Re: [GLLUG] Off Topic - Please, HTML/CSS problem, any help?

[Benjamin Cathey]

Wow - that was long.  

Like I said, I'm an amateur at web design.  The menu structure I got from someone else on a help page and changed it all around to fit what I wanted.  Everything has turned out peachy in the end.  It is a simple page that loads quickly and now works in IE7 thanks to Ryan I believe it was.

An external style sheet was my original intention.  I don't know enough about all this to do it right I suppose.  I guess it would be like my individual poems which include a link to a style sheet.  I would just copy out all the stuff b/w <style> and </style> and then put that in it's own file with a reference.

As for the extensions, that's probably good advice except I don't even plan on using PHP or anything else.  My original thought was a purely text page but then I thought a minimalist interface would be nice ( I like fluxbox and keeping things simple.)  I didn't use and Java and didn't want to.   I thought it should all be able to be done in a text editor with CSS.  

It was a learning experience for me.  The website I designed for the company I work for, I designed using Dreamweaver.  I know now, from looking at the source, that it is all backwards.  Dreamweaver just kept creating new styles every time I changed a font or text at all.  I would like to clean that up to but there is no time.

Is there a web based CSS checker?  That is what I was looking for when I found the other tests, which my site passed.

All in all I like the way it turned out.  I have only gotten one piece of of feedback so far and that person liked the site.

Regards,


Benjamin Cathey
System Administrator
Cathey Company
4917 Tranter St.
Lansing, MI 48910 USA
Phone:     517.393.4720
Fax:       517.393.4225
Toll Free: 800.333.1972
"Service is Our Profession"


----- Original Message -----
From: Richard Houser
[mailto:rick at divinesymphony.net]
To: Dan Ryan
[mailto:thethinkbox at gmail.com]
Cc: Benjamin Cathey
[mailto:benjamincathey at catheycompany.com], linux-user at egr.msu.edu
Sent: Tue,
06 Mar 2007 20:36:45 -0500
Subject: Re: [GLLUG] Off Topic - Please, HTML/CSS
problem, any help?


>->> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>->> Hash: SHA1
>->> 
>->> Dan Ryan wrote:
>->> > Oh man will you kick yourself when I tell you what was causing the
>->> problem. 
>->> 
>->> It sounds like you weren't using all the validation W3C has to offer.
>->> If you are using CSS, you really should be using the CSS validation tool
>->> as well.  As far as JavaScript (and in general), I would recommend you
>->> do all your testing on Firefox, then make sure it works on IE.  The
>->> script console is a heck of a lot better than a text box that shows the
>->> wrong source file for the wrong line number that caused only the first
>->> error.
>->> 
>->> If Firefox did accept a value missing a px, that should be reported to
>->> mozilla.org.  The specification clearly states that a parse error on
>->> something like that means the entire rule should be ignored.  In this
>->> case, IE7 may be doing something right when Firefox is failing (/ducks
>->> the incoming chair).  It is very likely that this might already be fixed
>->> in the latest Gecko.  If you are in quirks mode, however, that is
>->> probably intentional.  One of the dialogs (page info I think), should
>->> show quirks, or standards compliant mode.
>->> 
>->> On that note, I'm fairly certain that your doctype isn't considered
>->> valid by all browsers.  ALL new development should be using at least
>->> XHTML 1.0 strict (only 1.1 if you can do without text/html mime type, if
>->> you can't, you need to use the html compatibility subset as well), and
>->> polishing of old code should really be to 4.01 strict.  I think this
>->> doctype will trigger some quirksmode issues on some browsers, but you
>->> really need to check per-browser.  You don't get "safe" from those
>->> issues until 4.01 strict or something in the XHTML sphere.
>->> 
>->> 
>->> A few additional best-practices for you (I debug/fix a lot of web code
>->> as part of my job):
>->> 
>->> Don't embed CSS into html, php, jsp, etc. files.  It is a bad practice
>->> and will cause you grief later.  Always pull them out to an external
>->> file, even if it is only used on a single file.
>->> 
>->> NEVER embed JavaScript code into your content files.  In addition to
>->> being wrong just like with css, there are several characters required
>->> for most scripts (& for example) that are not valid inside HTML/XHTML
>->> documents.  This also goes for events such as onclick, onchange, etc.
>->> If you need those, dynamically register the handlers based on window.onload.
>->> 
>->> Don't link to content files with the file extension.  I noticed you had
>->> links to a bunch of html files.  If you want to link to poetry.html, use
>->> just poetry.  HTTP supports content negotiation, and this should be used
>->> to match the request, not relying on that exact file.  If you swap to
>->> php or something later, you will have a huge mess on your hands.  I did
>->> check: your host has something configured wrong, as content negotiation
>->> is not working.  I recommend you check into it.  The change should be
>->> trivial for your provider.
>->> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
>->> Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)
>->> Comment: Using GnuPG with Fedora - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>->> 
>->> iD8DBQFF7hctUMkt1ZRwL1MRAijUAJ9uIP8CMjwiRgfszpREpDm3dmhHcACfRP9r
>->> WONbLeysR0/8tUpAnC5l2Go=
>->> =HbIs
>->> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>->> 

**********************
** LEGAL DISCLAIMER **
**********************

This E-mail message and any attachments may contain legally privileged, confidential or proprietary information. If you are not the intended recipient(s), or the employee or agent responsible for delivery of this message to the intended recipient(s), you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this E-mail message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please immediately notify the sender and delete this E-mail message from your computer.