3/31/11

I finished the main graphic for the thinkcspy project. And I've learned how to make revisions and add my own images. Next week, I'll start on the illustrations for the rest of the book.

3/30/11

I am working on documentation for my keypad .svg project. What I have done is over here.

3/28/11

I finished an .svg for the Python book. If you want any of the colors changed, I can do that easily with inkscape. I am also working on writing a tutorial for the keypad I made. I will post that sometime this week.

3/23/11

Okay. I'm going to talk about the <embed> tag here, for use in .svg files.
First, what this tag does is link in an .svg from another file. It keeps you from having to clog your natural .html with with all the lines of code that come from an .svg . This is neater, and the advantage is that you can use .svg files directly from inkscape, without having to manually convert the code. Unfortunately, the <embed> tag has some drawbacks. For example, if you use the tag to display a 400 by 600 pixels .svg like this:
<embed src="example.svg" width="400" height="600"
type="image/svg+xml"
pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/svg/viewer/install/" />
                                           :you will get some nasty scrollbars on the side of the image. The easiest way to drop the scrollbars, is to modify the embed code to this:
<embed src="foreground_front.svg" width="401" height=601"
type="image/svg+xml"
pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/svg/viewer/install/" />
                                           :this is called "stretching" the embed tag. It's not "good" html, but it is very effective, and I haven't had a problem with it.
The second problem with .svg files in html is that when you use the .svg to make a clickable link, by default it opens the new web page inside the .svg picture. I don't know why. Here is an example:
Before:
<a
       xlink:href="http://mcoirad.deviantart.com"
       id="a3217">
What you need to do is add this: target="_top"
This opens the link in a new window.
After:
<a
       xlink:href="http://mcoirad.deviantart.com" target="_top"
       id="a3217">

3/18/11

Okay so far I've:

1. Changed up the logo, and sent an email to Filip. I haven't hear back yet. You can see the logo here. 
2. Added more interactiveness to my site. If you click on the "Enter" (i know it's ugly, but it's just a placeholder) it load new html, WITHOUT OPENING A NEW PAGE. I know! this state-of-the-art .svg technology sure is cool.
3. Worked on the css. Unfortunately I can't use .svg as background images, or at least not in firefox. If you go to site, and right-click and go to "View Background Image" you see the image, but it will not display on the actual site for some reason. oh well.

3/10/11

I finished the design for the py book builder.
Here
Next week I'll work more on my site.

Monday 3/7/11

I've figured out how to use links on .svg, and I'v implementing some basic .css  The cool thing about using links with .svg is that I can do most of the graphical web design in inkscape, instead of typing in code to make layouts. Right now the link doesn't go anywhere, but tomorrow I'll work on that.

My Site

Now, the problem with putting svg code directly into html code is as follows:
SVGs right out of inkscape have plenty of tags such as <svg , <path, <filter, etc.
Each one of the tags needs to become <svg:svg, <svg:path, and <svg:filter, otherwise the SVG will not display.
So basically I need a program that takes each instance of a tag: <(tag)
and turns it into <svg:(tag).
I'm pretty sure thats the process for converting inkscape files.
Ill have something else on that tomorrow.

3/3/11

I keep running into rendering problems when working with .svg files.
Text especially will not render will, as font sizes are nearly impossible to specify from inkscape.