This past week I have been trying to narrow my focus or more narrowly define my subject learning order. I feel comfortable with my basic knowledge of HTML and CSS and the basics of getting a web page built and online. My WordPress Blog is up and running smoothly. So I have had trouble defining the next steps and have been spending small pockets of time with PHP, MySQL, Ajax, JavaScript, JQuery, YUI, MooTools and various other side tangents…… I mean who doesn’t want to write an iPhone app these days! ; ). But it seems like the proper order would now be to focus on JavaScript and one or two frameworks. With this decision made, I am now diving into the books Head First JavaScript and Learning JQuery 1.3. The plan is to now get a basic and comfortable knowledge of JS so I can work on cliff538.com and make it a more interactive and alive web site then move into Ajax/XML/JSON and more of the back-end stuff so my web pages can “communicate” with my server and access information without a page refresh from the users end.
Along with reading my two books I have been watching a video series by Jeffery Way over at In the Woods called JQuery for Absolute Beginners and doing all of the examples on my MAMP development server. Books can take you only so far then it’s nice to see it being done then jump on in and do it yourself!
I think it’s very important that you get a development server up and running on your computer so you can read or watch something then go try it and experiment with different options, you can learn more about this reading my blog entries about MAMP. JavaScript has an incredible amount of power and a very wide breadth of tools that you can use to interact with your CSS and the web page DOM. You have to dive into your books and videos so you can get a good grasp on how this all works. I have decided to narrow my JavaScript Framework to JQuery and it’s many plug-ins. So the goal is now to take my static web pages over at cliff538.com and implement some JavaScript using JQuery and use two plug-ins called JQuery UI and Cycle. JQuery UI has some really nice built in features that you could use on just about any web page and Cycle is a plug-in for dispaying a series of pictures or text boxes, you’ll see on the web page that it’s mostly used for pictures but you could use anything in place of the pictures, let your imagination and creativity run!
And to just top it all off I have been reading about HTML 5. I believe my next web site will be made using the new standard, I can’t see any reason to not jump in and start using the new updated standard. Here are a few links that I have found very useful in getting a grasp on the new features: Dive into HTML 5, HTML 5 Doctor, and finally a video by Google called Video Introduction to HTML 5.
One last thing, I’ve found a new text editor! Yea, I thought I was done too but when I was watching a screencast I saw the guy using Coda and it had features that looked very interesting so I downloaded it and have been using it for two weeks now and I love it. So I plunked down yet another hundred bucks for software, but I can assure you, you wont regret buying and using Coda. It works incredibly well with your development server. It has a feature called “Sites” where you can play with a multitude of projects. I have a new site for each project, one for JQuery UI, one for Cycle and others for my complete sites that I want to try something new in. I know I’m not explaining it well, but download it and use it free for 30 days, they have excellent documentation and videos on how to set things up. You can switch between your code and browser and between projects so easily you’ll never go back to your other editors, at least not for your development/Learning stuff. I may have to do a screencast or just a blog entry with screen shots on how I use this with MAMP, it’s just absolutely the best way I have found yet! But thats another project for another day, it’s off to work for me tomorrow……. Remember, Never Stop Learning!
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