| W3C Validation and you
Posted: 8/24/2009 1:18:46 PM | I know there are a bunch of web developers that cruise these forums, and being that I am starting to get more knowledge about web designing under my belt, I have a few questions regarding W3C Validation.
1) Do you bother validating?
If so, what experiences have you had in finding errors / has it improved your website's traffic, etc.. If not, why don't you do so?
2) What kind of website markup language do you use?
XHTML, HTML v4.01, PHP, etc..
3) Do you use Strict or Traditional DTD and why?
4) Do you put your CSS inside each html document or do you use a single CSS document to manage your styles? Advantages / Disadvantages to one or the other? | |
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| W3C Validation and you
Posted: 8/24/2009 4:04:05 PM | I do validate my designs yes, in the early years I wasnt so anal about it, but these days where we have so many browsers to entertain and then all bocomming W3C aware its even more important, and makes it so much easier too really.
Dreamweaver is my weapon, designer UI as opposed to coder, of course I was trained as a coder, and if I need to hard code than I use notepad.
Adobe CS4 Master Collection is worth its weight in gold these days, contribute CS4 is an awesome piece of kit!
HTML plays the largest part of my work, but its horses for courses, ASP, PHP, XHTML... done em all at least once...
CSS, it depends on the site as to wether I use one CSS for the whole site or per page, it also depends on how much money you pay me of course.
The more you pay the more you get lol
Some clients want a coherant theme for the entire site, some seem to want to mix it up a bit, you get the feel of what they are wanting after you present the first story board/mock up, or thats the way I go, I then take their input to the second story board and it develops from there really | |
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| W3C Validation and you
Posted: 8/24/2009 8:19:46 PM | Bleh, just spent the better part of 30 minutes scratching my head trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with my contact form. Curse you XHTML strict :-p
I got it though :) | |
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| W3C Validation and you
Posted: 8/25/2009 4:02:04 PM |
Bleh, just spent the better part of 30 minutes scratching my head trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with my contact form. Curse you XHTML strict :-p
I got it though :)
It takes a while to get used to, or it did for me, but after a while it helps.
I found it keeps your code clean too.
What app do you use to code, or do you use a design space? | |
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| W3C Validation and you
Posted: 8/25/2009 4:42:33 PM |
Do you put your CSS inside each html document or do you use a single CSS document to manage your styles? Advantages / Disadvantages to one or the other?
As a rule, you should keep your CSS separate from the html. Just do a reference to the CSS in the head portion of your page.
The biggest advantage is you only have to change the CSS code once and any page which references that CSS is automatically changed. You don't have to go to each page and manually change the code.
For very small sites, you could get away with putting the CSS on each page but anything above 5 - 10 pages and it becomes a real hassle. Can you imagine if the folks who code the Victoria's Secret site had to update each pages' CSS?
You can have multiple CSS pages depending on the layout of your site. You might have one page with your general stuff (background, font, etc) for pages of text and another CSS for more complicated pages. You just have to use whichever CSS does what you want to accomplish. | |
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| W3C Validation and you
Posted: 8/25/2009 5:31:39 PM |
As a rule, you should keep your CSS separate from the html. Just do a reference to the CSS in the head portion of your page.
The biggest advantage is you only have to change the CSS code once and any page which references that CSS is automatically changed. You don't have to go to each page and manually change the code.
For very small sites, you could get away with putting the CSS on each page but anything above 5 - 10 pages and it becomes a real hassle. Can you imagine if the folks who code the Victoria's Secret site had to update each pages' CSS?
You can have multiple CSS pages depending on the layout of your site. You might have one page with your general stuff (background, font, etc) for pages of text and another CSS for more complicated pages. You just have to use whichever CSS does what you want to accomplish.
Keeping one CSS per site is good but can be bad depending on the client needs, some clients want to styles or more on the same site depending on what section of the site your in.
Some like to keep the same style no matter what...
Horses for courses, I use the best way depending on what they ask for...
Of course Ive had a couple who said they knew what they wanted, then when they get it it wasnt what they wanted and it was my fault!
I like CSS's its very empowering to be able to make a style change across the board, or to a spercific set of pages depending on where you place it and its refs | |
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| W3C Validation and you
Posted: 8/27/2009 12:59:47 AM | So I found a website called browsershots.org and I love the website, however I am rather puzzled at one browser result returned.
Some web browser called Dillo seems to completely ignore my the CSS file all together.
While this browser is probably not going to be used often, it makes me wonder the following question.
WTF are they doing wrong that every other browser out there is doing right? LOL | |
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| W3C Validation and you
Posted: 8/27/2009 2:40:30 PM | I always try to validate, making valid markup where i can. There's some new css supported by browsers such as firefox that i use quite often which doesnt validate. I just ignore the validator in those situations as i know the css is valid.
for e.g
-moz-border-radius: 5px;
-webkit-border-radius: 5px;
creates rounded corners in firefox and webkit browsers (opera, safari, i think)
Of course there is not a rounded corner css that works with any ie browsers.
I like to use a css framework as a basis for any site i make my favourite one is this one:
http://www.contentwithstyle.co.uk/content/a-css-framework
It's pretty good and has some nifty css seperated in the tools.css which help to handle floating things and getting the floats to look right in all browsers, also a nifty way to have the navigation appear below the content in the html markup but to position it at the top.
It takes a bit to get used to it, i found it confusing at first but i highly recommend the time it takes to understand it. | |
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| W3C Validation and you
Posted: 8/27/2009 2:43:05 PM | oh forgot to mention the reason why its good to have the navigation appear below the content in the html markup.
It makes it easier for people using screen readers, that why each time they load a new page they dont have to keep telling the screen reader to skip each navigation item instead it goes straight into reading out the content of the page. | |
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