option to "view page source." You can view the HTML, CSS, and various +other things that you're seeing on the webpage written out in code in +the developer console. Double click a value and you'll notice <em>you +can change it</em>. A really fun way to learn this stuff is messing with +other people's websites--don't worry, it's totally okay to change the +HTML! It only changes the document being rendered on <em>your end</em>. +Once you refresh your changes are gone. Why don't you try it here?</p> <!--Welcome the source code, hope you enjoy your stay :) --> -<p>The Internet itself is the greatest source of examples to learn this. Fancy websites tend to be inscrutable messes--largely on purpose, so you can't steal their design. But simple sites like this one are easy to break apart and grasp. If you scroll up, you'll notice some of the examples are copied and pasted exactly into this document! Don't be afraid to do a bit of copy and pasting when you see a design you like, just try to give credit where credit is due.</p> -<p>When you're done mindlessly clicking through source code though, and you want to get something done <em>your way</em>, you need to have a search engine handy, and preferably a few reference manuals handy. They're a bit scattered throughout this document, but if you've learned nothing else, these are the must haves:</p> +<p>The Internet itself is the greatest source of examples to learn this. +Fancy websites tend to be inscrutable messes--largely on purpose, so you +can't steal their design. But simple sites like this one are easy to +break apart and grasp. If you scroll up, you'll notice some of the +examples are copied and pasted exactly into this document! Don't be +afraid to do a bit of copy and pasting when you see a design you like, +just try to give credit where credit is due.</p> +<p>When you're done mindlessly clicking through source code though, and +you want to get something done <em>your way</em>, you need to have a +search engine handy, and preferably a few reference manuals handy. +They're a bit scattered throughout this document, but if you've learned +nothing else, these are the must haves:</p> <ul> -<li>Mozilla <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/link">HTML</a> and <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference">CSS</a></li> -<li>w3schools <a href="https://www.w3schools.com/tags/default.asp">HTML</a> and <a href="https://www.w3schools.com/CSSref/default.asp">CSS</a></li> -<li>The official w3 docs <a href="https://dev.w3.org/html5/spec-LC">HTML5</a> and <a href="https://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/specs.en.html">All CSS specs</a></li> +<li>Mozilla <a +href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/link">HTML</a> +and <a +href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference">CSS</a></li> +<li>w3schools <a +href="https://www.w3schools.com/tags/default.asp">HTML</a> and <a +href="https://www.w3schools.com/CSSref/default.asp">CSS</a></li> +<li>The official w3 docs <a +href="https://dev.w3.org/html5/spec-LC">HTML5</a> and <a +href="https://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/specs.en.html">All CSS specs</a></li> </ul> <h2 id="references">References</h2> <h3 id="html-1">HTML</h3> |