# Tutorial Roundup



## Lenny

Rather than sticky each tutorial that someone posts, because we'll end up with a lot (currently the final total will be about 30 from me - 10 HTML and 20 VB6, and 4 Flash ones from Leisha), we've decided to link to them all in one thread. There's going to be a post per tutorial 'set', which Highlander II (or another Sup Mod, if they want in on the action) will update when a new tutorial is out. The list will also contain small descriptions of the tutorials, so you know what you're getting into if you decide to try them out.

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*Mr. Emu Tutorials - Web Design*


Over a period of about ten weeks, Lenny's web design tutorials will teach people how to build websites. The first five lessons deal with HTML, and give people the knowledge to make a website. The sixth lesson will be a recap of the previous five, and a project will be set. After finishing with the HTML side of web design, the Chronicles favourite emu will delve into more complicated web design, with tutorials on Cascading Stylesheets, Javascript, ASP, PHP, and possibly more.

The web design tutorials are posted weekly, with a new one each Monday.

*Lesson 1 - The Basics*
Covers the absolute basics of HTML - what it is, how it's written, and some simple elements and tags.

*Lesson 2 - More Complicated Tags*
The tags get more complicated as attributes and entities are brought into the mix. The reader is also bombarded with some more tags.

*Lesson 3 - Tables and Lists*
Lenny covers his favourite bit of HTML, and something he thinks is incredibly important in web design - the use of tables. Basic lists are tacked on to the end.

*Lesson 4 - Look at all the Pretty Colours!*
A small change of plans - rather than spending a week on forms, Lenny has postponed them until the ASP lessos, and instead brings a bit of colour to the world of the Chrons.


*Lesson 5 - Recap & Project
Lesson 6 - CSS
Lesson 7 - Javascript
Lesson 8 - ASP
Lesson 9 - ASP + Forms
Lesson 10 - PHP*


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## Lenny

*Leisha's Lessons in Flash*


Leisha has kindly written a set of four tutorials teaching users about Adobe Flash CS3, and ActionScript 2.0.

As the free trial of Flash is only 30 days, the tutorials will be posted as close together as possible.

*Flash Tutorial A -- Simple Animation*
*Difficulty level: Easy*

By following this tutorial, CS3 Flash users will gain an understanding of timeline control, keyframes, creating 2D shapes, naming objects, producing simple animations without the need to use code, previewing your movie, and publishing your finished Flash movie to the web. You will also have the option to add in your first piece of actionscript code: a one-word command that halts the Flash movie when playing.

*Flash Tutorial B -- Buttons and Actionscript*
*Difficulty level: Medium*

At the end of this tutorial, Flash CS3 users will know how to design an animated button and add actionscript to it, so that Flash performs a requested command once the button is pressed. Skills that will be learnt: Creating 2D shapes with borders, converting shapes to buttons, linking named objects with actionscript, changing the properties of existing 2D shapes, converting unused frames to keyframes, adding layers to your timeline and movie, and writing actionscript.

*Flash Tutorial C -- Date Widget:
Difficulty level: Hard*

By the end of this lesson, Flash CS3 users will understand how to create a simple applet that checks your PC for the date, then displays it in a textbox in your applet. Skills that will be learnt: Creating textboxes, advanced actionscript coding, changing the colour of your page, adding layers to your timeline and movie, and naming Dynamic Textboxes.

*Flash Tutorial C -- Date Widget with Graphics:
Difficulty level: Hard*

By following this lesson, Flash CS3 users will know how to create a graphic that changes depending on the time, with every reload of your web browser. This tutorial utilises the flash movie created in Tutorial C, and adds extra code and 2D shapes. Skills that will be learnt: creating a new Symbol, viewing your Library, dragging Symbols onto your page from your Library, locking layers, creating 2D ovals and circles, overlapping shapes, converting shapes to movie clips, linking named objects with actionscript, adding actionscript to the main Timeline, and adding actionscript to Symbols.

In addition, once the tutorial is complete, users will also have the option to expand on this final tutorial and change the code of their applet, to make it auto update immediately if the PC's date and time changes, rather than having to reload your web browser to see a change.


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## Lenny

*Mr. Emu Tutorials - Visual Basic 6*


Lenny is back, this time with a programming language - Visual Basic 6. In sixteen planned lessons, and some more besides, he'll teach the basics of Visual Basic (har har), how to use controls, work with data, use loops, create procedures, debug, print, browse the internet, and much more. There is also the possibility of a couple of lessons on interoperability between VB6 and MS Access and MS Excel.

The tutorials are posted weekly, on Wednesdays.

*Lesson1 - The Basics*
In the first lesson, Lenny explains what Visual Basic 6 is, helps you around the layout of the program, and even talks you through your first two programs! The thoughts of brilliance on your part are shattered when you see the extra exercises he's set. Muahaha.

*Lesson 2 - Using Controls
Lesson 3 - Working with Data
Lesson 4 - Selection
Lesson 5 - Again and Again and Again and Again and BREAK
Lesson 6 - How long is a [piece of] String?
Lesson 7 - Procedures
Lesson 8 - Arrays
Lesson 9 - Records
Lesson 10 - Files
Lesson 11 - Pest Control!
Lesson 12 - Paper Jam? Damnit!
Lesson 13 - Menus
Lesson 14 - Graphics
Lesson 15 - Relational Databases
Lesson 16 - Teh Intarwebs*


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## Lenny

My tutorials are on hold until Wednesday 23rd July. I apologise to anyone who has been really looking forward to things, but my free time has vanished.


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## Sephiroth

Well, I apologise too.  I am genuinely interested in this, but have been struggling to free up time lately.


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## Danny McG

1) Do any of the links in this_ 'tutorial round-up_' thread still work?.... I can't find one that does.

2) Is all this tech stuff still relevant 12 years later?


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## Elckerlyc

Not really.
VB6 was already old news in 2008 and replaced with VisualBasic.Net in 2002. Today the most recent version is VisualBasic 2019 (which you could read as VB16).
However, VisualBasic is a different way of programming than VB6 was. *O*bject-*O*riented-*P*rogramming (OOP; Windows is nothing but objects) versus Event-driven language (dating back to the old DOS days). The old Event-driven programming is more suitable if you want to learn programming. I still use it for simple stuff.

There are so many different program languages. Which one to use (or learn) largely depends on what you want to do with it.
And than you might ask yourself whether SFF Chronicles is the place to do it.


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## Brian G Turner

dannymcg said:


> 1) Do any of the links in this_ 'tutorial round-up_' thread still work?.... I can't find one that does.



They do now.  - I've just updated them.


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## AlexH

dannymcg said:


> 1) Do any of the links in this_ 'tutorial round-up_' thread still work?.... I can't find one that does.
> 
> 2) Is all this tech stuff still relevant 12 years later?


HTML, CSS and PHP all exist in newer iterations and the basics are very similar to twelve years ago. Every website uses HTML and surely at least 99% use CSS too.

Visual Basic after various iterations is still the programming language for Microsoft Excel.

JavaScript has an increasing place in web design and development, much to my annoyance at times. Many websites (e.g. Facebook and Twitter) won't work without it.

ASP was superseded by ASP.net in 2002. ASP.net is more popular than I expected, though usage is declining: ASP.NET Usage Statistics

Why do you ask? I find it strange this thread is pinned years later.


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## Brian G Turner

AlexH said:


> I find it strange this thread is pinned years later.



Just a legacy thread that got overlooked - now unstickied.


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## Danny McG

AlexH said:


> Why do you ask? I find it strange this thread is pinned years later


Cos I'm ever curious and I thought '"Ah, a pinned thread, I wonder what it's for?"
I then found the links were all dead


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## tinkerdan

Honestly I wish more people would read this.
Back to the basics.
There is so much going on with html that makes loading websites so much slower even with a newer better faster computer.

However then, there is wordpress.com and sometimes I think simple can end up being too simple.


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