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Myths, legends and mysteries of the absolute paths and urls

admin — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 13:56:33 +0000

During the last few years, Internet City has been under a constant threat, totally unbalanced between the forces of good and evil… Okay, this would be a great start a novel or story of science (not fiction), but today we’re going to talk about other things (the legends, myths, and other herbs will remain for some possible future or past edition).

Anyway, today in ¨Myths, legends, mysteries, and other herbs¨…. we will only be talking about the differences between absolute paths and absolute URLs.

The term ‘absolute path’ refers to the main folder or document with the domain’s name.

An absolute URL is one that starts with the protocol of transference and refers to a document on our site.

Let’s suppose that in the root directory we create a document index.html, this document is the absolute path: http://www.lastwebdesigner.com/.

To clarify a little, the true absolute path for each domain in all of the Internet is always, always ”/” (and try to debate and convince me otherwise, but I doubt it will work).

Some people tend to confuse what a relative path is with an absolute path, and even more so if they mix up the cables and confuse ”URL” (links) with ”Path” (folders), which is to say, an ”absolute path” is not the same as an ”absolute URL.”

The absolute URLs always start with the protocol of transference (http,htpps,etc.), followed by the name of the domain (or IP), plus the document we are searching for (whether this is an image, an html document, or whichever other document).

The Absolute Paths always start with the root of the domain where they can be found (without protocols, without ports) and point directly to the document that we select, for example, an image that is saved in the folder ”img” that was previously created in the race of the site and whose name (that of the image, of course), is ”image.jpg”. Alright, now we have an archive with the name ”index.html” that we’ve created in another folder ”htmls” also from the race from the Website. The norm is that when we open the image with some editor WYSIWYG (I’m not going to name a specific product… since they don’t pay me for advertising), in our code, we notice that what we have written our unbelievable, never well-pondered and often one of the reasons for poorly-treated editors… leaving us with something like:

What does the superior code tell us? Well, that we have inscribed a new image with its relative path, that which, if we never move the HTML archive of a site or do not use anything to rewrite our pages, will always be available and will be perfectly visible. But, what happens if we move the page and we create it in another subfolder, for example: ”/htmls/subfolder/index.html’‘?

In this case, we can say “bye” to our supply of milk (but don’t worry, because new cows are born each day and will surely produce more), knowing we will not see the precious image, even if we see a beautiful “image not found” error (depending on the navigator this can appear in various forms). Although with security we will always see the alternative text (image tagged with ”alt”) Firefox furthermore needs you to create the tag ”title” that will function equal to the tag ”alt” (one can see that they have forgotten about this and I don’t see that they’ve done anything to fix it), but that is another issue and our topic today is links and absolute paths.

To conclude (thanks to this hot and cold time), remember the differences between an absolute Web ”URL” address an absolute Path.

The absolute URLS are always those that begin with the protocol of transference and refer to some document from our site.

The absolute paths make reference only and exclusively to our Website and it is recommended to eliminate the ”disappearance” of links or images on our site (with the great advantage that if we move our server site, or apply rewrite technology, we won’t have to touch our code at all).

Juan Carlos Barreiro. I develop web sites and software from 1996 using diferents technologies (delphi, java, php, classic asp, vbscript & .net), today focusing on Classic ASP and .NET technologies. My web site :Enterprisedreams.net

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Last Mac editors collection.

admin — Fri, 22 May 2009 08:35:23 +0000

These days we have a great choice of software for web designers, free or not free , we can choose between a lots of editor for our works and projects. Macs offers a greats solution, most are not free, but not too much expensive. So I made a list of the best software that I’ve tried and used on my macbook pro, to edit code or image authoring.
For the moment I will make you a list of editors for Mac, the next time I will make the same list, but for windows (I’ve never used linux, but if someone want to help me to make the linux list I will be very glad to publish here). Remember , this list is created form the software that I’ve used working on a Mac operating system, not from all mac software.I f you have suggest or know other software feel free to let us know using the comments below

Textmate

My preferred text editor, amazing!
TextMate is not an IDE but by using its powerful snippets, macros, and unique scoping system, it can often provide features that even a language specific IDE lacks. It has enough project management features to keep most users happy, but is otherwise kept lightweight with a clean and minimalistic GUI.
It cost €48.75 for 1 license, but I suggest you to try the trial version to evaluate the powerful of this fantastic editor. You can take a look to the wiki , for all the features of Textmate.

Download Textmate.

Coda.

Another powerfull editor for the Mac user. Coda, I think, is the most complete editor for mac, is no WYSIWYG, but has a lots of features, and can work with a lots of languages. Autocomplete,complete support to html, css, php,javascript and other languages, site management, with the last adds,like the plugin sistem, or subversion control, make it one of the best web editor that you can find actually for mac.
It cost $99, but I think this will be money well spend.

Download Coda.

Css Edit

The king of the Css editor in absolute.
An amazing editor for css, the most complete that I ever used.
I suggest to buy this, only 29.95€ to have the best editor actually for css.
Autocomplete, visual editing, and other lots of function, make css edit the best css editor for mac of ever.

Download Css Edit.

Espresso.

Recently launched from mac rabbit, the same company of css edit, is a good html editor, not as coda or textmate, in my own opinion, but a good solution using with css edit. I’m triyng now the trial version and thinking if to buy or not, but for the moment I prefer textmate, that cost less and is more powefull.

Download Espresso.

Aptana Studio.

A free and complete Ide for work on you web project, is based on Eclipse, so you can use like eclipse plugin or standalone editor(I prefer this solution). you can extend it with plugin to work with php, ruby on railsm Python Java etc… The build an Ajax server too, Jaxer, and support the most used ajax and javascript libraries, like Jquery, Mootools etc.etc. A really powerful Ide, and free!! The only think that I don’t like from this editor is that is too much slow, like ecplipse, so for this reason I prefer work with textmate. BUt if you are searching for a powerful and complete ide editor for your porject, maybe you can consider to download and try aptana studio.

Download Aptana Studio.

Color schemer studio.

Powerful software for all the designers. I love this software, great software that help us to find the right colors scheme of a website.

You can use color schemer studio to help you to choose the perfect harmony color scheme for you projects.
Work with a dynamic visual color wheel, instantly explore harmony relationships and even let ColorSchemer Studio intelligently suggest color schemes for you!
Yes, this is another great software, on the website you can take a look to the scheme color published too.
it cost : $49.99, you can buy directly from the website and try the trial before.

Download Color Schemer Studio.

The Gimp.

The free alternative to photoshop, The GNU Image Manipulation Program, is a wonderful software, with a lots of features that it make it the only, unique, really photoshop aternative. But if I must be honest I prefer photoshop, I think is a must.

Download Gimp

Photoshop.

The best! I know is not free, it cost much, but I can’t work without this software, is the best image authoring software, the art of the photo retouch. THe Gimp is a good alternative, but I think that, at this moment, photoshop is one of the software indispensable for every webdesigner.

Download Photoshop Trial.

Illustrator.

Illustrator is the best vector-based computer drawing tool actually. Usually I work with photoshop, and Illustrator using , at least, to make some logos or vectorial images. Well .. I must learn better this software actually I’m not using too much. Like all the adobe product, you can download the trial and try the software.

Download Illustrator Trial.

Inkscape.

Inkscape, is the illustrator free alternative, like Gimp is for photoshop, is a good solution if you can’t spend money to illustrator.

You can download directly form the website.

Download Inkscape.

Dreamweaver.

dreamweaver

Need explications? The Adobe software, the prince of web editing. I don’t use more, for 2 reasons :
1) I think that use dreamweaver is a limit when you are starting with web design, yes you can use in split mode, or only in source view, but if you are starting with the html,css and the web programming language, I suggest to use a text editor, to learn the code without use WYSIWYG.
2) The last version of Dreamweaver are too much slow!! I’ve tried the cs4 version on my macbook pro with 2G Ram and is too, too much slow!

Well this is the list of the best mac software for web editing, in my own opinion. If you want to suggest other software or you know other software feel free to suggest it using the comments!

Download here the trial of Dreamweaver.

Hasta Luego!