beginner web site maintainer

[Helpful person]

I accepted responsibility for maintaining unico-tc.com based on the
premise the previous web master would teach me. That did not happen. a
consultant did convert the site to new web site and I struggled along
till I got rid of my Mac and returned to windows7.
I decided to try sea monkey  since I love tbird and firefox.
Things were ok for a while and then I do not know what I daid and I
lost headers and type colors on a few pages.
I have not touched it since then as I am afraid to mess it up more.
I have asked club for support $ and got OK for $80.
Now how do I find someone to help me?
I think the structure is complicated side bars and stuff repeated on
all pages etc.
The original site uses css and I have no clue.
Help please.

I can give the perspective of a beginner at HTML/CSS. I agree with
many of the posts that suggest starting from scratch. If you have no,
or minimal understanding of HTML, then trying to understand the sight
will be almost impossible.

I would suggest finding a good book / tutorial and first learn to
create a simple sight. This will give you some insight into the
extent of the task for which you have volunteered. For me, the most
difficult and frustrating part of learning was to ensure that the web
sight works well with all browsers. I am assuming that this is still
the case.

Expect to spend many hours before being able to create anything
useful. Unless you have plenty of spare time, your best coarse of
action may be to decline the task.

Sorry about all the negativity. However, having persevered, for me
it's been a worthwhile and rewarding experience.

If you do take on the task use this newsgroup. The people here are
very patient (usually) and give excellent help.

http://richardfisher.com

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

It's been more than a couple of decades since I've written any SGML DTDs,
but if I recall, there were some serious presentational limitations when
sticking with "strict" usage of the existing SGML elements and attributes.

I wonder if you are really talking about SGML and DTDs. In any case,
SGML is a metalanguage for defining markup languages, not something that
comes with existing elements and attributes.

On the other hand, DTDs that deviated from the "standard" (there never was a
"standard", really)

ISO 8879 (the SGML standard, which defines rules for DTDs, among other
things) was issued in 1986.

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

OK, but perhaps the name of Strict, at the time, was in reference
to there being *less latitude* to do various things.

Well, apparently if you forbid something in a language, then you're
creating a more limited language in some sense. It is common to use the
word "strict" when referring to computer language versions that are
"more disciplined" or "more structured" than the basic language. But
discipline and structure are matters of judgment, so it's really about
forbidding something that some people regard as bad.

 

[dorayme]

Well, apparently if you forbid something in a language, then you're
creating a more limited language in some sense. It is common to use the
word "strict" when referring to computer language versions that are
"more disciplined" or "more structured" than the basic language. But
discipline and structure are matters of judgment, so it's really about
forbidding something that some people regard as bad.

There are two things one can emphasise, on the one hand that some
people regard some things as bad, on the other that a culture has
built up that these things are bad. What Strict refers to can be
thought to be the culture (albeit caused by what a few have
thought).

 

[Neil Gould]

I wonder if you are really talking about SGML and DTDs. In any case,
SGML is a metalanguage for defining markup languages, not something
that comes with existing elements and attributes.

In the period I was referring to, the early '80s, there were no other
generalized markup languages. SGML was being pushed as the alternative to
proprietary markup languages for printed documents, such as those used for
word processors.

ISO 8879 (the SGML standard, which defines rules for DTDs, among other
things) was issued in 1986.

That "standard" took a while to catch on and there were still many coders
that "disagreed" with the "standard", not unlike finding deprecated code in
web pages from organizations that claim to adhere to HTML standards today.

My point was that "strict" adherence simply meant that one wouldn't find
such deviations in the document.