I hope you’ll take a minute to read about my contributions to web design.

Rachel explains that she, “intends this site to become a place to gather the stories of the efforts to create an open web. I’m starting with some of the early stories.” She provides a way for you to participate by taking a survey about the early history of the industry.

I seldom get recognized or remembered in the web design world, so I’m grateful to Rachel for thinking of me and including me in the project.

Go support her efforts, folks.

Copying and Pasting

My first issue is with copying and pasting sections of text that have custom HTML tags added. I often use <cite> tags or <i> tags with language attributes. When I want to repeat the words later down the page, I can copy and paste from the visual editor. But the added HTML doesn’t come with it. I have to switch back to the Edit as HTML view again, copy that, and then insert below in Edit as HTML view.

Copied material used to bring any formatting with it and I really miss that.

Inserting the Cursor

No matter where you think you have placed the cursor in a block of text, it goes to the beginning of the block unless you double click to insert the cursor. If you forget to double click and start typing, the new material goes in an unexpected place at the beginning of the block. The cursor should go where you want it with one click.

Reloading

When reloading a page preview after editing it and saving the draft, it reloads all the way back up to the top. Then you have to scroll down, find your place, and check to see if your editing worked the way you wanted.

When you reload a web page, it normally goes back to the spot where you were reading. I would like the previews of blog posts to do the same in WordPress. They used to and it saved a lot of time.

The head of the Jetpack team lives in Albuquerque. I live in Albuquerque. When the Jetpack group got together for a meetup of their own in Albuquerque, they decided to invite the entire WordPress community to a Dinner with Jetpack meetup.

The meetup was in a Thai restaurant near the UNM campus. Jetpack people from all over were there. Australia, Argentina, and several other far-flung locations. I talked with the guy from Australia about ways Jetpack could get Pinterest to work with WordPress without adding blocks of code to new posts. He gave me some ideas I will try.

I talked to a woman from Wyoming who works in HR and hired all these Jetpackers. She came down to ABQ to meet them in person.

It’s refreshing to go to a WordPress meetup, but this one was particularly nice because so many people came. I talked to bloggers, WordPress developers, and WordCamp organizers. I saw some former students. I saw people I’d met at WordCamps. I even saw a woman who was in the same hotel in Chicago as a BlogHer convention I attended and happened to be on the same plane home that I was on. Everyone wanted to talk about blogging and social media and topics I love.

Thanks to the Albuquerque WordPress community for a great evening.

Here’s a nice HTML5 cheat sheet from Matt Banner. It can be downloaded as a free PDF. Save yourself the cost of a book with this handy tool.

It’s available as an infographic, but it will be much more useful to you as a PDF. Thanks, Matt, for this useful HTML5 resource.

A film many instructors may want to use in class or tell students to watch is now widely available. The film is the documentary Code: Debugging the Gender Gap. You can find it on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, Vimeo, and TV on demand. It will be available to stream on Netflix in 2017.

The film explores how cultural mindsets, stereotypes, educational hurdles and sexism all play roles in keeping the number of women and minorities in software engineering jobs low. It has screened in 47 countries and at over 400 companies and organizations, including The White House.

“We are thrilled that CODE continues to have impact on audiences across all industries worldwide, and that we’ll have the chance to reach so many more when it begins streaming on Netflix next year,” said Director and Producer Robin Hauser. “Our hope is that it continues to open up conversations about what we would all gain from having more women and minorities code.”

Code: Debugging the Gender Gap includes interviews with employees at Yelp, Facebook, Google, and Pinterest, among others, and explores how cultural mindsets, stereotypes, educational hurdles and sexism all play roles in keeping the number of women and minorities in software engineering jobs low – and what can be done to change this.

This press release came in from Girls Who Code today. Since I’ve been reading SuperBetter: The Power of Living Gamefullyby Jane McGonigal lately, I can see that the Girls Who Code people have taken the idea of gamefulness and put it into a useful app that will help develop young women in tech. Here’s the press:

Girls Who Code, the national nonprofit working to close the gender gap in technology, today released Girls Who Code Loop, the first-ever app custom-built for its community. The app helps the Girls Who Code sisterhood of students and alumni stay in the loop and support each other. It’s available to download for free on iOS and Android.

In the app, girls can join discussion “loops” based on their interests, location, or Girls Who Code program. They can post and comment about everything from coding to college and jobs or internships — all in a fun and respectful space custom-built for them. Girls can also learn about events and opportunities in their area, tag a post with a “Raised Hand” to get help from the community, and keep up with old friends or make new ones who share their connection with Girls Who Code. To learn how to use the app, watch the “Introducing Girls Who Code Loop” video on YouTube.

The app name refers to the computer science concept of a “loop,” one of the Core4 computer science concepts that all Girls Who Code students learn. A loop tells a computer to repeat a sequence of instructions. Girls Who Code Loop is available to current students and graduates of Girls Who Code programs, Clubs Facilitators, and Summer Immersion Program teaching teams. You must be thirteen years of age or older to use this app.

“Girls Who Code will reach 40,000 girls by the end of the academic year, and one thing we’ve learned in the process is that community matters. Girls need community and support from their peers to maintain and persist in computer science.” said Girls Who Code Founder and CEO, Reshma Saujani. “In fact, social encouragement and female role models are two of the most important factors influencing a girl’s decision to pursue computer science. With Girls Who Code Loop, we’re providing a platform for our girls to build connections and encourage each other to pursue a future in computer science.”

Through its programs, Girls Who Code is building the largest pipeline of future female engineers in the United States. The release is part of a broader Girls Who Code Alumni Program that launched in 2015 with commitments of nearly $3 Million from AT&T, Adobe, and the Prudential Foundation to grow the tech talent pipeline for women. In addition to Girls Who Code Loop, Girls Who Code has also launched #HireMe, a job and internship board that connects its alumni to opportunities with more than 60 major US companies.

Girls Who Code created the app in partnership with Small Planet, a New York-based agency specializing in iOS and Android development.

About Girls Who Code

Girls Who Code is a national non-profit organization working to close the gender gap in technology. Through its Summer Immersion Program and Girls Who Code Clubs, the organization is leading the movement to inspire, educate, and equip young women with the computing skills to pursue 21st century opportunities. Additional information is available at www.girlswhocode.com.

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What Comes Next is the Future is a documentary film about the future of web design as envisioned by the people who build the web.

Here’s the film description:

What Comes Next Is the Future is a documentary film about the web created by Bearded founder Matt Griffin. It is the story of Tim Berners-Lee’s creation – how it came to be, where it’s been, and where it’s going – as told by the people who build it.

In the film, Griffin knits together a narrative by mining dozens of conversations with important figures from throughout the web’s history including Jeffrey Zeldman, Denise Jacobs, Tim Berners-Lee, Ethan Marcotte, Chris Wilson, Lyza Danger Gardner, Eric Meyer, Irene Au, Alex Russell, Trent Walton, Val Head, Jonathan Snook and many more.

After you watch the preview, go to the futureisnext.com site to see to the list of cities and dates for viewings or to sign up for updates. Update: the film is now available free on Vimeo.

Thanks to Eric Meyer for mentioning this documentary on Facebook, otherwise I might not have heard about it. Hope my mentioning it here helps even more people become aware of the film.

Image ©Bearded

Learners are encouraged to use Voice Over to verify results of their coding efforts. Instructions for using Voice Over are included.

Something this tutorial does that you don’t often see is offer instruction in ARIA attributes such as ‘aria-labelledby’ and ARIA roles such as ‘list’ and ‘listitem’.

Following the exercises involving code, there is a section on design principles that talks about color contrast, text size, copy writing, and photos and videos.

This tutorial is a very useful site for anyone who wants to learn about writing accessible web sites.

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A wonderful new resource from the W3C is a set of very short videos called Web Accessibility Perspectives. The videos take a particular aspect of web accessibility such as keyboard compatibility or clear layout and design and show how they are essential for people with disabilities and useful for everyone.

I picked one at random, the text to speech one, to share here. There are 10 videos in all. They are perfect for use in a class about accessibility or just for learning something about web accessibility if you’re trying to understand it yourself.