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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Applied some immediate fixes to the new reset grid layout. Changed the font survey applet to version 1.1.2 to use the logical "Serif" font family for input labels. JavaDoc says the Label class must use a logical font name, not a specific font family.
Reduced the font-size for the AlphaLink class paragraphs used on the site subject index to fit one line. Adjusted the line-height and margin-bottom of h2 and h3 in the local navigation bar for equivalent spacing and set margin-right to zero for maximum line length. Included h3 in the page body in the grouped selector for a wide margin-right, so long site log headings do not run into the local navigation.
Regenerated font survey results with new table markup for PercentData. Corrected spelling of pseudoclass in the CSS glossary. Split out "survey newsletters" from other types in CSS newsletters subscription form set. Added the Search Engine Optimisation article to Site Manager newsletters subscriptions. Set a smaller font-size on newsletter subscription form table data overall. Also set table border-collapse: collapse for EchoRequest servlet headers and newsletter subscription tables.
Updated the FaqMenuGenerator class with the new site top bar and (currently disused) URI header includes and renamed ActionPoint class paragraphs to FAQAction clases to match new styling. Removed all cellpadding and cellspacing attributes from the newsletter subscription tables, the CodeStyleTemplate class and FontSurveyTable.xls script. Also added the top bar to the CodeStyleTemplate class, changed the options heading to "Topics & tools" and set a Headers class for the template table types, particularly for the EchoRequest form checker servlet.
Updated the footbar navigation in the page footer include file used for form mail confirmation pages with ·.
Added a PAUSE statement to the end of the mailing list table generation batch script to check the output.
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Checked in the merged reset grid changes from the development branch, as deployed to the live site around 10:30pm. Done. Final changes included an exclusion to the backup target in the Ant build script to avoid zipping the contents of the Metacentric cache. Created a Windows batch file to launch the PSFTP upload script to deploy all static content to the Code Style production server.
Removed an unnecessary table rowspan="2" attribute in the AbstractProductSelector class. Updated the FontSurveyTemplate class to use the new PercentData class for bold percentage figures and re-generated the results tables.
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Completed a second working draft of a forthcoming One percent better manifesto article with background and what it means to target significant incremental improvements and measure progress.
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Confirmed problems with WebKit based browsers Chrome 2 on Windows and Safari 4 on Mac where preformatted code blocks and scrolling menu boxes sit alongside the floated local navigation; they apply the wide margin-right with respect to the local navigation, not their container. Setting float: left on these elements overcomes the initial problem but also requires an explict max-width: 466px declaration to control its width (set in an @media screen block). This styling also causes problems when these elements are followed by "Action" class paragraphs, so may need to revert.
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Created a new email newsletter SQL select script for FAQ subscribers that are not premium content subscribers (370 rows). Sent an invite to help with browser test the forthcoming reset grid layout.
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'
AND person.is_premium = false
ORDER by email;
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Added site log entries for 25th July to 8th August covering developments for the forthcoming reset grid layout and a few unrelated changes and updates.
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Added a CSWideIE6.xcss style sheet reference to the CodeStyleTemplate class to work around problems with the standard wide style sheet in the new reset grid layout in Internet Explorer 6.
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Processed latest font survey submissions and updated font survey results. Archived all survey submissions up to August 2006 to create a shorter 3 year span for for the results data. This gives greater currency and precision to the results thanks to the font survey applet, which was introduced in 2007. Updated the mean submissions per week SQL script to reflect the current time span.
Latest: Build a better CSS font stack with our font survey results:
Updated working version of the UserAgentSQLGenerator class to cover all user agents originally covered by the fonts_browser_update.sql script and expanded to cover latest Firefox versions included in survey submissions. Generated browser version check scripts and processed latest submissions. Exported user agent query results for submissions made through the font survey applet for reference in a forthcoming Java applet object markup article.
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Removed the pop-up comparison script block from the TextSample class for the font sampler servlet to avoid the extra spacing above the page content in the new reset grid layout. Created a new constructor for the StyleLink class that takes a String conditional comment argument for Internet Explorer. The string is the condition to attach to the style sheet. Restructured the CodeStyleTemplate class to use the new reset grid style sheets, including an IE6 conditional comment stylesheet, and added the CSS3 extension styles script to the head element markup. Changed the page header div to include the Code Style logo in the new scheme. Changed the global navigation Options heading to text.
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Archived site log June 2009 with table of contents and section menu update.
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