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Code & Design Your First Website - April 18th 2017

Code & Design Your First Website - April 18th 2017

Thinkful's live Meetups in Washington DC. Tonight we talk about coding and designing your first website.

Thinkful

April 18, 2017
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  1. Me • TJ Stalcup • Lead DC Mentor @ Thinkful

    • API Evangelist @ WealthEngine • Github: tjstalcup • Twitter: @tjstalcup
  2. About us Thinkful prepares students for web development & data

    science jobs through 1-on-1 mentorship programs
  3. What’s your goal? • Do you want to work better

    with developers? • Do you want to start working in tech? • Do you have an idea that you want to build?
  4. What’s your programming background? • First lines of code will

    be written tonight? • Been self teaching for 1-3 months? • Been at this for 3+ months
  5. Goals • How the web works • Wireframe exercise •

    Basics of HTML and CSS • Lots of practice building • Next steps in your learning
  6. How the web works Type a URL from a client

    (e.g. google.com) Browser communicates with DNS server to find IP address Browser sends an HTTP request asking for specific files Browser receives those files and renders them as a website
  7. Example: facebook.com HTML, CSS, & Javascript render interactive newsfeed Algorithm

    determines what’s in your feed Request Get data about your friends’s and their posts Open browser and navigate to facebook.com Business Logic Database Servers Response
  8. How that relates to what we’re doing today HTML &

    CSS are the files that are stored on a server, sent to the client, and then rendered by your browser. Today, we’ll be writing these files.
  9. Why start by learning “Frontend”? • Easy to get started

    and see if coding is for you • Get clear & immediate gratification • Job opportunities
  10. Wireframe exercise for “About Me” • List out the topics

    you want to include • Divide each topic into a section • Layout the page (start at top and work down) • Keep it simple — use Google for “inspiration”
  11. Let’s start with HTML HTML is the content and structure

    of a webpage It’s the skeleton of your website
  12. We’ll make it pretty later We will start with just

    HTML — we’ll then add a Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) file to “style” our website. More on that later…
  13. Getting Started with Codepen • Normally developers use a text

    editor • Codepen lets us write HTML/CSS and see the results instantly • Create an account: codepen.io • Skip profile info => Go to create a new “Pen”
  14. HTML tags Every tag starts with a “less than” sign

    and ends with a “greater than” sign <html> #this is an HTML opening tag <body> #this is a body opening tag <h1>Hello world!</h1> #this is set of H1 tags </body> #this is a body closing tag </html> #this is an HTML closing tag
  15. More about tags • There are opening tags and closing

    tags — closing tags have a backslash before the tag name (</html> versus <html>) • Tags instruct a browser about the structure of our website • There are hundreds of built-in tags though you’ll use the same few a lot
  16. Non-exhaustive list of HTML tags • <html> #html tags wrap

    your entire page • <head> #head tags holds info about the page • <body> #body tags wrap around your content • <h1> #signifies the largest headline (through h6) • <p> #wraps a paragraph of writing • <div> #div tags are generic container tags • <a> #anchor tags for text to be a link • <ul><li> #unordered list of items • <button> #this is a button
  17. HTML elements HTML elements usually consist of an opening tag,

    closing tag, and some content <html> #html element starts here <body> #body element starts here <h1>Hello world!</h1> #this is an HTML element </body> #body element ends here </html> #html element ends here
  18. More about elements Some consist of just a self-closing tag

    <img src=“http://i.imgur.com/Th5404r.jpg">
  19. A note about <div>’s We use <div> tags to separate

    sections of our site. This will allow for sophisticated styling. It’s a good habit to “wrap” most sections into a <div> <div> <h1>Hello world!</h1> </div>
  20. HTML attributes HTML attributes set properties on an element —

    the are attached in the opening tag <a href=“https://somewhere.com">This is a link</a> href is an attribute that sets the destination of a link <h1 class=“headline”>This is a headline</h1> class is one attribute that identifies element (for CSS & Javascript) <h1 id=“headline”>This is a headline</h1> id is another attribute that identifies element (for CSS & Javascript)
  21. “About Me” website — HTML https://codepen.io/tjstalcup/pen/JNYVNg • “Fork” this code

    and lets walk through it together • Drill — Add another section of your choosing • Drill — Add a title and a paragraph in that section • Drill — Try and add an image underneath “About Me”
  22. What is CSS? Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) interact with your

    HTML to determine the visual presentation of your webpages
  23. CSS selectors • Determine HTML elements to target for styles

    • Can target tags, classes, id’s and many more! • Selectors can be combined
  24. Example selectors p (selects all paragraph tags) .name (selects HTML

    elements with class “name”) #intro (selects HTML elements with id “intro”) p.name (selects paragraph tags with class “name”)
  25. CSS properties Determines the aspect of the element’s appearance to

    change • color (set the font color) • font-family (sets main typeface and backup typefaces) • background-image (sets background image) • height (sets the height of an element)
  26. More on CSS properties • Each property has a default

    value — when you write CSS, you override that default with a new value • There are lots of CSS properties! For a full list see http://www.htmldog.com/references/css/properties/
  27. CSS values Determines the aspect of the element’s appearance we

    wish to change • color: red, blue, green, #CCCCCC acceptable values for the color property • font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif acceptable values for the font-family property • background-image: url(“imageFile.jpg") looks for a URL value for image file • height: 40px, 50% set in pixels or percentage of container height
  28. Declarations and declaration blocks This is a declaration block containing

    two declarations p { color: red; font-size: 36px; }
  29. CSS challenge • Pick a typeface, color, and size for

    the words • Add a “More About Me” section and put a border around it • Add background colors to each section to separate them
  30. From Codepen to reality • Download Sublime Text (or another

    text editor) • Create a new folder (“First Website”) • Create a new HTML file in First Website folder (index.html) • Copy & paste your Codepen HTML into this file • Create a new css file in First Website folder (index.css) • Copy & paste your Codepen CSS into this file • Add link to your CSS in your HTML <head> section • Save both files • Double-click & open your index.html file
  31. In-line vs block • Every element is either inline-block or

    block • Block: element starts a new line and stretches to full width • Inline: element doesn’t start new line, only as wide as need be
  32. More on in-line vs block • For a full list

    of inline elements, see: https://developer.mozilla.org/ en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Inline_elements • For a full list of block-level elements, see: https:// developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Block- level_elements
  33. Box model & position • Static: normal flow. Block elements

    stack on top of each other. Inline elements are as large as the content they contain. • Fixed: outside of normal flow. Stays in same place no matter what. • Relative: normal flow. Unlike static, can use left, right, top, bottom properties to move the elements around relative to where they’d otherwise sit. • Absolute: outside of normal flow. Stays in a specific spot on a page.
  34. General learning tips for coding • Google is your friend

    • Practice at the edge of your abilities • Ignore the hot new thing — depth matters more than breadth
  35. More about Thinkful • Anyone who’s committed can learn to

    code • 1-on-1 mentorship is the best way to learn • Flexibility matters — learn anywhere, anytime • We only make money when you get a job
  36. Our Program You’ll learn concepts, practice with drills, and build

    capstone projects for your own portfolio — all guided by a personal mentor
  37. Special Prep Course Offer • Three-week program, includes six mentor

    sessions • Covers HTML/CSS, Javascript, jQuery, Responsive Design • Option to continue into web development bootcamp • Prep course costs $500 (can apply to cost of full bootcamp) • Talk to me (or email me) about special offer