This week we would like to feature a script that we have used in the past and still use to this day in some instances.  phplist is an amazing script that allows you to send newsletter emails to your users and subscribers.  This is useful for any website who wishes to send new announcements, promotional offers, or just an important notice to its userbase quick and easy.

So enough with the jibba jabba, here is the official description along with some important links.

phplist is an open-source newsletter manager. phplist is free to download, install and use, and is easy to integrate with any website. phplist is downloaded more than 10 000 times per month and is listed in the top open source projects for vitality score on Freshmeat. phplist is sponsored by tincan.

Homepage: http://www.phplist.com/
Features List: http://www.phplist.com/details/
Download: http://www.phplist.com/download/

This script offers some of the best features from the paid and commercial scripts at the cost of nothing.  How can you say no to an offer as great as this.  The script is open source which means you may edit it to your own needs at your heart’s desire.  Although Prosoft Studio does not use this script, we know may people who have.  From all the feedback we have heard, this script is nothing but amazing.

Here is a brief description from the official website:

LiveZilla, the Next Generation Live Help / Live Support System connects you to your website visitors. Use LiveZilla to provide Live Chats and monitor your website visitors in real-time. Convert visitors to customers - with LiveZilla!

Homepage: http://www.livezilla.net/
Full Features List: http://www.livezilla.net/livehelp/
Download: http://www.livezilla.net/downloads/

CSS (cascading stylesheets) is a simple mechanism for controlling the style of a Web document without compromising its structure. By separating visual design elements (fonts, colors, margins, and so on) from the structural logic of a Web page, CSS give Web designers the control they crave without sacrificing the integrity of the data - thus maintaining its usability in multiple environments. In addition, defining typographic design and page layout from within a single, distinct block of code - without having to resort to image maps, <font> tags, tables, and spacer GIFs - allows for faster downloads, streamlined site maintenance, and instantaneous global control of design attributes across multiple pages.

Client-side support for the various CSS properties is uneven, even among browsers that support stylesheets. The CSS properties and values presented here are those supported by both Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 and Netscape Navigator 4 and higher.

How CSS Works

CSS overrides the browser’s default settings for interpreting how tags should be displayed, letting you use any HTML element indicated by an opening and closing tag (including the <p> tag) to apply style attributes defined either locally or in a stylesheet.

Stylesheets contain rules, composed of selectors and declarations that define how styles will be applied. The selector (a redefined HTML element, class name, or ID name) is the link between the HTML document and the style. There are two different kinds of selectors: types (HTML element tags) and attributes (such as class and ID names).

A CSS declaration has two parts, a property (ie. color) and a value (ie. red).

The basic syntax of a rule:

selector {
property 1: value 1;
property 2: value 2;
}

An example (containing two declarations, as above):

p {
font-size: 12px;
color: red;
}

Local, Global, and Linked Stylesheets

Local (inline) stylesheet declarations, specific to a single instance on a page, can be used instead of <font> tags to specify font size, color, and typeface and to define margins, leading, etc.

This is a local stylesheet declaration.

To embed a global stylesheet in your HTML document:

Title

[DOCUMENT BODY GOES HERE]

Linked stylesheet declarations use a single stylesheet (in a separate file, saved with the .css suffix) to define multiple pages. A typical .css file is a text file containing style rules, as here:

p {
color: red;
font-family: non-serif;
font-size: medium;
}
h1 {
color: green;
font-family: serif;
font-size: x-large;
}
h2 {
color: blue;
font-family: serif;
font-size: large;
}

To apply a .css stylesheet (style.css in the example below) to an HTML page, a <link> tag is added to the page header:

<head>
<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”style.css” type=”text/css”>
</head>

Inheritance

In cases where local, global, and linked style definitions conflict, the most specific stylesheet will generally take precedence: local overrides global, global overrides linked. Similarly, inline style attributes override ID, ID overrides class, and class overrides stylesheet-defined HTML elements.

Units of Measure

Throughout this CSS reference guide, abstract values (notably values involving units of measure) appear between angle brackets: <color>. They should be replaced by actual values as indicated in the key below.

Length Units

<length> indicates a number followed by a unit of measure: 24px.  The number can be an integer or a decimal fraction, and can be preceded by + or -.

Units can be absolute or relative:
Absolute: mm, cm, in, pt, pc (millimeters, centimeters, inches, points, picas)
Relative: em, ex, px (the element’s font height, the element’s x-height, pixels)

Fonts
Font size may be defined in points, pixels, inches, or centimeters (pt, px, in, cm) or as a percentage.
<absolute-size> can be: xx-small, x-small, small, medium, large, x-large, xx-large.
<relative-size> can be: larger, smaller.

Percentage Units
<percentage> indicates a number followed by a % sign: 50%.
In the text-indent, margin, padding, and width properties, percentage values are relative to the width of the parent element.
In the font-size property, percentage values are relative to the font size of the parent element.

Color Units
In <color> values, percentages can be used to express RGB values.
<color> can represent either <color-name> or <rgb> values, as defined below:
<color-name> can be: aqua, black, blue, fuchsia, gray, green, lime, maroon, navy, olive, purple, red, silver, teal, white, yellow
<rgb> can be: #<hex><hex><hex> rgb(<number>, <number>, <number>) rgb(<percentage>,<percentage>,<percentage>) <hex> represents a hexidecimal value, <number> a decimal value, and <percentage> a percentage.

CSS-P (Position)

CSS-P allows you to explicitly determine the position of HTML elements, providing powerful layout control both for static documents and for dynamic, animated HTML-based content.

There are two basic methods of positioning HTML elements using the position property. Absolute position lets you set an element’s position arbitrarily - that is, relative to its parent container and independent of the document’s flow. Relative position allows an element to be offset relative to its natural position in the document’s flow.

Position is specified with the top and/or left properties using a <length> value (relative or absolute as appropriate).

The visibility property sets the display state of the element, but doesn’t affect its position in the layout: An element takes up the same space whether hidden or visible.

Z-index is used to specify the stacking order of the positionable elements above or below other HTML elements. The number value may be positive or negative, and must be an integer. Default z-ordering of elements in a document is back-to-front in the order of their appearance in the HTML.The overflow element is used to control the display of an element’s contents in cases where they exceed its given dimensions. It applies only to elements with the position property of type “absolute.”Dynamic aspects of managing positioned elements, like hiding, displaying, and movement, are implemented using an external scripting language, such as JavaScript.

The top and left properties may be expressed as percentages. For other CSS-P properties listed, percentages do not apply.

Attributes

Classes and IDs

Classes let you create grouping schemes among styled HTML tags by adding the style definition of a particular class to the style definitions of several different tags. In the stylesheet, a class name is preceded by a period (.) to identify it as such:

.foo {
property 1: value 1;
property 2: value 2;
}

A very simple example:

<style>
<!–
p {
font-family: sans-serif;
font-size: 10pt;
}
h1 {
font-family: serif;
font-size: 30pt;
}
h2 {
font-family: serif;
font-size: 24pt;
}
.red {
color: red;
}
.green {
color: green;
}
.blue {
color: blue;
}
–>
</style>

The tags and classes can then be used in combination:

<h1 class=”red”>This is rendered as 30-point red serif text.</h1>
<p class=”red”>This is rendered as 10-point red sans-serif text.</p>

Or not:

<p>This is rendered as 10-point sans-serif text in the default color.</p>

The ID attribute is used for a uniquely defined style within a stylesheet. In the stylesheet, an ID name is preceded by a hash mark (#) to identify it as such:

<style>
<!–
#foo {
property 1: value 1;
property 2: value 2;
}
–>
</style>
<h2 id=”foo”>Text rendered in the foo style.<h2>

Text-Level Attributes: <SPAN> and <DIV>

The <span> tag is generally used to apply a style to inline text:

<p><span class=”foo”>This text is rendered as foo-style</span> and this is not.</p>

The <div> tag is generally used to apply a style to a block of text, which can also include other HTML elements:

<div class=”foo”>
<p>The “foo” style will be applied to this text, and to <a href=”page.html”>this text</a> as well.
</div>

The style attribute provides a way to define a style for a single instance of an element:

<p style=”font-size: 10pt; color: red”>This text is rendered as red, 10-point type</p>

The class, ID, and style attributed can be applied within the <span> and <div> elements. Used with class or ID, the <span> and <div> tags work like customized HTML tags, letting you define logical containers and apply a style to their contents.

Prosoft Studio has used this script in the past and it was very helpful to us and our clients.  Although we do not use this script anymore, we highly recommend that everyone has at least something similar to it.

Here is the official description for the project page:

PHPSysInfo is a customizable PHP Script that parses /proc, and formats information nicely. It will display information about system facts like Uptime, CPU, Memory, PCI devices, SCSI devices, IDE devices, Network adapters, Disk usage, and more.

Project Page: http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpsysinfo/
Download: http://sourceforge.net/project/platformdownload.php?group_id=15

Yes, finding something to offer that is unique to your website may not come to mind in a few minutes, and it shouldn’t. When brainstorming ideas for something unique that will give you a niche in the market, you should put a good amount of thought into the subject. The best way to find this niche is by using the mentality of a consumer. If you were a potential customer to your website, what would the website need to do to guarantee your purchase?

When putting thought into finding this niche, it should be something that is valuable to your users. No I do not mean cheap prices or low cost when I say valuable, I mean it must have a reason and purpose. If it is something they honest do not need or want, then it is pointless.

A niche does not always have to be something such as a unique product or service. It can be an eye-catching logo, a catchy website name, or even a catchy slogan? If I were to talk about the website GoDaddy to someone, they probably would have no idea what I am talking about. However, if I showed one of the always controversial television commercials, I am sure they will remember what GoDaddy is.

Something as showing an orange checkmark can bring the company Nike to mind. Things as simple as this have played a major role in some companies. This can also be applied for websites whether you are a company or not. Like I have said before, just be unique and try something different, something that is not seen anywhere else.

Our articles will be released most likely on a weekly basis.  Our first article will be available some time next week.  We are excited about this new change because it allows our staff to share their experiences and knowledge in ways for benefit.  These articles will be available to the public at no charge whatsoever.

If you have any topics would like covered, please feel free to submit a comment to this post and we will look into bring that topic up in our next article.