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
29th April 2001
Found numerous 404, document not found, errors for the invalid URLs /_vti_bin/shtml.exe/_vti_rpc and /_vti_inf.html with the user agent string MSFrontPage/4.0. These presumably are requests from users attempting to edit Code Style documents in Microsoft Front Page version 4.0. Set up a 303, see other, redirection to a new error page for Front Page to trap these requests and clarify the problem.
Added summary Anchor Points: Recommended books section, with inclusions in all relevant sections and a link from the feedback acknowledgement page. Started roughing-out forthcoming sections for XML, Javascript, Java and site design and management.
Added a new MenuBox class to extend the margin-right: 25%; style for most text (i.e. non-form) box-out content and added an appropriate grouped selector to clear the right margin on nested elements. Also slightly enlarged the FAQ class dt element text.
/*
But don't compound the margin
*/
#Content OL OL,
#Content UL UL,
#Content OL P,
#Content UL P,
#Content DD P,
#Content DD OL,
#Content DD UL,
#Content .MenuBox UL,
#Content .MenuBox OL,{
margin-right: 0;
}
/*
Box-out classes and contextual
selectors
*/
.Box,
.MenuBox{
background: url(/images/CodeStyleFeintCrop.gif)
no-repeat
#FFF;
color: #000;
padding: 1%;
margin: 1em 0em;
border: solid 1px #EEE;
}
.MenuBox{
margin-right: 25%;
}
.MenuBox H2{
margin-left: 3%;
}
.FAQ DT{
margin-top: 1em;
font-size: 110%;
}
Removed the redundant link to the Anchor Points section from the section menu.
Uploaded all changes, checked for dead links, and validated the whole site using the WDG HTML Validator. Corrected a number of un-escaped ampersands in pre sections and added a system identifier to the document type declarations for all XHTML Strict documents:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
28th April 2001
Created a set of include files for the new Anchor Points: Recommended books page and updates to the Help & FAQ page for debugging external script and stylesheet files, and a What is Code Style question. Replaced the former About Code Style link on the sidebar menu with Help and FAQs.
Produced a first draft FAQ page for HTML and updated FAQ: Cascading Style Sheets. Added Java and Javascript newsgroups sections to Anchor Points: Usenet.
23th April 2001
Server logs show the site CSS files are the most frequent cause of 404, document not found, errors so brought the link to Code Style CSS closer to the top of the custom error page. Checked and changed all non-specific section directory references to name the relevant index.shtml document to minimise server handling. Added privacy statement links to all feedback form include files.
22th April 2001
Checked the site's "cacheability" using Web Caching's Cacheability Engine and (rather belatedly) set the XBitHack full directive in the root level .htaccess file to give a last modified HTTP header for all server parsed HTML documents with the group execute bit set (-rw-rwxr--):
chmod -R 674 *.shtml
Also set Expires and Cache-Control HTTP headers in .htaccess at root level:
# Expires configuration (HTTP 1.0)
# --------------------------------
# Requires mod_expires and httpd.conf: AllowOverride Indexes
# Switch on expires header processing
ExpiresActive On
# By default, expire all documents 7 days after first access
ExpiresDefault "access plus 7 days"
# Expire CSS and text files (including Javascript)
# one day after first access
ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 1 day"
ExpiresByType text/plain "access plus 1 day"
# Expire GIF, JPEG, Flash and icon files one month
# after first access
ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/x-windows-bmp "access plus 1 month"
# Cache-Control configuration (HTTP 1.1)
# --------------------------------------
# Requires mod_headers and httpd.conf: AllowOverride FileInfo
# Assumes Apache sets appropriate max-age value via Expires
# settings above
# Try to ensure that all documents are validated when appropriate
Header append Cache-Control "must-revalidate"
Created a new standfirst include file for the site log subsection and adjusted the What's New standfirst accordingly.
15th April 2001
Produced a first draft Anchor Points listing for site management software.
14th April 2001
Added hyperlinks to external script and CSS files in DOM1 visibility menus article. Corrected bad Javascript source file URL in custom 404 error file.
7th April 2001
Completed final review and revisions to Apache Tomcat on Windows 95 article, uploaded and opened links to it from the site home page.
5th April 2001
Wrote a first working version of a custom CSS servlet, which simply reads in a file from a hard coded reference and sends it to the browser as text/css. Future versions to implement stylesheet selection by query parameter and save state using a cookie.
2nd April 2001
Developed and refined subsection-specific meta-Keyword.htm include files for /css/media/, /java/servers/ and /javascript/dom/css/ to include common search phrases from referring search engines' query strings, using Analog output.
1st April 2001
Produced first draft site map adapted from Xenu's Link Sleuth nested, unordered list output. Added a range of rules to CSWideImport.css to format the nesting, but attempts to align list marker images with dotted left margins abandoned because of differences between Opera 5 and Netscape 6. Amended a range of files to correct and condense title element content, including the full set of CSS2 media test pages. Added created date comments to all stylesheets for future reference.
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.
