In case anyone still comes here, this post is to revise my previous recommendation on what you should be using as a text editor. Though I still hold dabblet to be the best place to start for beginners, and Brackets to be the best first editor, for those looking for something more stable and professional on a Mac, I defer you to TextMate 2.

It’s open source so it comes with no customer support line, but it’s open source, so it’s awesome.

Pleeeeeeeeeasssseeeeeeee. Any feedback is appreciated.

Honesty >

So now that you’ve replicated that candy bar, it’s time to grow up and build a minisite about something mature and legitimate. A bouncing red ball.

Here’s some criteria.

• Three pages – homepage, archive/listing/secondary page, single/detail page
• Five images minimum – I’ll upload 10 or so to choose from later
• Have a clear navigation
• Pass at least 90 percent W3 validation

Here’s some things you can do.

• Use a framework
• Use custom fonts from places like Google Webfonts, Losttype, League of Moveable Type, Font Squirrel
• Collab with ONE cohort in the workshop
• Use SASS/LESS or some other preprocessor (we’ll cover these soon)

Here’s what I’ll do.

• Provide you content – images, text (i.e. features, benefits)
• Provide help upon request – I’ll respond within less than 24 hours, or I’ll post an apology on this blog
• Accept alternative project ideas – i.e. you want to build a portfolio site and not this bouncing red ball rubbish
• Make a minisite too

Cool? Drop some comments if you have a suggestion or question – I’m open to all ideas.

Monday marks our fifth and final session of the beginning workshop. I cried a little on the inside when I wrote that sentence, but that’s not important right now.

A good portion of you have expressed interest in continuing with an intermediate-level workshop to close the semester, which is grand. On the suggestion of Hannah (maybe?), I’ve opened a Doodle to take a poll of everyone’s most opportune time. You can choose one or eight or none, but we’ll go with the two times that have the most votes by Sunday afternoon. Depending on the time, I’ll find us a room.

This workshop will start next week, will be weekly again, and have approximately six sessions. The goal by the end will be a three page website, which you can read more about on the site.

If you’ve been cutting classes (more than two), you can still join this intermediate hullabaloo. However, you have to send me a link to your Codecademy profile that has earned the badges from HTML Fundamentals, CSS: Coding with Style, and Build Your First Webpage.

Do yo’ duty and vote!
http://doodle.com/zmd7gm4en5cuifn8

Happy Monday, everyone.

Friends, a few things.

1. We’re meeting again on Monday at 2 p.m. in Stauffer-Flint 107. Surprise!
2. Instead of dealing with the headache of Brackets, we’re just going to go web app and make good use of Dabblet. If you resent this notion or are particularly curious why Dabblet will work better for the purpose of this workshop, you can read this blog post explaining my reasoning.
3. If you miss a day, then, I mean, why you gotta play me like that? C’mon. But seriously, if you miss a day, is OK. Read up on whatever we covered – I’ve noted what we cover per session in a hastily-concoted syllabus. OK? OK.
4. If you can’t attend these workshops anymore because of some prior obligation or you can’t tolerate my humor or you came to close to me and caught a fresh whiff of my heinous BO, I recommend that you either
   • a) continue to follow the workshop by reading through the sessions online or
   • b) you try your hand at my favorite beginner’s playground, Codecademy. Codecademy is swell because you can go at your own pace and it gives you live feedback and requires you code before moving forward, but it sucks when you want to go faster. Whenever I tinker on there, I feel like I’m stutter-stepping/being interrupted constantly.
5. The weather today is lovely.

Holler back if you’re confused or disappointed or just want to chat.

After yesterday’s hubub/failure with Brackets, I’ve decided that I am a fool for not considering this option earlier. Instead of using a native, installed program, we’re going to go webapp and use Dabblet, a live code editor. This means you just need a computer and the internet for this workshop.

The caveat, however, is that you don’t have as much freedom over your file/files. This will make embedding external stylesheets, images, etc. a bit difficult. So, for some parts of the workshop, we’ll switch to a native program like TextEdit or Notepad++ or TextWrangler or Brackets if it becomes more stable in the near future.

But for right now, go ahead and play in Dabblet’s sandbox. Change the view, change from code to result, etc. One of the things  you’ll notice is the ability to save if you’re logged in. It’ll ask to hook into your GitHub account. You may have never heard of GitHub. That’s alright. It’s like Facebook for programmers/web developers/coders. And like Facebook, you have your power users who are on there all day adding photos and status updates and general spam. Don’t be overwhelmed. Beginners are heroes in the GitHub community, and they’re always welcome.

I recommend you make a GitHub account, because it’s good to have even if you don’t contribute or add code. Follow some cool projects or developers by starring or watching repos (think FB photo albums).

Holler if you have any questions.

A few weeks ago you hollered interest in a round of HTML/CSS workshops sponsored by Kansan.com and PoliticalFiber.com. This email is a reminder that today is like Christmas Eve and I’m bout to pop with excitement.

There are a few things you should do to prepare. No prior knowledge is necessary, but things will go a lot smoother if you follow these bullets:

• Install Brackets and Chrome. Directions/rationale here
• This will start promptly at 2 p.m. and end promptly at 2:50 because I have class at 3.
• There are five sessions to this workshop. If you plan on not attending any, either tomorrow or the ones after tomorrow, please let me know

In addition to that, there are some ground expectations:

• Everyone will produce something presentable for the web. In another workshop, we’re recreating the wrapper of our fav candy
• You will know how to write HTML and CSS
• I will not bullshit the material. If I don’t know something or don’t think it’s practical, I won’t say it
• I will not waste your time. If there’s spare time at the end of the session, then we leave, there will be no padding rambles
• If you think I’m doing something wrong or could do it better, I expect you to tweet at me or email me brutally honest criticisms
• For more, read the about page

If you have questions, holler my way. The workshop homepage is workshop.kansan.com, but please just stick to the posts as we cover them.

The answer is yes. But don’t take my word for it.

Credit to my pal Phoebe for finding this.

Here’s a friendly reminder that we’re having the second workshop tomorrow night. We’re going to cover more basic HTML and basic CSS and how to use Chrome’s Developer Tools.

If you’ve opened Brackets this past week, it’s probably prompted you to update to Sprint 14. Do not update. I updated and was unable to add a new folder, create a new project, or rename files. This is silly. However, the font is dope.

So stick with Brackets 13. If you did update and can add folders and rename files, then that’s super and you should just keep doing what you’re doing.

Bring your candy bar wrappers tomorrow too, and please make sure that all software is installed and configured correctly.

If you had trouble with Chrome opening your workshop file instead of your home page/new tab, click the Wrench in the top right corner and select “Settings.” Under “On startup,” check the circle next to “Open the New Tab page” or “Open a specific page…” and then quit the browser (Cmd+Q or Alt+F4). Then relaunch. This should fix it.