HTML validation help? - Page 3

Evoir · 09-05-2002, 01:22 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by kitchin:
<body ... leftmargin=0 topmargin=0 marginwidth=0 marginheight=0>

Kitchin, are the three dots in there to mean etc, or are they there as code. I am always confused when folks type stuff like this as an example. The first time it happened, someone told me to ad

PHP Code:


			
[nbsp]

and I had no idea that they meant it literally!

so, are those dots literal?

Evoir · 09-05-2002, 01:28 PM

Thanks Paul. Now, it seems like I have sort of a hybrid standard, as I use dreamweaver and I use a little of this and a little of that. Sometimes I make decisions based on IE, especially ones that are subtle, even if Netscape doesn't render them the same. Can the DOCTYPE be "Evie, transitional" ? LOL!

*kitchin* · 09-05-2002, 02:45 PM

Oh, the dots mean put other stuff there. Like
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#aaffff" link="#909090" vlink="#909090" alink="#030303" leftmargin=0 topmargin=0 marginwidth=0 marginheight=0>
I'll admit I don't use much CSS, with which you can probably also specify this stuff.

I also don't use doc type, but since I don't use CSS, maybe it doesn't matter. I haven't even gotten around to putting this on all my pages:
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
I guess it would be good to make sure people in Japan are viewing my pages in the roman alphabet! So I'm behind the times. I don't think the html rules should change much. Long live "<i>" and even "<em>".

You could probably rely on whatever Dreamweaver says to do.

*skolnick* · 09-05-2002, 02:46 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Evoir:
How helpful or useful is it to put a DOCTYPE on the top of the page

See:
http://developer.apple.com/internet/html/doctype.html
http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/validator/doctype.html
http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?DOCTYPE
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/netw...04/14/doctype/

and the really ugly stuff:
http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/sgml/dtd.html

Bottom line -- IMO you should use an applicable DOCTYPE at the head of your pages.

*skolnick* · 09-05-2002, 03:22 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by kitchin:
<body ... leftmargin=0 topmargin=0 marginwidth=0 marginheight=0>

This is the kind of thing to which I was referring when I talked about doing non-standard things on purpose. I can't think of a browser that doesn't ignore tags that it doesn't understand, so it is generally safe to use tags that only IE understands in combination with tags that only Nav understands, recognizing that what you end up with is non-compliant. It may make it easier for you to achieve the results you desire at the risk of having your pages break as the various browsers release new versions that come closer and closer to properly implementing the standard.

Your homework assignment:
http://www.webstandards.org/ on standards and
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/...browser_chart/ to compare browsers

Evoir · 09-05-2002, 03:25 PM

I'm doing some homework now. Thanks Dave. You are swell.

*skolnick* · 09-05-2002, 04:01 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Evoir:
Thanks Dave. You are swell.

That's what I keep telling people.

Evoir · 09-05-2002, 04:29 PM

OK, another question, this one relating more to CSS:

Is it a good idea to define a base font type in the <body > of a page as well as in the body tag of your css?

*skolnick* · 09-05-2002, 04:51 PM

I think the answer depends on your audience. My testing here has NOT been exhaustive, but my experience has been that not every browser responds to conflicts between presentation mark-up in the page (i.e. font tags in the body of the document) and CSS in the way we would like.

The desired behavior would be for the CSS mark-up to override whatever HTML presentation mark-up there is in browsers that support CSS, and leave the presentation mark-up for older browsers that don't support CSS. I don't believe that you can depend on that behavior.

I have been drifting toward taking all the presentation mark-up out of my pages and leaning more and more heavily on CSS. BUT I am not consistent, and have gone through periods of frustration when--in the face of a conflict between CSS and HTML--I yank the CSS out and depend on the HTML. My customers are not always impressed by passionate speeches about standards and compliance. They want the page to look right to Betty Sue sitting in East Podunk with her shiny new Visa card so she'll buy something even if she is using IE 3.0 or Navigator 4.77.

For Intranets, where I can count on IE 5+ and/or Nav 6+ I use CSS pretty exclusively. For the real world, well ... I let practicality override ideological purity.

For you--and most FQers--a reasonable approach may be to build the page using CSS and then add in enough mark-up so it looks okay in Nav 4.77 and IE 4.x without breaking the appearance in newer browsers. Unfortunately that means more testing with more browsers (IE, Nav, Opera, Mozilla, Konquerer, ...) on more platforms (Windows 95, 98, NT, XP, Mac OS 9 & X, Linux).

Evoir · 09-05-2002, 05:29 PM

Ok Dave (I am going to have to find a budget for you!) I have another question that has been puzzling me all moring, related to this.

I have a CSS file that is defining the font size, family and color for one site. I remember it was working just fine for IE and Netscape (on mac...I do test on PC when I can find one). Today, after messing with the DOCTYPE thing, somehow my CSS is not working as I remember it was. I took the DOCTYPE out, and it is still messed up.

Here's the deal: It seems like it is not defining font types in Netscape. I am sure that it was working. I also have a very similar stylesheet on another website that is working just fine. IE shows everything as fine. Just Netscape is giving me trouble.

The site is kinda tricky, segmented. The easiest thing to look at (and update easily) is:
http://www.curvemag.com/extra/link.html

The Style sheet is here:
http://www.curvemag.com/includes/new_style.css

Why would my fonts not be showing up correctly? ARG.