The accessibility of a web site relates to whether its content is compatible with all members of its potential audience. If, for example, people with impaired vision are unable to read the text on your pages then your website is inaccessible to them. An accessible website needs to anticipate the requirements of visitors and the different tools and settings they will be using when they browse your pages.
There are a number of features within Dreamweaver which help web developers ensure that their pages are accessible. The program can be set up so that it will automatically offer you a series of accessibility options whenever you add an image, media element or form field to a page. There is also a built-in utility which you can use to check whether your pages contain elements which are not accessible.
The main settings in Dreamweaver are located by choosing Edit – Preferences. On the left of the Preferences screen there are a series of categories. In the General category, you should ensure that the option to use CSS instead of HTML tags is activated. Also, in the Accessibility category, you should switch on all of the checkboxes for displaying a dialog of relevant accessibility attributes for form object, media (Flash, video etc.) and form elements.
So what is the result of switching on these various preferences? Well, firstly, Dreamweaver will use CSS tags whenever you format text or the background of the page. The CSS tags contain the formatting information and will be placed in the head area of the page away from the content which will be in the page body. The program will also display a dialog box with accessibility options each time you insert an image, form field or media element such as a Flash movie or video clip.
When you add an image to any page, you will see a dialog box which invites you to enter the alternate (alt) text. You should key in a brief description of the image. This alt text will be displayed in the browser if the image itself is not displayed, for example, when the user has deactivated the display of images. Screen readers will also speak your alt text whenever an image is encountered.
Dreamweaver will also prompt for the insertion of a link pointing to a long description of an image. This option should be used for complex images whose content cannot be adequately described in the brief alt text attribute. Examples of such images would be charts, diagrams, paintings or photos containing groups of people.
Just as the alt text describes the function of images, the label attribute describes the function of each form field. When the accessibility preferences are active, Dreamweaver will prompt you to enter a descriptive tag for each field. In addition, you can specify the tab order of each element. This is the order in which elements within the form can be accessed by users by simply pressing the Tab key.
Similarly, if you add a media element to a page, the accessibility dialog pops up and prompts you to enter up to three elements: a title, an access key and a tab index. The title should be a description of the media element and serves a similar function as the alt text which is used with images. The access key is an optional keyboard shortcut which can be used to make the media element active. The tab index is a number which indicates the position of the element in the tab order for that page. The tab order is the order in which elements are accessed when the user presses the Tab key.
As well as these useful prompts, Dreamweaver will also produce a report of any items on the page with possible issues relating to accessibility. To access this feature, first save the page then choose File – Check Page – Accessibility. Dreamweaver analyses the page then produces a list of items which might need attention. Double-clicking any item in the list activates Dreamweaver’s split screen view (showing both code and preview) with the relevant item highlighted in each pane.
The author is a trainer and developer with Macresource Computer Solutions, an independent computer training company offering Adobe Dreamweaver training courses in London and throughout the UK.
April 12th, 2008
Yahoo! announced today that it will begin a limited test of Google Inc.’s AdSense for Search service, which will deliver relevant Google ads alongside Yahoo!’s own search results. The test will apply only to traffic from yahoo.com in the U.S. and will not include Yahoo!’s extended network of affiliate or premium publisher partners. The test is expected to last up to two weeks and will be limited to no more than 3% of Yahoo! search queries.
As previously announced, Yahoo!’s board of directors is exploring strategic alternatives to maximize stockholder value, including exploration of potential commercial business arrangements. The Company noted that the testing does not necessarily mean that Yahoo! will join the AdSense for Search program or that any further commercial relationship with Google will result. The Company further stated that it would not comment on the nature or timing of any potential relationship.
April 12th, 2008
Because of its ability to separate design from content, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) has become an extremely important technology in web development. A single CSS document can contain information regarding the position of elements on all the pages in a web site as well as style information such as font, sizes and colours. In terms of building websites, CSS definitely represents the future.
The range of computer users who have some involvement in building web pages and web sites is vast and a good many of these users choose Dreamweaver as the software tool that helps them create the web content they need without needing to become an expert on underlying technologies such as CSS. Dreamweaver CS3 includes better support for Cascading Style Sheets than previous versions. However, there is still room for improvement.
Previous versions of Dreamweaver assumed that most users would be using tables to control the layout of their web pages. Dreamweaver CS3 is the first version of the program which encourages users to create CSS-based web page layouts. When the users create a new web page, they are offered a series of CSS layouts, on which they can base the new page, consisting of single, double and three column designs.
Pages created using CSS rely heavily on the use of the HTML DIV element, a multipurpose container of web content. Choosing one of the Dreamweaver CSS presets creates a page containing a series of DIV elements complete with placeholder text and the CSS code necessary to control the position and dimension of the DIVs. The placeholder text and HTML code both contain brief explanations of the techniques used and advice on how to customise these basic pages for your own purposes.
The CSS generated by Dreamweaver when creating these preset layouts is embedded within the page itself. Updating a site where every page has embedded CSS code would be extremely inefficient. A far better arrangement is to keep all of the CSS in a single file. Luckily, Dreamweaver has a nifty feature for moving CSS definitions from an HTML page to an external CSS file. You just highlight all of the CSS you wish to export, right click the selection and choose “Move CSS Rules” from the “CSS Styles” context menu.
Although this ability to move CSS around is really great, it’s not something that beginners will necessarily think of doing. It points to the fact that Dreamweaver could still do with a few enhancements to its implementation of CSS.
Dreamweaver CS3 still has includes the automatic creation of CSS styles whenever the user applies font attributes to text. Simply removing the ability to select text and apply these basic attributes would prevent this from happening. From a beginner’s point of view, it would be far more useful to just have a “Style” menu with an option to create a new style if no styles already exist.
The writer of this article is a developer and trainer with Macresource Computer Solutions, an independent computer training company offering Adobe Dreamweaver Classes at their central London training centre.
April 5th, 2008
In the early days of the Internet, users were hot to design their own websites. While there are many methods of writing websites, the most ubiquitous was simply opening the notepad application and writing the website in pure HTML. While there were many programs that came along that made this HTML coding unnecessary, a lot of them were simply unusable or inefficient or otherwise had problems.
Many times, what appeared to be normal and working fine in the user’s browser would begin acting up once it was published to the Internet. This detachment of HTML coding and actual content, in what is referred to as a WYSIWYG editor, led to problems later on, as users thinking that they had effectively built a perfect website found that once published to the web, the elements of their website would move around independently and break anchor text. This breakage of anchors and refusal to follow the rules of HTML was a necessary byproduct of the WYSIWYG HTML editors.
This lack of reliability among Web authoring software led to many problems, as users were either forced to use the HTML, a boring and trying experience at best, or they could continue to use the WYSIWYG editor, which was basically a luck of the draw situation, where users were hoping to get the best results and consistent use from a somewhat inferior product. The WYSIWYG editors never seemed to do their job exactly right, as there was always some element that would be in the wrong spot or willing simply pop out after extended use or extended viewings, without warning.
But eventually, a new product hit the market called Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver was able to do a great deal of things, and embraced the HTML right on the desktop, rather than hiding it all behind a WYSIWYG editor. For the first time, users could see the HTML right up close and see what effect it was having as they moved elements around in the WYSIWYG editor. It was a revolution in HTML editing software and users flocked to the software offering that would allow them to do so much with so little.
Using Dreamweaver CS3 templates, users can save a tremendous amount of time by simply whipping out their favorite template, choosing some colors and publishing. The elegant Dreamweaver CS3 templates include a version of a template for every possible combination of themes that any user could ask for. A wealth of these templates makes it a very simple task to publish a beautiful and stunning Web page in just a matter of minutes, with some help from the Dreamweaver templates and judicious editing.
JSBwebDesign offers great tips about Dreamweaver website templates. Get free web page templates and learn about our business website design services. Visit us at http://www.jsbwebtemplates.com
April 4th, 2008
Zimbra, a Yahoo! company and the leader in open source, next-generation messaging and collaboration software, today announced the availability of its ZimbraME (Java Mobile Edition) client and source code for businesses. Beginning today, users of any Java-enabled mobile phone will have access to the industry’s most complete collaboration solution. The ZimbraME client provides Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) Open Source and Network Edition users worldwide with free access to the Zimbra experience with e-mail and calendar on mass-market Java-enabled mobile phones. This extends Zimbra’s reach of services to the broadest range of devices available in the market and builds on Yahoo!’s leadership in e-mail and mobile Web services and as a key starting point for consumers.
“ZimbraME is key to delivering on our strategy and commitment to provide the best experience and widest range of desktop and mobile support of any messaging platform in the market today,” said Satish Dharmaraj, Zimbra co-founder and Yahoo! vice president. “In an increasingly mobile world, a large percentage of people use mass-market handsets and expect to have access to information without needing a smartphone.”
ZimbraME is an over the air downloadable Java-based application for mobile devices that allows ZCS users to access their mail, contacts and calendars. It retains the powerful search capability found in the Zimbra AJAX client.
ZimbraME source code is available to the Zimbra community (www.zimbra.com) for feedback and enhancement, as well as to implement ZimbraME on the devices of their choice. Popular mobile devices supporting ZimbraME include the BlackBerry 8800 and 8820 series; the Motorola RAZR2; Nokia E61 and N73 handsets; the Sony-Ericsson W950i handset; and the Samsung SGH-E900 handset, adding to Zimbra’s longtime support for wireless platforms that includes Symbian, Windows Mobile, Palm and iPhone. Additionally, Zimbra supports native sync to BlackBerry handsets via the BlackBerry Enterprise Server.
ZimbraME features include:
– Complete Collaboration: Real-time access to email and calendar functionality;
– Mobile Web 2.0 Functions: Ability to tag messages, view them as conversations, save searches, and have access to other Web 2.0 features via mobile handsets;
– Powerful Server-side Search: Access to Zimbra’s flexible, powerful server-side search, including the ability to search an entire inbox regardless of the memory limitations of any device.
“The addition of ZimbraME was instrumental to our choice of ZCS as a platform to support our customer base,” said Tom Riley, CEO, Crossroads Wireless. “ZimbraME will provide our users a Web 2.0-like experience on practically any wireless device, giving them functionality previously only available to them via a smartphone or on their PC.”
Pricing and Availability
The ZCS 5.0 Open Source Edition is free. The commercially supported ZCS 5.0 Network Edition is available for a 60-day free trial on the Zimbra website. Zimbra’s Hosted Demo (www.zimbra.com/demo) is available for an immediate test drive of ZCS.
ZCS Network Edition includes product support as well as software subscriptions to new releases, updates and patches. ZCS is available on-premise or as a hosted service and is available at a significant educational or non-profit discount. Please contact sales@zimbra.com for information. Users can discuss topics related to the Zimbra Collaboration Suite and provide feedback at www.zimbra.com/forums/.
April 4th, 2008
Upgrade to Dreamweaver CS3? Or stick with Dreamweaver 8? This is a question that many web designers who own Dreamweaver 8 are asking themselves as they consider whether it would be worth their money or their web design company’s money to upgrade their design software. Since it is your job as a web designer to work with the software in question, the onus of deciding whether the new version will improve service and overall work quality or not. Many web designers are also wary of the fact that Macromedia has been acquired by Adobe and are wondering whether the new owners have improved or destroyed this piece of software. It is my opinion that there is no clear choice between the two. The choice you eventually make must be determined by what you require from your design software.
Web design feature #1: Adobe and Dreamweaver Together
Some web design companies may find the integration between the new Dreamweaver software and existing Adobe tools a good enough reason to purchase the Dreamweaver CS3. Images can easily be transferred from one software to another and some designers find this feature very attractive.
Web design feature #2: CSS Support Made Better
Designers will likely find that one of the best new features of Dreamweaver CS3 are the fresh and improved CSS layouts. The software code contains detailed commentaries related to how these layouts function so understanding how to use them is a relatively simple affair. There are currently 32 different layouts to choose from, in 1, 2, or 3-column designs, and in fixed or liquid design layouts. The starting position of the CSS is easily defined and subsequent movement is also simple and easy. Designers can simply style the tag directly into the HTML through a style attribute, then transfer it to their style sheet. In Dreamweaver CS3, “Convert Inline CSS to Rule” appears on a single right click of the tag and a custom class for that particular style or a full CSS selector is easily created.
Web design feature #3: Mobile Support
The incorporation of Adobe Device Central into Dreamweaver CS3 also makes designing pages for viewing on mobile platforms much easier than before. Although use of the mobile platform to view web pages has become increasingly popular, it was previously a rather challenging task to design pages that are compatible for viewing on both a mobile platform and a web browser one. Dreamweaver CS3 makes those challenges a thing of the past.
Web design feature #4: Ajax Implementation Now Made Possible
Adding Ajax widgets and effects to the web pages that you create is now possible through the incorporation of the Spry framework in to Dreamweaver CS3. A simple drag and drop operation will deposit them into your dataset. Transition effects such as shrinking, growing, highlighting and fading, integration of XML feed data and widgets for tables lists and forms are just some of the features of Spry that have been included in Dreamweaver CS3.
Web design feature #5: XLST Support
XLST support is a major feature of CS3 and both you and your design company will be delighted by the support included through the use of XML files as the database source. Viewing of the XML and integration into any HTML documents are made easy through XLST. Web designers who possess XML files of the same format can easily create a single template for them by using XLST.
Web design feature #6: Support for Mac Intel Processors
CS3 is now also native to the Intel-based Macintosh platform, and load times have been significantly reduced. The company behind CS3 claims that, whereas Dreamweaver 8 previously required four minutes to load, CS3 now accomplishes the same feat in under one minute. However, these claims have yet to be verified by proper testing.
To Upgrade or Not to Upgrade
The question does not have an easy answer. Personally, I chose to upgrade and have not looked back since. The new CSS features, XLST support and Device Central are all wonderful new additions to the software. However, live databases and server side scripts are still difficult to use with Dreamweaver CS3 and this may discourage web design companies from purchasing the software. If, at the end of it all, you choose to upgrade, it is unlikely that you will regret the money spent.
Moe Tamani is a Dallas SEO consultant for a leading Dallas Web Design company.
April 4th, 2008
Yahoo! today announced the launch of Yahoo! Shine (http://shine.yahoo.com), a new website for women that aims to provide the information most relevant to their daily lives. The site offers nine categories ranging from Fashion & Beauty to Parenting, and will feature content from many of the most popular lifestyles publishers, including Conde Nast Publications and Hearst Corporation. Additionally, a new editorial team will develop original stories on a daily basis, and hand pick the best user blog posts to feature prominently on the site. Yahoo! Shine creates a single destination for the approximately 40 million women between the ages of 25 and 54 who already come to Yahoo! each month, making Yahoo! a more relevant starting point for this audience.
The new site will help create a better experience for women on Yahoo!, while providing Yahoo! advertisers with a single lifestyles destination to reach this coveted demographic. Yahoo! Shine brings together the resources of several existing Yahoo! sites, including Yahoo! Food and Yahoo! Astrology, and will incorporate content from Yahoo! Health. Bringing these resources together is an example of Yahoo! Media’s focus on building larger category sites for mass audiences, rather than focusing on niche topics and smaller audiences.
“We’re executing on Yahoo!’s starting point strategy by ensuring that women who start their day with Yahoo! are offered a more relevant experience,” said Scott Moore, senior vice president and head of Yahoo! Media. “Yahoo! Shine adds an important piece to our Media portfolio, which already includes sites that are number one in the News, Sports, Finance and Entertainment categories.”
Editorial Model
Lifestyles publishing veteran Brandon Holley serves as Yahoo! Shine’s editor-in-chief, overseeing a team of seasoned editors who each bring a unique point-of-view to their topic. The editors join Yahoo! from many of the leading print and online lifestyles outlets, including Lucky magazine, The Wall Street Journal’s Career Journal, and BluePrint magazine. Editors will program content in nine categories daily by featuring partner content, stories from a women’s blog network, and developing original stories. Yahoo! Shine’s nine categories are:
Fashion & Beauty, Parenting, Food, At Home, Healthy Living, Entertainment & Culture, Work & Money, Astrology, Love and Relationships
“You can count on us to bring attitude and personality, and find humor in almost every topic we cover, whether it’s a post on men who wear skinny jeans, how you can get back into your skinny jeans, or whether you’ll be taken seriously if you wear jeans to work,” Holley said. “Yahoo! Shine speaks to you as a friend, telling you the secrets and tips to simplify your life.”
Yahoo! Shine offers a blog platform for all users to share their thoughts and discoveries in a trusted environment. Editors will handpick entries from these blogs to feature alongside the partner and editorial content.
Like Yahoo!’s other category-leading media properties, Yahoo! Shine has partnered with the top content providers in its category. Yahoo! Shine’s partners will create original content and feature choice magazine content. Partners include:
– Conde Nast Publications and CondeNet – Glamour, Self, Bon Appetit, Lucky, Allure, Domino, Cookie, Style.com, Epicurious.com
– Hearst Corporation – Redbook, Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar, Good Housekeeping, Marie Claire, Real Age, House Beautiful, Daily Green, Country Living
– Rodale, Inc. – Prevention, Women’s Health, Men’s Health, Best Life
– Time, Inc. – InStyle
– Eating Well Media – Eating Well
“Yahoo! is an ideal partner for us because they are pioneering a unique way to present content online,” said Christopher Johnson, vice president, content and business development, Hearst Magazines Digital Media. “With more than 130 million visitors each month to Yahoo! in the U.S., Yahoo! will become a giant megaphone for us and allow Hearst’s network of bloggers to elevate their voices and be heard by a much larger audience. Increasing the visibility of our blog content is a key element in driving additional traffic and converting passive readers into loyal fans.”
“We’re delighted that Yahoo! has turned to so many of our magazines and websites for content for its new women’s website,” said Rick Levine, vice president, editorial operations, Conde Nast Publications. “By speaking to Yahoo!’s huge audience, this partnership will give our great editorial properties a significant growth opportunity.”
Building on Yahoo!’s Advertising Leadership
The female (age 25-54) audience, which Yahoo! has designated as “Chief Household Officers,” is a highly sought-after demographic for advertisers. It is made up of heavy Internet users, who are frequently the household purchasing decision-makers. Yahoo! Shine creates an opportunity for advertisers to reach this audience in an environment that is relevant and meaningful to women, and several advertisers have signed up to participate at launch. Yahoo! believes the site will be especially attractive to advertisers in the consumer packaged goods, pharmaceuticals and retail categories, where combined online advertising spend is expected to exceed $1.8 billion in 2008, based on competitive spending analysis done by TNS Media Intelligence.
Visit http://shine.yahoo.com or go to Yahoo! and search “Shine.”
March 31st, 2008
Yahoo!, MySpace, and Google today announced they have agreed to form the OpenSocial Foundation to ensure the neutrality and longevity of OpenSocial as an open, community-governed specification for building social applications across the web. Yahoo!’s support of OpenSocial and role as a founding member of the new foundation are landmarks for the rapidly growing specification which will now offer developers the potential to connect with more than 500 million people worldwide.
The OpenSocial Foundation will be an independent non-profit entity with a formal intellectual property and governance framework; related assets will be assigned to the new organization by July 1, 2008. The foundation will provide transparency and operational guidelines around technology, documentation, intellectual property, and other issues related to the evolution of the OpenSocial platform, while also ensuring all stakeholders share influence over its future direction.
“Yahoo! believes in supporting community-driven industry specifications and expects that OpenSocial will fuel innovation and make the web more relevant and more enjoyable to millions of users,” said Wade Chambers, Vice President – Platforms, Yahoo!. “Our support builds on similar efforts with the OpenID community and will expand the opportunity for developers and publishers to benefit from an open and increasingly social web.”
“OpenSocial has been a community-driven specification from the beginning,” said Joe Kraus, Director of Product Management, Google. “The formation of this foundation will ensure that it remains so in perpetuity. Developers and websites should feel secure that OpenSocial will be forever free and open.”
The OpenSocial Foundation website at www.opensocial.org will serve as the portal for the community to find all information about OpenSocial and the foundation as they evolve. Developers and website owners can now visit www.opensocial.org for the latest specifications, links to other resources, and the opportunity to get involved.
Engineers from Yahoo!, MySpace, and Google will continue to work together and with the OpenSocial community to further advance the specification through the new foundation, continuing several core elements of OpenSocial since its announcement by Google, MySpace, and many others in November 2007:
- all specifications are available under a Creative Commons copyright license
- public community involvement shapes the specification’s direction
- an open source reference implementation called Shindig is being created and developed as a project in the Apache Software Foundation incubator, available at http://incubator.apache.org/shindig/
About OpenSocial
OpenSocial addresses an emerging problem for developers who are eagerly building applications people can enjoy with their friends: before OpenSocial, if a developer built a “favorite photos” application to work on one social network, it would have to be built all over again to work on another site. OpenSocial tackles this problem at its technology roots, providing common “plumbing” that lets social applications run on many different websites without requiring duplicate work from either developers or the websites.
The result is a vast distribution platform for social applications, whether they are for sharing photos or playing games or arranging real-world meetings or any number of other activities – everything is more fun, interesting, and useful when users can involve their friends and contacts.
Steady Evolution, Important Milestones
Millions of people around the world are beginning to see the benefits of the OpenSocial platform as new features appear on their favorite social networks. MySpace launched the MySpace Developer Platform, which uses the OpenSocial APIs, and began rolling out applications to its users. orkut has also started making OpenSocial applications available to its users, and hi5 will do so at the end of March.
Thanks to the Shindig reference implementation, most websites can have a proof of concept of OpenSocial applications up and running in days. That means websites need only to make this small time investment in order to make thousands of new social features available to their users.
Global members of the OpenSocial community include Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, XING, and others. In time, OpenSocial will unlock more powerful and pervasive social capabilities across the entire web, as developers’ applications can easily reach users across any of the websites, web applications, or social networks they use.
March 26th, 2008
Next Posts
Previous Posts
