html/css crash course (april 4 2017)

Frontend Crash Course: Intro to HTML/CSS

Access the slides: bit.ly/dc-html

http://bit.ly/dc-html

© 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 2

About me

David Coulter

Frontend developer and product manager for 10 years at National Geographic, NGP Van, Arcadia Power

Mentor @ Thinkful


About you

Why are you here? Do you want to work better with developers? Do you want to start working in tech? Do you have an idea that you want to build?

Programming experience? First lines of code will be written tonight? Been self teaching for 1-3 months? Been at this for 3+ months


Goals

Learn core concepts of HTML/CSS to build websites

Complete drills to put those concepts into practice

Build your first website

Get comfortable with the feeling of learning programming, especially struggling with a concept

Take home challenges to keep going


How the web works

Type a URL from a client (e.g. google.com)

Browser communicates with DNS server to find IP address

Browser sends an HTTP request asking for specific files

Browser receives those files and renders them as a website

http://google.com


Client / Server

ClientFrontend Developer

ServerBackend Developer


Client / Server

Request

Response

Client - UI Logic Server - Business Logic

Database Servers


Example: Facebook

HTML, CSS, & Javascript render

interactive newsfeed

Algorithm determines what’s in your feed

Request

Get data about your friends and their posts

Open browser and navigate to

facebook.com

Business Logic

Database Servers

Response

http://facebook.com


How that relates to what we’re doing

When we write HTML & CSS today, we are creating those files that are stored on a server, sent through a series of tubes, and then rendered by your browser


Setup

Normally, developers use a text editor to write code

Today, we’re using a tool called Codepen Codepen lets you write HTML/CSS and instantly see the results of your work Create an account: http://bit.ly/codepen-account On second page, skip all the profile information and just click the big green button at the bottom of the page Create a new “pen”


Your first website

Copy this (don’t worry if you don’t yet understand):

<html> <body>

<h1>Hello world!</h1> </body>

</html>


What is HTML?

HTML is the content and

structure of a webpage


What is HTML?


What is HTML?

HTML is the content and structure of a webpage

Three key concepts: Tags Elements Attributes


HTML Tags

Every tag starts with a “less than” sign and ends with a “greater than” sign

<html> This is an HTML tag <body> This is a body tag

<h1>Hello world!</h1> This line has two H1 tags, one opening and one closing

</body> </html>


HTML Tags

There are opening tags and closing tags. Closing tags have a backslash before the tag name.

HTML tags have become more semantic with HTML5 (or, the word signals the purpose of the tag). We’ll review some common tags shortly.


HTML Elements

HTML elements usually consist of an opening tag, closing tag, and some content.

<html> <body> This element starts here and ends two lines below

<h1>Hello world!</h1> This is an HTML element </body>

</html>

Some consist of just a self-closing tag

<img src=“http://i.imgur.com/Th5404r.jpg">


HTML Elements

A non-exhaustive list of HTML elements: <html> HTML tags wrap your entire page <head> Head tags <body> Body tags <h1> H1 tags signify the largest headline. H2 signifies subhead… through h6 <p> Paragraph tags wrap a paragraph of writing


HTML Elements

<section> Section tags help you organize different sections of your layout <div> Div tags are generic/non-semantic container tags for anything that needs a container <a> Anchor tags are for setting some text to be a link <ul> <li> / <ol><li> Unordered list and ordered lists are for lists of items, containing list item elements <button> This is a button


HTML Attributes

HTML attributes set properties on an element. They belong in the opening tag. Here are three common attributes:

<a href=“https://somewhere.com">This is a link</a> href is an attribute for setting the destination of a link <h1 class=“headline”>This is a headline</h1> class is an attribute that doesn’t show up in the rendered webpage, but will be important when we start talking about CSS <h1 id=“headline”>This is a headline</h1> id is an attribute that doesn’t show up in the rendered webpage, but will be important when we start talking about CSS


About me website

bit.ly/codepen-about-me

Let’s walk through the starter code together

Drill: Add another paragraph about yourself

Drill: Add another section to the website similar to the “About me” section called “About my family” with a paragraph of lorem ipsum below it

http://bit.ly/codepen-about-me


HTML Drills

Link here, link there: bit.ly/codepen-link

Images 101: bit.ly/codepen-images

Creating headers: bit.ly/codepen-headers

Add a header element inside of the body (but before the main content). Inside the header, add a title ("Lorem Ipsum") on one line, followed by a subtitle on the next ("Holding places since the 1st century BCE"). The subtitle text should be smaller than the title text.

Link here, link there solution: bit.ly/codepen-link-solution Images 101 solution: bit.ly/codepen-images-solution Creating headers: bit.ly/codepen-headers-solution

http://bit.ly/codepen-link

http://bit.ly/codepen-images

http://bit.ly/codepen-headers

http://bit.ly/codepen-link-solution

http://bit.ly/codepen-images-solution

http://bit.ly/codepen-headers-solution


HTML review

What is HTML?

Tags

Elements

Attributes

Googling HTML elements


What is CSS?

Cascading Style Sheets determine the visual presentation of your HTML webpages


What is CSS?

Key concepts:

Selectors Property Value

Two problems we solve with CSS:

Presentation of specific elements Layout


CSS Example

h1 {

color: red;

font-size: 36px;

}


CSS Selectors

CSS selectors determine which HTML elements are targeted for specific styles:

p This selects all paragraph tags .header This selects HTML elements with the class “header” #navigation This selects HTML elements with the ID navigation p.header This selects paragraph tags with the header class

Selectors can be combined.


CSS Properties

CSS properties determine what about the appearance you’re setting:

color This determines the font color font-family This lets you set the typeface as well as backup typefaces background-image This lets you set a background image for an element height This lets you set the height of an element


CSS Properties

Each property has a default value for a given element. When you write CSS, you over-ride that default value with a new value.

For a full list, see: http://www.htmldog.com/references/css/properties/


CSS Values

Each property has a set of acceptable values that you can set:

color: red, blue, green, #CCCCCC These are all acceptable values for the color property font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif These are all acceptable values for the font-family property background-image: url("imageFile.jpg") This property looks for a URL value that points to a specific image file height: 40px 50% Height can be set as an explicit width or as a percentage of the containing box

Click on a property to see the acceptable values: http://www.htmldog.com/references/css/properties/


CSS Example

h1 {

color: red;

font-size: 36px;

}

This is a declaration block, containing two declarations:


CSS Target Practice

Classes drill: Add classes to the two divs to create a blue box and a red box, as described in the code comments and paragraphs in the codepen. You’ll need to use background-color, margin-bottom, and border.

bit.ly/codepen-classes

Selector drill: write one ruleset for sections that gives them a margin-bottom of 90px, and a second ruleset for header elements that sets font-family to Helvetica

bit.ly/codepen-selectors

http://bit.ly/codepen-classes

http://bit.ly/codepen-selectors


Linking CSS to HTML

We don’t have to deal with this thanks to Codepen

Normally you’d have one HTML file for each webpage (for example, home.html and profile.html), and a single CSS file for the whole website’s styles (styles.css)

To link your stylesheet to your HTML, you’d insert the following line into the <head> section of your HTML webpage:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="theme.css">


CSS Layout

CSS layout determines how elements are arranged around each other. For example, Facebook wrote styles to make the nav bar stick to the top, have the pages and favorites section on the left and the news feed run down the center:


CSS Layout

Key concepts: Display: inline vs display: block The box model Position property


In-line vs block

Every element has a display property set to in-line or block.

A block-level element always starts on a new line and stretches to the full width available An inline element does not start on a new line and only takes up as much width as necessary

Every element has a default value, and that value can be over-ridden by setting an explicit value.


In-line vs block

For a full list of inline elements, see: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Inline_elements

For a full list of block-level elements, see: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Block-level_elements

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Inline_elements



https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Block-level_elements




The box model & position property

Elements are boxes. We use the position property to organize these elements/boxes around each other. The position property has four values:

Static: normal flow. Block elements stack on top of each other. Inline elements are as large as the content they contain. Fixed: outside of normal flow. Stays in same place no matter what. Relative: normal flow. Unlike static, can use left, right, top, bottom properties to move the elements around relative to where they’d otherwise sit. Absolute: outside of normal flow. Stays in a specific spot on a page.


Static positioning

Example: bit.ly/codepen-static

http://bit.ly/codepen-static


Fixed positioning

Example: bit.ly/codepen-fixed

http://bit.ly/codepen-fixed


Relative positioning

Example: bit.ly/codepen-relative

What happens if I change relative to static?

http://bit.ly/codepen-relative


Absolute positioning

Example: bit.ly/codepen-absolute

You’ll be tempted to use absolute positioning to jerry-rig a design. Don’t do this. Only use it when you’re working within a small div that’s not going to change a lot.

http://bit.ly/codepen-absolute


Positioning exercise

Note: we likely will not have time for this tonight.

Build this layout:


Positioning exercise


Positioning exercise: Reasoning about Layout

Images can be downloaded from here: bit.ly/catdog-images

Steps:

Break the page down into its components Pick one to start with (top to bottom, left to right) List the elements inside of a component Identify if a given element should be inline or block, and pick the most appropriate HTML element Code the first element (once again, top to bottom, left to right)

Trick: put a 1px red box around every element with “* {border: 1px solid red; }”. That will let you visualize the boxes of elements more effectively.

http://bit.ly/catdog-images


Where to go from here

More practice… especially with layout

Forms and input

Responsive design

Developer tools

JavaScript for interactivity


Learn to learn

Google is your friend

Practice at the edge of your abilities For HTML/CSS, that usually means picking a webpage and copying it Don’t know where to start? Start with Craigslist. Then do Reddit. Then do Twitter.

For HTML/CSS you don’t need tons of tutorials.

Ignore the hot new thing. Once you’ve started building something, see it through.


Take-home challenges

Finish the positioning exercise

Build a resume with semantic HTML

Take this page and code your own version of it: https://thinkful-ed.github.io/gregs-list/


More about Thinkful

Work 1-on-1 with a mentor (like me!) in a 6-month part-time program or 5-month full-time program

Learn Full stack web development and computer science fundamentals, and then work with a career coach during the job search phase

Go beyond the basics by building projects for your own portfolio


You’ll learn concepts, practice with drills, and build capstone projects for your own portfolio — all with 1-on-1 feedback from a mentor

More about Thinkful


Outcomes

Job Titles after GraduationMonths until Employed


Special promo

Try the 6-month program for two weeks for $50

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Talk to me or Dan (or email either of us) to gain access

Thank you! Email Dan: [email protected]

Email me: [email protected]

April 2017

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mailto:[email protected]

html/css crash course (april 4 2017)

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