Barcamp Auckland 2 - 12 July 2008

The new Barcamp Auckland website is live and looks quite nice, indeed! There will be a barcamp this year and by all accounts it’s going to be even better than last year! Get on in there and sign up! It’s an event well worth attending.

The Files

I thought I’d write up a short post outlining the discussion we had at Barcamp regarding building your CSS Framework (or template).

I’ve been using a standard three column template (both css and HTML) for a couple of years now. I wrote a post back in Feb ‘06 outlining my CSS Methodology (named rightly or wrongly…) I’ve refined and tweaked that set of tools a fair bit and have cut it down to only one main CSS file (if you exclude the IE CSS overrides and the print CSS)

What I now have are these two files:

• The base HTML file
• The CSS template/framework/whatever

Linking to those files means that you’re welcome to download and use as you see fit. I have decided to license them under Creative Commons (Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 New Zealand License) so please don’t be a dick - if you use it credit me somewhere (in the comment will be fine) and if you change/alter/make better please be sure to release it back into the wild. These files are what I use and I would love you all to help make them better - remember: this isn’t a competition - this is for the greater good!

The Holy Trinity of IE hacks

Note: these are IE6 hacks

During my talk I mentioned the holy trinity of IE hacks. I need to clarify and correct an error in that statement. I was too pepped up on coffee and didn’t list them correctly. So here is what I call the holy trinity of IE hacks:

• display: inline; this removes the 10px margin issue that floated elements tend to have
• position: relative; this fixes random issues (too many to name)
• height: 1%; this also fixes random issues (too many to name)

And as an added bonus here’s another one (which I listed at Barcamp instead of the above height:1%; one)

• overflow:hidden this forces IE to respect block level widths and/or heights set to an element. If this is omited the layout it likely to ‘blow-out’ if the content of the block-level element is too wide/tall

Please use the comments section below to ask any questions or pass on any other advice/tips/etc you may have.

original image by Zak Henry

Well that was excellent!

Saturday saw the first ever Auckland Barcamp. It was organised by Ludwig Wendzich - a high school student and all round awesome young man! (South African, too!)

Having never attended an unconference I didn’t really know what to expect. I can tell you now I was very pleasantly surprised! I love the fact that it’s an event that allowed everyone to be involved. It’s less one way and more of a discussion. There were plenty of people gagging to present about a number of different things. These are the talks I attended:

• The Future of the Web
• Catch up on the state of digital tv in NZ
• DIY CSS Frameworks: A conversation on CSS design patterns
• Spaghetti or Meatball: a discussion on the BarCamp Tshirt Design Process
• Charles

There was also a fair bit of ‘hallway discussion’ which is the heart of an unconference.

It was an excellent day and it was great to bond with about 75 other like minded people! I cant wait for the next one! And the next one is rumoured to be a sleep-over, too!