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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Monthly update to the Windows font survey results, Mac font survey results and Unix family font survey results.
Completed a draft section on colour for the Anchor Points: Site Manager and finished the new Anchor Points: XML & XSLT page. Created a placeholder index page for the XML and XSLT section, not linked from the main site.
Completed the long-standing draft FAQ section navigation menu and added it to the site help & FAQ, search help, Cascading Style Sheets FAQ, Font sampler and survey FAQ and Javascript FAQ pages.
Reviewed and revised the links and copy on the draft Anchor Points: XML & XSLT page and added links to all relevant menus. Extracted the Java XML parsers Anchor Points to insert as a server side include and added it to the Anchor Points: Java & servlets page. Reviewed section metadata keywords and duplicated these into a Dublin Core DC.Subject.Keywords meta element and created a section-XML.css stylesheet for "you are here" indication when the section menu point is published.
Reviewed and edited a long-standing draft section on colour for the Anchor Points: Site Manager page and added links to all relevant menus.
Included cross reference Javascript DOM & CSS table of contents to the CSS style guide contents page and created a new page navigation menu with "Top" links back. Added subsection Anchor Points to foot of the DOM1 visibility menus article and duplicated the meta keywords for this subsection into a Dublin Core DC.Subject.Keywords meta element.
Extracted the "At a glance" boxout on the site home page to a server side include file to add to the draft advanced search page to complete and publish.
Changed the border-width declaration for form inputs in the CSStdLiveryStrict.css from 1px to thin because the right and bottom borders were invisible in Internet Explorer 5.5:
INPUT, SELECT, TEXTAREA{
border-width: thin;
}
Removed various newlines feeds, \n, from the ServletUtilities and CSSSelector servlet classes and changed final println() method calls to print() to remove extra lines.
Added a range of new entries to the site subject index based on common search queries.
Corrected some bad fragment anchors on the new Anchor Points: Your submissions page.
Completed updates to the Anchor Points section by including the latest software recommendations to the existing Anchor Points: HTML & XHTML page, finishing the draft Anchor Points: Site Manager page with the existing recommended books and a new a section on online accessibility services.
In the course of checking the accessibility links, discovered that default text is recommended for all form text inputs and text areas. Added "search words" to the site search box and an onfocus event handler to select the text ready to type over:
<input
value="search words"
onfocus="this.select();"
... />
Created a new Java icon,
, to bullet point the Java applications in the new Anchor Points: Recommended software section on site management utilities and added a further rule to the standard livery stylesheet, CSStdLiveryCommon.css:
UL.Java{
list-style: url(/images/icon-Java.gif) disc;
}
Finalised various draft copy for new Anchor Points: Recommended software and Anchor Points: Your submissions pages, and created an Anchor Points contents page for the set. Added links from all relevant index pages, menus, the section link navigation and included the Anchor Points table of contents in the top level site contents index.
The various software sections are included page fragments from relevant sections of the site, with a new Software class for package illustrations. Added a .Software selector to the grouped selector for floating elements right in the Netscape 4 layout stylesheet, CSStdLayoutNN4.css:
.Book, .Software{
float: right;
}
Added rules to the standard livery stylesheet, CSStdLiveryCommon.css, to give platform specific lists markers for the new Anchor Points: Recommended software page:
UL.Mac{
list-style: url(/images/icon-Mac.gif) disc;
}
UL.Win{
list-style: url(/images/icon-Win.gif) disc;
}
Updated the Windows font survey results, Mac font survey results and Unix family font survey results, and added a range of new terms to the site subject index based on recent search queries. Also updated the metadata keywords for the Code Style font sampler section based on common search engine queries and duplicated these into a Dublin Core DC.Subject.Keywords meta element. Also added Anchor Points: Font foundries & sources to the link navigation for the section.
Added a .Software selector to the grouped selector for floating elements right in the general purpose layout stylesheet, CSStdLayoutCommon.css, for the draft Anchor Points: Recommended software page:
.RgtBox, .RgtPicBox, .Book, .Software{
float: right;
margin-left: 0.5em;
}
Removed the permissible uses section from the site copyright statement, added all current domains to the opening scope statement and a fragment anchor for the section on hyperlinking. Also made the "next" navigation link point to the site privacy statement.
Added a Dublin Core DC.Description.TableOfContents meta element to the site-wide metadata include file, and updated the generic keywords listing according to common search engine queries.
The numeric type, NUMERIC(4,2) specified in the working fonts_frequency_unix.sql query for the codestyle_fonts database caused an overflow error on fonts with 100.00% frequency, so changed to NUMERIC(5,2) in all cases. Produced a first draft user manual for updating codestyle_fonts database, validating submissions, generating frequency statistics and updating the results notification mailing lists.
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.
For a summary overview, see the annotated site log contents.