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WordPress

WordPress Plugins – Highly Rated, 2017

Installing a plugin is always a compromise. They can slow your site down. They can represent a security risk. They can conflict with other plugins or theme features. But they can add a lot to the site user experience, or the site owner experience. In other words, before installing a plugin, do as much research […]

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CSS Graphics HTML JavaScript

Responsible Responsive Design: the Picture Element and WebP Images 2020

Note 2023: webp is now a well-established format. However, the use of the picture element, as discussed here, can be used to serve a newer format like AVIF, while providing a fallback to browsers that do not support that format. The technique is identical to the one discussed here. The largest contributor to file size […]

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WordPress

WordPress Lab Exercise: Theme Tryouts

One trouble in figuring out which themes or plugins to try out is that there are tons of reviews on the web, but with a lot of them you don’t really know who’s doing the reviewing. After awhile, though, you start to recognize sites that have respect in the WordPress community. Some I would mention […]

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WordPress

WordPress Lab Exercise 4: Free WebHost Install & Automated Backup

For this exercise, I want you to get WordPress running on a free web hosting service: 000webhost.com and use their automated WordPress installation. First, sign up with the service. Then figure out how to install WordPress on the site. When you sign up for the service, you will need to use a more secure username and […]

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CSS HTML JavaScript

HTML5 Video Custom Controller

In this exercise, we’ll go over how to add a custom controller to an HTML5 video element, while making sure we don’t disadvantage users without JavaScript. First, please download these files. Unzip the package and open the folder up in your code editor. You will see that I’ve given you an index file, and css, […]

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Tools & Generators

Color Palette Generators & Utilities

A brief, but insightful, intro to color theory.  Another discussion.  Coolors.co An excellent and very intuitive app for generating color schemes, which you can save, download, share, or export in a number of formats including URL, PNG, or SCSS. Click the spacebar, generate a new theme. Lock colors you want to keep, click the spacebar, […]

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CSS HTML JavaScript

HTML Video Embedding

Two common ways to put video into a webpage are using a hosted service like YouTube or using the HTML5 video element. There are advantages to each method, which we’ll discuss in each section. Using YouTube or Vimeo Using YouTube, Vimeo or other services is easy, as they will supply the code to embed in […]

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WordPress

WordPress Lab Exercise: Obsessive Compulsive Guitar

Download the Files First, please download these files. When you unzip the files, you will see inside the folder, a file called guitarmania.wordpress.2013-07-11.xml  and a folder of images. Make a new WordPress site in a testing environment like MAMP. For the folder name, use obsessive-compulsive-guitarist.  Use your own name as the admin user and password. For […]

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CSS HTML

HTML + CSS Basics Lab Exercise 1

In this lab exercise, make a three-page website about you. Each page must have at least two headings and three paragraphs. One page must have a YOUTUBE video. One page must have a Google Map. At the top of each page must be a MENU. SFTP the site to the following URL: https://mylinux.langara.bc.ca/~YOUR_ID/aboutme This is […]

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HTML

HTML Basics Quiz & Practice 1

List 10 HTML tags List four HTML attributes In HTML, why must we go through heading levels in order? Make a site that has the following files and folders. You can download the required image from the bottom of this page: an index.html page on the top level a folder named guitars on the top level […]