Style Sheet for
Hikes in the San Gabriel Mountains
and
Field Guide to the San Gabriel Mountains
Websites

Table of Contents

Boilerplate At Bottoms of Pages
Colors
Formats
Names
Numbers
Words


Boilerplate At Bottoms of Pages

The links in the Go to section are the main links that call the page in question.
The initial copyright date gives the first year that a given page was put online.
The author information gives the primary author first and then collaborating authors.
The date at the bottom of the page is the last date on which the page was significantly modified.

Colors

We attempt to only use the 216 colors that are color-safe on all web platforms. We use "99ccff" as the default table header row color.

In tables with multiple headers that use different shading to separate sections of the table, we use the darker "0099ff" as the first, more general, color, with "99ccff" as the secondary color.

In a few tables, we do not use the default colors when they would conflict with other colors in the table. For example, in the bloom identification pages, we chose to have the table reflect the flower colors in each section and thus chose a neutral green, as in plant leaves, as the table header color used to separate the colors.

Formats

We use the blockquote command to provide margin for the pages. We do not use style sheets or any other formatting device to limit the text to a narrow column, which is usually preferable for reading. In that way, each reader can size his browser window to provide the width they desire.

Title: H1; center; blue

Subtitle: H2; center; blue

Next level headers: H2; center; red

Next level headers: H3; left-justified; blue

The Table of Contents title is H3; left-justified; red, with a paragraph spacing before the following entries. A horizontal rule separates the TOC from the text.

Names

Geographic names are used without apostrophes or other punctuation marks, per editorial guidelines for USGS. The reasoning behind this is that most named places, that in common usage would have apostrophes in their name, are not owned by the person who appears in the place name. Hence the possessive form is not appropriate. This agrees with common usage, such as Jones' Town evolving into Jones Town and then finally to Jonestown.

Examples:

And, yes, Georges Gap and Devils Peak looks wrong to us, too.

Road names with initials, such as SR2. This one is more difficult to select a style. Caltrans uses both SR2 and SR 2 in its webpages. The name of a road should be a clear unit, and hence we reject using the name with a space in it. Putting in a space allows a sentence to be misread, since the pieces may be separated by the mind, especially when the name is split between lines.

The evolution of words in the English language made out of several words or numbers is to go from an intervening space, to an intervening dash, to finally a compound word. For state highways with two letter abbreviations, we have decided to use the short format of SR2 since this is clear. However, for interstate highways, I210 is not very clear, since the letter I looks like the number 1, and hence we prefer I-210. The presence of the hyphen separates it for the brain and makes it clearer.

Numbers

Coordinates such as latitude and longitude are always given as decimal degrees unless the units for degrees, minutes and seconds of arc are explicitly present. Thus 34.3456° is decimal degrees, whereas 34° 15' 28" is in degree, minute, second format.

Numbers in decimal degree format are more economical of space, even when the minute and second format units are omitted, easier to use, and more accurate for a given number of digits. A number quoted to the nearest second of arc is accurate only to 1/3600° = 0.0003°.

Numbers with more than four digits are separated by either spaces (for example, 299 792 458) or with commas (299,792,458). Although this may create confusion with the decimal marker used in Europe, this is standard practice in the United States, and it is not practical to use spaces in text. Thus the elevation of Mt. Baldy is 10,064', rather than 10 064' which could potentially be much more confusing that the presence of the comma.

We note that this conflicts with SI practice (see Guide For Metric Practice, Robert A. Nelson, Physics Today, August 1997, BG13, published annually). If the recommended "thin space" were available in HTML, we would follow that practice.

Numeric decades: 1880s, not 1880's. The apostrophe is omitted since 1880s is not a possessive term nor a contraction.

Symbols: We use the apostrophe (') for feet, as in elevation units, as well as for minutes of arc.

Units: We follow SI practice in using a space to separate a numerical value and unit symbol, even when used as an adjective (for example, 35 mm, not 35mm or 35-mm). (See Nelson reference above.) The standard exception is for angular units, such as degrees, minutes and seconds.

Words

Trailhead, not trail head. Robinson uses it that way, and it fits into the logical progression of making a new compound word out of combined single words.

Waterchute, not water chute, analogous to the word waterfall.


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Copyright © 1999 by Tom Chester and Jane Strong
Permission is freely granted to reproduce any or all of this page as long as credit is given to us at this source:
http://tchester.org/sgm/site/style_sheet.html
Comments and feedback: Tom Chester | Jane Strong
Updated 19 January 2000.