h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Please put me down for a large helping. I can hand code HTML. I don't believe that Frontpage / Dreamweaver etc etc write very efficient code and so use Notepad and Painshop Pro. I also dabble in a little bit of Visual Basic.

I'm trying to push the limits of GuideML and would appreciate any help about things like the ability to detect what skin a browser is using. Pages optimised for specific skins suffer when different skins are used. If you go to my home page here then you'll see what I mean.

Cheers

Oh, the solution to that is really very, very simple.

Don't optimise for skins! I don't understand why people do that anyway.

Why bother having skins if you're not going to utilise their potential?

The browser knows where to get the right bits so their must be a flag set. All you need is a bit of code that will enquire what the flag is set to and conditionally jump to a section which displays the correct page with the skin optimisations.

GuideML is a growing language so lets put up some inhancement suggestions. It's not rocket science.

If you want to see what you can achieve at the most basic level, check out my home page in GOO skin.

But the idea of GuideML is surely that the skin being used is irrelevant - the page can appear and look good in any skin on any device, even something through AvantGo or WAP, or 3G services. That's what the Edited Guide's subset of GuideML does, anyway...

Added

Please read post 120 it says exactly what I have in mind now

O .

Dancer

Me too:

Languages: BASIC (BBC Micro/Acorn Electron , Ada, Miranda, Fortran, C, Delphi, Java, LISP, Perl, VB/VBA (mainly at the mo) - Some more fluently than others, willing to have a bash at anything and everything.
Platforms: Electron, Linux, AIX, HP-UX, Windows of all flavours, Psion (!), anything else you care to throw at me ..

Was just going to suggest [URL removed by moderator] as a book-url.. but its not reachable !?

Lady C.

I got to the url in time, So I can see it but the page is blocked off (No permition to load it)

I'll add you up though and it'll be also nice if you activate youre homepage, so people can contact you there . You just need to edit the page and write even a single word to do so

Do you want castaway or Lady C as your name?


Dancer

Thats an awfull lot of new programmers, but cant chat here.....

CK

Youre in castaway (is this an oxymoron?).

I can see the moderators finally came and removed the URL.

Youre number 25 at 50 we PARTY !!! (it's an old(?) tredition).


Dancer

I would dissagree Maw, (nice bikini BTW).

I can't say that keeping page style down to a basic minimum so that it's compatible with the most basic of browsers is really pushing the envelope.

Surely it would be better to have a number of styles, each optimised for specific environments and then be able to code each page to detect what style is being used and then display the page in all it's optimised glory. That way you have the best of all worlds.

I agree that it might be harder work to code the pages but then you don't have to take advantage of skins, you can stick to default if you want.

That disagreement would come about because I'm a purist... my Space uses only one non-Approved GuideML tag - PICTURE. Other than that, it could be in the Edited Guide...

It wouldn't really pass PR though

Not so factual, not in third person, Biased pice of jurnalism


Dancer

I know, I know that! But the GuideML would! Almost.

Hi!

Can I join Programmer's Corner?

I'm currently studying for my A levels, including Computing, and eventually I hope to take a degree in Computer Science.

My programming experience is fairly limited, but I'm learning more all the time. I am learning Pascal, as well as a little bit of Visual Basic, HTML and SQL. I also know quite a lot of Spectrum Basic (anyone else remember that?)

Hey
Youre in Not So Paranoid


Dancer

Cheers!!

You should probably think about learning Java. Most Universities seem to teach it these days - mine certainly does. It does make some of the modules rather boring if you already know Java, but it does make the marks easier to get - not to mention leaving more time for and and and

Many thanks for signing me up. Looks like much to discuss.



PS: Maw - Check out the "So Be It thread for a Java chat" if you like.

Like DoctorMO (I can't believe you have a PhD ) I have little experience as I'm only 17 and can't afford my own computer, using my dad's instead.

Languages: C, C++ (still learning), Pascal (only bits of it and a bit of Object Pascal), BBC BASIC (nice but primitive), Vis-a-hell Besick (through Computing AS level), very very basic Scheme. Also some HTML and (of course) GuideML.

Platforms: POSIX (ok, Linux), Win9x, RISC OS (but not currently).

Technologies: OOP is as far as I've got, and not very far. Will look at Gtk+ and curses sometime... do they count as a technologies?

Other: Looking to become CS student. Have B grade at AS level computing but am no longer pursuing course. I don't recommend it: do maths instead.

Oh, and I know Inform too (a language for writing interactive fiction).