[thelist] Two Tips

[Stephen Rider]

On Dec 5, 2006, at 6:18 AM, Robert Douglas wrote:

> Steve said:
>> 'Not to mention the fact that "Pkwy." is a standard English  
>> abbreviation
>> of the word "parkway"....)'
>
> I know this doesn't help the actual discussion re:
> acronyms/abbreviations - but as a NZ/UK citizen I wouldn't necessarily
> associate 'Pkwy' with 'Parkway' (given I've never come across a  
> Parkway
> before...)

Good point.  Reminds me of a while back when a UK site cited a charge  
for "P&P" and the Americans didn't know what that was ("Packing and  
Post", as opposed to the U.S. "S&H" for "Shipping & Handling")

I think this warrants a...

<tip type="Be aware of your full audience" author="Stephen Rider">
If your site has the potential to draw an international audience, be  
careful of abbreviations and non-obvious phrases that are specific to  
your locality.

Examples include packaging and mailing charges for a web store:  in  
the USA "S/H" is "Shipping and Handling", while in the UK "P&P" is  
"Packing and Postage".

When in doubt, spell it out.
</tip>

And while I'm at it:

<tip type="Excellent Mac CSS Editor" author="Stephen Rider">
If you write web pages on Mac OS X, you should check out the  
excellent CSSEdit 2, by MacRabbit.  (For those of you who were  
unimpressed with CSSEdit 1 in the past, this is a whole new animal.)

http://macrabbit.com/cssedit/

This program features simultaneous direct editing and GUI editing of  
the CSS, plus instant live preview.  It also features the remarkable  
"X-Ray" view, where you can click on parts of a web page and it will  
delineate the object you've selected, and visually show the margins  
and padding in effect.

This also has a "live override" mode, which allows you to modify and  
view the CSS on any page, anywhere (including dynamic pages on the  
web!) and view the page with your changes.  I was very impressed with  
this program, and the first time I tried it it was invaluable in  
helping me fix a problem I was having getting some floats to work  
properly.
</tip>