CSS font stacks, developer FAQs & web standards
This page is part of a searchable archive of the Code Style site log. Technical implementation notes that shed light on when, why and how the site has evolved since 2000.
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Created a new Java networking FAQ section from the former Java programming FAQ category, and a Windows fonts FAQ from parts of the Web font survey FAQ. Added several new FAQ answers and Code Style Twitter feed call to action to the FAQ standfirst include for free one-to-one help sessions.
Changed the list order for the newsletters menu box to follow global navigation sequence:
Used these lists to build a new newsletters and news feeds menu and added that to all Soupermail and PayPal confirmation pages to cross-promote. Set a standard "Put your text ad here" call to action on all local navigation menus with a new down arrow icon to indicate current bookings. Added Nuvola email icon to all email newsletter links. And added a title attribute to Twitter feed links: "Follow for free one-to-one help sessions by instant messenger most Saturdays", with a Google Analytics onclick handler.
Removed a duplicate site log search form inclusion from the site log index page, which was causing validation errors for its news feed.
Updated the faq_check_premium_urls.sql script to also check for question marks in the id fields for answers. One case had slipped into the Java inheritance FAQ and was causing validation errors for its news feed.
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Archived site log entries for September 2008, October 2008 and November 2008. Updated the site log contents with monthly summaries.
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Noticed that the URL scheme in the generic font family results tables were showing different URLs for the same content. Re-ordered the class and font parameter output in the FontSurveyTemplate output to match the font sampler URL scheme used with other listings.
Wrote an SQL script to select and de-duplicate all FAQ subscribers from the mailing list database. Invited all subscribers to follow the Code Style Twitter feed for free one-to-one help sessions by instant messenger.
SELECT DISTINCT trim(email) as email from person, service, serviceline
WHERE person.person_id = serviceline.person_id
AND service.service_id = serviceline.service_id
AND service.service_type = 'FAQ'
ORDER by email;
Ran Xenu's Link Sleuth and corrected bad links in the site map, site log and various other pages.
Changed name of Java and servlets contents page to distinguish from the Java servlets contents page.
Created FAQ-specific head element includes and created sticky keyword optimisation versions for FAQs and pages in the Site Manager section. Removed lang="en" attributes from meta elements for keywords throughout the site.
Toned down the "asking the right question" introduction to the FAQ help request form to avoid discouraging submissions and re-structured the content to form a single paragraph.
Added a sponsored link service promotion to the confirmation page for the text ad payment confirmation page and re-formatted and re-drafted the "next steps" copy with a link to the Text ads FAQ page.
Added actions to the current site log page to ask a question, clarify or correct each log entry using a similar format to FAQ entries. Minimised the copy on the site log archive menu include and added the site log search form to it above the date selector. Tweaked the help request form so that it refers to the original "item" to work with the site log help.
Added some styles to set the layout of the site log subsection navigation form.
#Content .MenuBox form {
margin-top: 0.5em;
margin-bottom: 0.5em;
}
And styled the LogAction class to look the same as the ActionPoint classes in FAQ listings,
p.LogAction {
margin-bottom: 4em;
padding: 0.3em 0.5em;
}
.FAQ dd .ActionPoint,
.LogAction {
font-size: smaller;
border: solid 1px #ccc;
color: inherit;
background: #eef;
font-family: sans-serif;
}
Fixed a problem with IE6 where Wide class pre elements were breaking the width of the main #Content container by using the overflow property, which requires a specific width.
#Content pre.Wide {
width: 65%;
overflow: auto;
}
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Created a Code Style Twitter feed icon and added a link to all local navigation includes. Follow the feed for free one-to-one help sessions by instant messenger most Saturdays. Check Twitter direct messages for details.
Created a new PSFTP upload script to deploy all local navigation menus.
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Added Lighttpd expire setting for text files, particularly robots.txt.
$HTTP["url"] =~ ".*\.txt" {
expire.url = ( "" => "access 6 hours" )
}
Removed all Technorati tag links from site log archive pages.
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Updated the top 20 FAQ sections with sticky keyword optimisation includes specific to each page.
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Some Web user agents were still making requests to the old Code Style Apache host, presumably using a stored IP address with a HTTP Host header. Created an Apache rewrite rule to redirect all requests to the same path on the new host by domain name.
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule (/?.*) http://www.codestyle.org/$1 [L,R]
Deleted all file system content from the old Code Style host.
Added new answers to multiple Java, CSS and Javascript FAQs, as below.
Corrected a JavaDoc comment in the FaqMenuGenerator class and changed the faq_check_premium_urls.sql script to check for incorrect .php extensions on premium content URLs.
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Set the order of Java programming FAQ, Java servlets FAQ and Web fonts FAQ local navigation menus to follow the page requests for the past year in descending order
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