Understanding CSS and HTML

To ensure that the vison set out in the pre-proposal for We Are Awesome is met, it is important that a basic, but fundamental concept is learned: the use of CSS and HTML.

Despite of the valiant intention to create a website with the intention to promote - or even to restore- the idea that humanity is an inclusive and intimately collective force, which is not always realised, using videos and the written word to do so, such a task would be futile if the language required to do this in website form, was not learnt nor understood. 

To ensure that this project would not end before it even had a chance to begin, and to grasp a better understanding of the markup language in order to bring the vison of We Are Awesome to life, a lot of time was exerted into being better acquainted with CSS and HTML.

Using handouts, scrutinising online resources and visiting Lynda.com, gaining an understanding of the role of both - and how to use them - was not as difficult as I had envisioned, despite the predilection of my constant insistence of referring to myself as a "caveman."

HTML, or Hyper Text Markup Language in its lengthened form, denotes the content - font, pictures and written text, to list just a few - that will be displayed on a web page, once read by an internet browser. This content, to use a paragraph of text as an example, in order to be displayed, is put in-between two "body" tags, and the written paragraph of text, is enveloped on either side with a "p" symbol in brackets. This is the method and also language of how a paragraph on a web page is read by the browser, allowing it to be displayed on a webpage, in a basic but crude form.

Cascading style sheets, condensed to CSS, is the markup language which affects the presentation and structure of a website, as I came to understand from my research. For example, the look of a website - the font, the colour and spacing of content, on a web page, to name just a few, is directed by the CSS, allowing the HTML content to be structured and shaped into a webpage that is visually appealing.

In order to do this effectively, the "selector", which defines the specific area of the page that is to be altered, is chosen and works in conjunction with the "declaration", which defines the value of the content - the font used and colour displayed, for example. If I wanted to make a colourful overhead title for a webpage, I would first input the title text into HTML, then using CSS, I would envelop the word "color" with the word of the colour I would want to use, which could be red for example, with curly brackets to essentially create a title that would be red-coloured: it's that simple.

Having grasped a basic, but fundamental knowledge of how to use HTML and CSS, the initial dread of reception with something so difficult in thinking, was proven to be so simple in practice. It would now be appropriate to continue in this unexpected wave of triumph having now conquered my hesitancy in embracing something other than my wooden club, and proceed with putting my understanding into real practice, with Dreamweaver. The long journey to the completion of my website, has begun, and slowly, I get there...

Ceysun Dixon (KU ID: K1326851).