The Code Style site has evolved by gradual refinement and accumulation of features and content. This review is part of a fully backdated site log and archive that sheds light on when, why and how particular features were implemented.
This log is sometimes updated several times per week, sometimes with a long overdue backlog of items. Many log entries refer to the Code Style Java package that delivers the servlet services and utilities used to manage this site.
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Reverse chronology
31st December 2000
Started compiling the Projecting your style article by converting the whole draft set to server parsed pages with common navigation links and meta elements. Incorporated the yes / no / not applicable styles into the standard site stylesheets for general purposes and adjusted included feedback forms' input size attributes to 30 narrow them slightly.
/*
Article styles
*/
/*
Yes/No/Not Applicable
*/
.Y{
color: #000;
background: #FF0;
font-weight: bold;
}
.N{
color: #FFF;
background: #C00;
font-weight: bold;
}
.NA{
color: #000;
background: #EEE;
font-size: 60%;
}
TD.Y, TD.N, TD.NA{
text-align: center;
font-family: sans-serif;
}
.SubHeading{
text-align: center;
font-size: small;
}
.SuperHeading{
text-align: center;
}
Also changed margin-right on p elements nested in ol or ul elements to prevent the margin-right: 25%; from being compounded, and removed margin-right: 25%; from the caption declaration.:
/*
But don't compound the margin
*/
#Content OL OL,
#Content UL UL,
#Content OL P,
#Content UL P{
margin-right: 0;
}
CAPTION{
color: #039;
background: none;
text-align: left;
letter-spacing: 0.02em;
font-weight: bold;
font-size: 110%;
}
Applied negative margin-top and margin-bottom to p elements and headings respectively in the Netscape-only stylesheet to mimic the margins in the standard stylesheet:
/*
Pull-in margin-right to float
images and box-outs there. Only
actually works when there is a
'natural' 100% element in
#Content, e.g. table or hr.
N.B. Negative margin-top partly
obscures links on the first
line under a heading.
*/
#Content P,
#Content OL,
#Content UL{
margin-right: 25%;
margin-top: -0.5em;
}
/*
Cannot specify background:
transparent for NN4.x -- makes
the background black! Negative
margin-bottom applied to
match real CSS support.
*/
H1,
H2,
H3{
color: #039;
background: none;
font-weight: normal;
letter-spacing: 0.02em;
margin-bottom: -0.75em;
}
H4,
H5,
H6,
TH,
DT{
color: #039;
background: #FFF;
font-weight: bold;
letter-spacing: 0.02em;
margin-bottom: -0.75em;
}
30th December 2000
Completed the first draft of Apache Tomcat on Windows 95 article.
29th December 2000
Completed the first draft of The Golden Rules of Javascript article.
28th December 2000
Wrote a first draft review of Javascript, The Definitive Guide. Had to remove the height property from #Header as it caused overlap problems when additional text was introduced, and added a clear: both declaration to #Content to clear the logo image for standard pages. Added additional grouped selectors for margin-right and margin-bottom:
#Header P,
#Header H1{
margin-right: 20%;
margin-bottom: 0;
}
Also removed the border attributes from #Footer as it didn't suit the new text-only format.
21st December 2000
Completed the second draft of Apache JServ on Windows 95 and published it as the first of a series of preview articles on the pre-launch home page. Specified font-family: serif for all heading elements and reduced the font-size of pre text to 90%. Re-established the print media stylesheet CSPrint.css, re-formatted the CSNN4Standard.css stylesheet and made some minor revisions to the page footer and article feedback include files. Introduced more specific classes to float .ValidXHTML, .ValidHTML and .CorrectCSS footer images. Reduced margin-left on the Netscape 4 stylesheet and introduced a border to #Footer and removed from pre:
UL.Menu{
padding: 0px;
margin-left: -20px;
}
/*
Requires zero margin to maintain
100% width
*/
#Footer{
float: none;
clear: both;
margin: 0px;
border: outset
1px
#CCC;
text-align: center;
font-size: small;
font-family: helvetica,
arial,
sans-serif;
}
Stripped markup validation and CSS checker links down to text only to spare download time.
11th December 2000
Further revised CSStandardImport.css to control the display of the new sidebar structure in IE4, minimising margin, padding, border and font-size and grouping selectors for convenience. Now working in IE4, Opera 5 and Netscape 6. Re-formatted stylesheet layout to minimise horizontal scrolling when included in pre elements.
10th December 2000
Added a further div container to the top of the standard sidebar to work around IE4 problems with floating the upper corners either side of the <h3 class="Options">; working in Opera 5 and Netscape 6.
9th December 2000
Changed all .Header, .Content, .Sidebar and .Footer references from classes to id attributes, renamed .Rule classes to .NewSection, and changed all stylesheets accordingly. Also added SUP{font-size: small;} to standard imported and Netscape 4 stylesheet, mainly for the date headings in the What's New section.
Further refined DOM1 drop-down menus to work with Opera 5 and work out some incompatibility issues with Netscape 6. One remaining issue is that the #Link A:hover styles are not displayed and margin-top does not seem to override #Header in Netscape 6.
7th December 2000
Updated projection media test pages to include Opera 5 support, which appears identical to Opera 4.
1st December 2000
Temporarily removed print and projection media stylesheet references from standard style include file while checking backwards compatibility issues. Corrected one of the projection media test page stylesheets to use color: teal; instead of non-standard "orange", which was erroneously suggesting odd incompatibility conditions in Opera 3.62.
Previously on Code Style
These backdated pages record detailed changes to the Code Style Web site since July 2000, when development first got underway. Some pages may refer to documents or features that have since changed or are no longer part of the site, but the archive is checked to ensure there are no dead links.
Site log, origins to present
For a summary overview, see the annotated site log contents.
