This assignment tests your understanding of basic XHTML and CSS. You will create several files related to a recipe web site for a fictional pie company named Granny's Pies. Write the following files:
index.html, the first of two web pages (with an optional CSS style sheet file)pie.html, the second of two web pagesrecipe.css, the style sheet for pie.html
The first part of your task is to create a front page for this web site, stored in a file named index.html. Your front page must contain a link to pie.html. The file must also be at least 20 lines long and must contain at least 4 different XHTML elements in its body. It also may not significantly borrow content from your pie.html. Otherwise, this front page can have any appearance you like. If you like, you may use an optional CSS stylesheet with this page named index.css and submit it with your other files. Be creative!
The second (and more substantial) part of the assignment is to recreate a specific web page describing a recipe for lemon meringue pie, stored in a file named pie.html. Unlike index.html, this page is rigidly specified and must exactly match the appearance specified in this document.
For full credit, your files must be uploaded to the web and must match several stylistic guidelines, all specified later in this document.
You must match in appearance the following pie web page (between but not including the thick black lines). The width of the screenshot below is based on a browser window width of 1024px; if your screen is a different size, the width of your page may not exactly match. Any line breaks are done automatically by the browser, except ones that are clearly much narrower than the page width, such as the line "One 9-inch pie":
All headings on the page should use a foreground color of (red=164, green=164, blue=0) or #A4A400 and a background color of (red=240, green=240, blue=240) or #F0F0F0. The font families for headings are Century Gothic, Futura, Verdana, or any sans-serif font available on the system. The page's main heading is aligned to the center of the page body, and uses a 22pt bold font. Other headings on the page are left-aligned and appear in an 18pt normal font. All headings should be underlined.
The overall page's body should have a white background. Text in the body should have a foreground color of (red=64, green=64, blue=64) or #404040 and use an 11pt font. The font families for page text are Georgia, Garamond, or any serif font available on the system. Any links on the page should use the color (red=164, green=164, blue=0) or #A4A400, matching the color of the page headings.
The names of the four major steps of the recipe directions (such as "Preheat Oven") are formatted in a strong font. The quotations from the users appear in an italic font as indented blocks with background color (red=255, green=255, blue=200) or #FFFFC8. The picture of the pie on the page and the W3C validator images at the bottom come from the following image files, respectively:
All other decisions about styling on the page are left to the web browser. Any styles mentioned previously that are the same as browser defaults do not have to be explicitly included in your CSS stylesheet. The screenshot in this document was taken on Windows XP using Firefox 2.0, which may differ slightly from the appearance on your system.
The bottom of the page has four links. The "Home" link should link to your index.html page. Use a relative URL and assume it is located on the same web site as pie.html in the same directory. The "Search for other lemon meringue pie recipes" text, the "W3C XHTML 1.1" button, and the "W3C CSS" button should link to the following web pages, respectively:
The pie web page's title text should be Grandma's Lemon Meringue Pie .
In addition to the previous required features, you must also complete at least two of the following additional requirements in your pie page. These are features that may have not been covered in detail in lecture; the idea is that you will have to explore your resources such as your textbook, lecture slides, or online references to learn how to complete these features. If you want to complete more than two of the extra features below, that is fine, but only two are required.
Near the top of your HTML file, put a comment saying which extra features you have completed.
As much as possible, you should implement these changes by modifying your CSS code rather than your HTML. Some of the CSS properties necessary will not have been covered in class, so you must learn them yourself. Try using the textbook, Google, or looking at a CSS property reference such as the following site:
A screenshot of the expected output for the extra features is available on the course web site.
Implement your pie.html web page using XHTML 1.1 as taught in class. For full credit, your page must successfully pass the W3C XHTML 1.1 validator with no errors (a green bar). (It is okay if the validator says your page is "tentatively" valid or has warnings, as long as you see the green "Valid" bar in the validator.) You should choose appropriate HTML tags to match the structure of the content being displayed on the page. Do not express stylistic information in the HTML page itself, such as inline styles or presentational HTML tags such as b or font. You may not use HTML tables in your pie recipe page.
You only need to worry about the appearance of your page in standards-compliant web browsers such as Firefox. Your pages will not be tested in any way in Microsoft Internet Explorer or other browsers that do not comply to web standards.
Express all stylistic information on the page using CSS defined in recipe.css. For full credit, your style sheet must successfully pass the W3C CSS validator. Part of your grade comes from expressing your CSS concisely and without unnecessary or redundant styles. Outside of extra features, do not use HTML or CSS constructs that have not been discussed in lecture or the slides, through Chapters 2-3 of the textbook.
Though they will not be discussed until after the homework is assigned, you may know about using class and id attributes to target HTML elements for styling. Do not overuse such attributes in your HTML unnecessarily. If there is already a suitable tag for representing a given piece of content, favor the use of that tag rather than a less appropriate tag with a class or id attached for styling purposes.
Format your HTML and CSS nicely so that it is as readable as possible, similarly to the examples shown in class. Also place a comment header in each file containing your name and section and a brief description of the assignment and the file's contents. You must properly use whitespace and indent your XHTML and CSS code following examples shown in class. To keep line lengths manageable, do not place more than one block element on the same line or begin any block element past the 100th character on a line. For reference, our solution has 118 lines of HTML and 36 lines of CSS, though you do not need to match this exactly.
The majority of the points for this assignment will be for the pie.html and its recipe.css files. The index.html will also be graded, but it will be worth fewer points. The main stylistic constraint on your index.html file is that it should pass the W3C XHTML 1.1 and CSS validators. Beyond that it can contain any non-obscene content you like, even content that uses material we have not yet learned in lecture. Please do not link to external resources (other than image files or index.css) from your index.html page.
Submit your assignment online from the turnin link in the Homework section of the course web site. Turn in both .html files and your .css style sheets. You do not need to turn in the provided images. If your index.html page includes images linked using absolute URLs, you do not need to turn in those images.
Part of your grade will also come from successfully uploading your files to the web. Ask your instructor for specific instructions. Please do not place a solution to this assignment online on a publicly accessible web site.
This document's contents are © Copyright 2009 Marty Stepp / Jessica Miller and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.