Resources for Web Development Students @ Robin’s Blog

A common question in class is “how do I overlap images and still see the background?” The answer, you use some type of transparent image. Traditionally we used a transparent GIF, but the quality isn’t so great. PNG has really become the preferred image format for transparency. PNG 8 gives you a transparent image, but you may see some white [...]

Firebug is one of the most popular Firefox extensions for troubleshooting CSS problems. Firebug Lite is a JavaScript file that simulates some of Firebug’s features in Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari and other browsers.
You can use the Firebug Lite bookmarklet in class. Due to our security settings you won’t be able to drag the bookmarklet to the Favorites/Bookmarks bar as [...]

So you’re working on your first simple HTML and CSS site. You’ve got a gorgeous layout in your head and hopefully sketched out on paper and you’re ready to fire up the HTML editor. The first HTML page starts to take shape, the doctype is set and divs for the wrapper, header, sidebar, content, and footer are added to the [...]

As you start to build your own Web sites you will more than likely come across a few CSS browser bugs. You ma y encounter the “float drop bug”, the “3 pixel jog”, or the “IE double margin float bug” to name a few. Before you pull your hair out with frustration, read the articles below which contain many of [...]

Pievincenzo Madeo, aka @piervix, of PV.M Garage has collected a great set of resources for people who want to learn how to create themes for WordPress.
In his post, Become A WordPress Theme Developer Who Rocks In Four Steps (and 50+ readings), Pievincenzo outlines his four step process for developing WordPress themes and includes links to tutorials for developing themes [...]

Tripwire Magazine has compiled a terrific Mega CSS Resources Roundup that is a must bookmark for student. It includes cheatsheets (CSS HTML/XHTML, and color), excellent CSS resource sites and articles for beginners, free templates, positioning articles, articles on styling forms, typography articles and resources, graphing techniques, frameworks, numerous menu options, and tools to optimize your CSS and enhance your workflow. [...]

This is a roundup of wonderful articles that deal with coding Web pages. Most are tips on HTML & CSS, but there are also a few JavaScript and PHP resources.
Remember, these are articles I “tweet” on Twitter. Click the @username to see the posts of some of the people who I respect and love to “follow” on Twitter, the #hashtags [...]

I am republishing this article because so many new resources have been added since the original publishing date. If you know of additional resources that should be added please leave a comment below.
Part of the Photoshop class project is to create a Web site mockup. I have recently found several tutorials that may help you to complete this project. [...]

Web Design Schools Guide has compiled a list of 100 Terrific Web Design Cheat Sheets that Will Save you Time, Money and Mistakes.

Most web designers know that cheat sheets are incredibly useful. You can use them for quick reference, easy learning, and more. In this list, we’ve compiled an incredible collection of the 100 best and most useful cheat sheets [...]

Tripwire Magazine has compiled 35+ very Useful And Powerful CSS techniques. In addition to the 35+ CSS techniques there is also a nice introduction to CSS.
Here are ten CSS techniques that students frequently ask “how do I…?” in class:

CSS Tabs
Create Resizable Images With CSS
Making web pages extend to the bottom of the window
Prettier Accessible Forms
Multi-Column Lists
Optimizing Your Website Structure [...]