ptg alternative sites, such as Vimeo, that provide video hosting, too. Then you learned about the file formats associated with video on the Web and how to convert videos to those for- mats. You learned a lot about the limitations of the various browsers in terms of the tags and formats they support and how to work around those limitations to deliver your video and audio content to as many users as possible. Next, I discussed the option of hosting your own videos. You learned how to embed video in web pages using the <video> tag and the <object> tag and how to combine them to support the largest number of browsers. You also learned about SWFObject, a tool that makes it easier to embed Flash movies in your pages in a standards-compliant way. The lesson also covered two Flash movies that can used to embed video or audio files in your web pages. Finally, I discussed audio embedding and the <audio> tag. Table 12.5 shows a summary of the tags you learned about in this lesson. Table 12.5 Tags for Embedding Video and Audio Tag Attribute Use <audio> Embeds audio files into web pages for native playback by the browser <embed> Embeds objects into web pages <object> <object> Embeds objects into web pages <param> </param> Specifies parameters to be passed to the embedded object. Used in the object element <source> Points to a source audio or video file to be played by an <audio> or <video> tag <video> Embeds an audio file into a web page for native playback Workshop The following workshop includes questions you might ask about embedding video and audio in your web pages, questions to test your knowledge, and three exercises. Q&A Q What’s the quickest way to get started adding video to my site? A The quickest way is to use a site like YouTube of Vimeo that makes it easy to upload your video files and then embed them using the code provided. For most publishers, using sites such as these is all that’s needed to provide video to users. 386 LESSON 12:Integrating Multimedia: Sound, Video, and More Download from www.wowebook.com ptg Going the extra mile to host your own video is probably not worth it for the vast majority of applications, especially when you can subscribe to a site such as Vimeo for a nominal fee and publish videos hosted there without linking back to them. Q Should I be worried about web browser compatibility and standards compli- ance when it comes to audio and video? A Unfortunately, yes. When it comes to video and audio, it’s easy to wind up writing markup that isn’t standards-compliant or to leave out part of your audience by using markup that won’t work with their browser. Fortunately, as long as you use the techniques listed in this lesson, you can embed video or audio in your pages in a standards-compliant way that supports all the browsers that are currently in use. Q What is the difference between H.264 and Ogg Theora? A H.264 and Ogg Theora are both video codecs. They are slightly different in terms of performance, but the main difference is in how they are licensed. Ogg Theora is an open technology that can be implemented by anyone without restraint. H.264 is covered by patents that must be licensed. For this reason, some browsers, like Firefox, do not support H.264 decoding. To use the <video> tag and reach the widest number of users, you should make your videos available in both formats. Quiz 1. How do you accommodate users whose browsers do not support the <video> tag and do not have Flash installed? 2. Why is SWFObject a more robust approach to embedding Flash than just using the <object> tag? 3. Why are two <object> tags required to embed Flash movies in pages that work in most browsers? 4. Which video format is supported by all web browsers that support the <video> tag? Quiz Answers 1. The key to accommodating users who cannot view your video because of the browser they’re using or because they don’t have the proper plug-in installed is to use alternative content. Content placed inside the <video> tag or <object> tag will be ignored by browsers that understand those tags and displayed by those that don’t. You can include a link to the proper plug-in, a new browser, or even a direct link to the video itself so that the user can download it and play it with an applica- tion on their computer. Workshop 387 12 Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 2. The two main advantages of SWFObject are that it enables you to create valid markup that still supports a wide variety of browsers and that it gracefully handles cases where the user is missing the Flash plug-in or the version of the Flash plug- in they have installed is out of date. 3. Two <object> tags are required because one set of attributes works with Internet Explorer and another set of attributes work with other browsers, like Firefox and Safari. 4. This is a trick question. No one container format or codec is supported by all browsers. To reach your entire audience, you must encode your video in multiple formats and use Flash for browsers without native support for the s tag. Exercises 1. Upload a video to YouTube or Vimeo, and then create a web page with that video embedded in it. 2. Use one of the two video players listed in this chapter, JW Player or Flowplayer, to embed a video in a web page. Look into the configuration options and try changing the appearance of the player. 3. Try rewriting the YouTube embed code for a video on the site in a standards- compliant fashion. There’s no reason why you must use YouTube’s nonstandards- compliant code to embed their movies in your pages. 388 LESSON 12:Integrating Multimedia: Sound, Video, and More Download from www.wowebook.com ptg LESSON 13 Advanced CSS: Page Layout in CSS One of the major draws of modern CSS is the freedom to replace clunky HTML with structured HTML markup, styled by CSS rules. In Lesson 8, “Using CSS to Style a Site,” you learned how to place individual portions of your web page in specific locations using absolute positioning or float- ing content. You can use the same types of style rules to build the visual structure of the page. In this lesson, you’ll learn about the following: n The different strategies for laying out a page in CSS n Why it’s a bad idea to use <table> for page layout n The steps to replacing a table-based layout with a CSS-based structure n How to write HTML code for CSS-based layouts n How to use positioned content to lay out a page n How to use floating columns to lay out a page n Which questions you need to ask yourself before starting on a style sheet n How to organize your style sheets to make them easier to use and edit Download from www.wowebook.com ptg Laying Out the Page This lesson brings together many of the techniques you’ve learned in previous lessons for using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) properties to lay out an entire page or even an entire website. You won’t need to misuse HTML <table> elements for page layout now that you have reliable CSS techniques for layout in your repertoire. The examples this lesson use a redesigned version of the website for the Dunbar Project in Tucson, Arizona. The site as it appeared before the makeover is shown in Figure 13.1. It is mostly a dark teal color, and although it’s not bad, it could be improved through the use of CSS, as you’ll see. 390 LESSON 13: Advanced CSS: Page Layout in CSS FIGURE 13.1 The Dunbar Project’s original website. The Problems with Layout Tables Figure 13.2 shows the source view for the original version of the Dunbar Project website, which was not designed with CSS. Instead, multiple nested <table> tags provide the page layout, and <font> is used extensively. Download from www.wowebook.com ptg FIGURE 13.2 Table-based layout can be very convoluted. Laying Out the Page 391 13 Tables for layout are problematic for a number of reasons. HTML purists argue against tables on principle: The <table> tag is meant to identify data in rows and columns of information and is not intended for page layout. Accessibility mavens will tell you that screen readers employed by visually impaired users struggle with table layout. Table-based layouts are often harder to maintain than CSS-based layouts, requiring extensive rewriting of HTML tags to make simple changes. Later this lesson, you’ll see how a few CSS rules can easily move entire sections around without touching the HTML document at all. CSS-based layouts make it easier to maintain your HTML pages without cluttering them up with <tr> and <td> tags and make for simpler transitions to new layouts by just swapping in a new style sheet. Your web pages laid out with CSS will be smaller (and thus load more quickly) than table-based pages. You can write web pages with the main content first in the HTML source and the navigation and footer information after, making your page more friendly to screen readers and search engines. Writing HTML with Structure The first step to laying out a page is to start with well-written HTML that is divided into sections for styling. This is commonly done with <div> tags that have id attributes set on them, corresponding to the different sections of the page. Download from www.wowebook.com ptg In Listing 13.1, you can see a redesign of the Dunbar Project home page, which uses simple markup to store the site navigation, the content, the side navigation links, and the page footer. LISTING 13.1 Using <div> Tags to Create Sections for Positioning <! dunbar-13.1.html > <html> <head> <title>The Dunbar Project</title> </head> <body> <div id=”header”> <h1>The Dunbar Project</h1> <h2>In the Shadow of Downtown Tucson</h2> <div id=”sitenav”> <ol><li><a href=”index.html”>Home</a></li> <li><a href=”about/”>About the Dunbar Project</a></li> <li><a href=”gallery/”>Photo Galleries</a></li> <li><a href=”donate/”>Donate</a></li> <li><a href=”contact/”>Contact</a></li></ol> </div> <! sitenav > </div> <! header > <div id=”main”> <div id=”content”> <h3>Welcome to The Dunbar Project Website</h3> <img src=”DunbarTop.jpg” alt=”[Dunbar School]”> <p>Dunbar School was completed in January 1918, for the purpose of educating Tucson’s African-American students. The school was named after <a href=”poet.html”>Paul Laurence Dunbar</a>, a renowned African-American poet. African-American children in first through ninth grades attended Dunbar until 1951, when de jure segregation was eliminated from the school systems of Arizona. When segregation in Arizona was eliminated, Dunbar School became the non-segregated John Spring Junior High School, and continued as such until 1978 when the school was closed permanently.</p> <! more content omitted > </div> <! content > <div id=”sidebar”> <h3>Dunbar Project</h3> <ol><li><a href=”plan/”>The Dunbar Site Plan</a></li> <li><a href=”auditorium/”>Dunbar Auditorium</a></li> <li><a href=”history/”>School History</a></li> <li><a href=”proposal/”>Project Proposal</a></li> <li><a href=”donors/”>Dunbar Donors</a></li> <li><a href=”poet.html”>About Paul Laurence Dunbar, Poet</a></li> 392 LESSON 13: Advanced CSS: Page Layout in CSS Download from www.wowebook.com ptg <li><a href=”links/”>Related Links</a></li></ol> <h3>Coalition Partners</h3> <ol><li>The Tucson Urban League</li> <li>The Dunbar Alumni Association</li> <li>The Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Association</li> <li>The Juneteenth Festival Committee</li></ol> <h3>Individual Members</h3> <ol> <! list of donors omitted —> </ol> </div> <! sidebar > <div id=”footer”> <p id=”note501c3”>The Dunbar Project is a 501c(3) organization, and your contributions are tax deductible.</p> <p id=”copyright”>Copyright &copy; 2006 by the Dunbar Project. Questions? <a href=”mailto:webmaster@thedunbarproject.com”> Mail the Webmaster.</a></p> </div> <! footer > </div> <! main > </body> </html> The structure of this page is defined by the <div> tags with id attributes. The general skeleton (with content omitted) consists of the following: <div id=”header”> <div id=”sitenav”></div> </div> <! header > <div id=”main”> <div id=”content”></div> <div id=”sidebar”></div> <div id=”footer”></div> </div> <! main > Comments are used with the closing </div> tags as reminders about which <div> is being closed; it makes the page easier to edit later. The page is constructed of two sections: a header and a main body. Each of these has one or more subsections. This structure provides what’s needed to redesign and lay out the page. Why this particular structure? There are actually many ways you could structure such the page, inserting <div> tags appropriately. This skeleton is simply the method chosen for this example, to get the specific styles used later on. During the web development process, you might go back to your HTML and add or remove <div> tags while styling to give more flexibility when creating page layouts. Laying Out the Page 393 13 Download from www.wowebook.com ptg The number of <div> tags you use will vary from layout to layout. Some web designers believe strongly in using only a minimum number of <div> tags, whereas others add them freely whenever needed. The approach for this example is down the middle between those extremes: There are enough to make it easy to illustrate how CSS-based layout works but not so many that we’re adding extraneous <div> tags just because we can. Figure 13.3 shows the new HTML page without any styles applied. 394 LESSON 13: Advanced CSS: Page Layout in CSS FIGURE 13.3 An unstyled page, ready for layout. Writing a Layout Style Sheet With an HTML page ready for styling, the next step is to write the style sheet. There are several questions to consider regarding how to lay out the page. The first is a technical question: Will you use absolute positioning for layout, or will you use floated columns? You can get the same general layout effects from both techniques. Positioning is a little bit easier to grasp, at first, so this example uses absolute position- ing. Later this lesson, however, you’ll learn how to lay out the same HTML page with the float property. You need to figure out how many columns you want. There’s a slight increase in com- plexity when you have more columns, but the specific techniques remain the same whether you’re using two columns, three columns, or more. In this redesign, two columns are used to avoid making the example overly complex. Download from www.wowebook.com ptg Finally, you need to determine whether you are using a fixed layout or a liquid layout. A fixed layout is one that defines a specific width for an entire page; for example, it may be always 700 pixels across, and excess space in the browser simply becomes wider mar- gins. A liquid layout is one that grows larger (or smaller) based on the user’s screen reso- lution and browser window size. There are advantages and disadvantages to both fixed and liquid layouts. A fixed layout may be easier to create and easier to read on larger monitors; a liquid layout is more adaptable but could result in overly long lines, which are harder to read. In this example, the Dunbar Project site will use a liquid design with margin size based on em units. Listing 13.2 is a style sheet that starts to set up the layout choices. LISTING 13.2 A Style Sheet for Page Layout /* dunbar-layout-13.2.css */ body { margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: silver; } #header { background-color: black; color: white; } #sitenav ol { padding: 0; margin: 0; display: inline; } #sitenav li { display: inline; padding-left: 1em; margin-left: 1em; border-left: 1px solid black; } #sitenav li:first-child { padding-left: 0; border-left: none; margin-left: 0; } #sitenav li a { color: white; } #main { padding: 0 12em 2em 2em; position: relative; background-color: gray; } #content { background-color: white; } #sidebar { position: absolute; width: 10em; right: 1em; top: 1em; } #sidebar h3 { color: white; background-color: black; } #sidebar ol { margin: 0 0 1em 0; background-color: white; border: 2px solid black; } #footer { background-color: white; } This style sheet is deliberately plain and simple, with colors of black, gray, silver, and white to make it easier for you to identify the various sections of the page. Laying Out the Page 395 13 Download from www.wowebook.com . www.wowebook.com ptg LESSON 13 Advanced CSS: Page Layout in CSS One of the major draws of modern CSS is the freedom to replace clunky HTML with structured HTML markup, styled by CSS rules. In Lesson 8, “Using CSS to. Figure 13 .1. It is mostly a dark teal color, and although it’s not bad, it could be improved through the use of CSS, as you’ll see. 390 LESSON 13 : Advanced CSS: Page Layout in CSS FIGURE 13 .1 The. out a page in CSS n Why it’s a bad idea to use <table> for page layout n The steps to replacing a table-based layout with a CSS- based structure n How to write HTML code for CSS- based layouts n How