Web Elitists and "Rookies"
by Bill Sanders - September 27, 2006

The styles and types added by most of these products actually puts it on each line. (It's not really needed, there.) In fact, some will put DIVS around every single line on the "page". Again, these are not necessary, and add a lot of ... shall we say "crap" ... to the HTML.

LOOK at the source of your pages, then look at the source of professionally designed pages. Be SURE they are professionally designed. Be aware that even there you may find pages with a lot of extras in them. There are sites that are created professionally, that accept pages created by non-professionals. Sometimes those non-professionals don't really know HTML, and USE the program "capabilities" of the above, to post things. For example: A university website, professionally created by their team, and professors and TAs who post pages and sections using PowerPoint or WORD.

Try to understand what the HTML does, if it's something you've not seen, and ESPECIALLY if you're a "rookie".

Pay attention to and "internalize" all the stuff you DO and DO NOT like about the pages and source you have seen.

Remember, if it's hard for YOU to read, it will be even HARDER for someone else to read.

• Leave "white space" around sections, paragraphs, etc.

• Use "indenting" to help show tags and content within other tags and content.

• Comment sections you feel are not obvious, or where describing files that will be "pulled in" to finish the page. (Think about what you'll need to know if you don't touch the page again for a year, or someone else has to make changes to it. And, if someone "steals" your format and HTML, feel proud, unless it's used as a "bad" example! )

Writing in a "compressed" manner (the only spaces being those REQUIRED) or so that only you can decipher the page (or program or...) DOES NOT GUARANTEE "JOB SECURITY"! In fact, it might work against you.

Yes, even (and especially) professionals create a template for each different page of their site. Some actually get left on the site somewhere, and others stay on the local "mirror" of the site.

Create and do the majority of the editing of your site ON YOUR OWN COMPUTER or server. When everything works there that can be tested, THEN move it to the internet.

This makes multiple copies of the site, one on your computer, one on the internet server. (Technically - and as I understand it - this makes them "mirrors" of each other.)

This means you can edit your version without affecting the online version. (You should have another unedited copy of the local version, so you can always "go back" to what's online. However, you should also be able to pull a complete copy from the web.)

See "Don't forget to add a doctype" from the W3C site. If you don't have a Document Type, the validators (see below) don't know which version to use, and will use the latest. This means your page, though working correctly, may NOT validate. If you don't know for sure, then I suggest you use either HTML 4.01, Transitional or Strict.

The Transitional will make Internet Explorer 6 (one of the more prevalent browsers) and others run in "quirks mode" (see "Activating the Right Layout Mode Using the Doctype Declaration" - pretty good article).

If you wish to be standards compliant, use Strict, but be aware that this may cause problems with your site in older browsers. Find out what's standard and what's not by researching at World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

(OFPv2 uses Transitional, because I've been trying to get the content up, and, actually, never thought about using anything but what I had before. I probably should at least TRY to validate against STRICT mode to see what's what there... I'll let you know.)

Yes, this adds to the size of the page, but also makes it easier for anyone else - and even you, yourself, assuming you haven't seen it for some time -  looking at the source to understand what's going on.

Remember, if YOU didn't like editing something someone else wrote, try to make it easier and faster, if someone else has to edit your stuff.

Remember also, even if you are the only one doing any of the editing, it may be some time and many pages later that you look at the "code" again. (Sorry... I was a programmer for 25 years!) Make it easy on YOURSELF, too!

HOWEVER, be aware that ALL WYSIWYG editors add code, don't "end" certain tags, etc. Take the time and use the Preferences and/or Options to set things up to work as "correctly" and "cleanly" as you can. When you are done in Edit or whatever mode, check the source.

Most WYSIWYGs, even FrontPage, have some type of color-coding for the HTML. Use it. It helps.

ROOKIES: Even on the most simple pages, LOOK at the HTML, and understand what's happening. (Switch back and forth between Source and Presentation - whatever it's called in your editor - or save and "bring up the page" in your browser to ALLOW you to switch back and forth using CONTROL-TAB. Believe me... It doesn't take that long to get used to doing the latter!)

Look at each (different) piece and learn the HTML behind what's presented.

WARNING: If you insist on putting "bells and whistles" from your HTML, etc. editor into the page, understand that, in most cases, they are proprietary, and will most-likely cause the page NOT to validate.

Frames and Flash (Macromedia), as far as I know, will ONLY show the HOME PAGE. If there's something on your site someone wants to bookmark, every time they return, they will have to navigate to it from the Home Page. Personally, I got to the point of NEVER bookmarking those sites. Most of the time, what I want is a few pages "in" to from the Home Page, and I have to remember how to get there. I can find the same thing on site where I can simply bookmark (and return directly) to the page I want to view.

Image-Only pages CAN take a while to download, depending on your connection and speed at of their server, any server you bounce through from yours to theirs, AND your server, AND your connection to the internet. (Dial-up? DSL? Cable?) Besides, the ONLY reason for image-only pages is to display a picture as the basis of the page (say, a strip-club or porn site), or to include fonts that most people would NOT have on their computer. Yes, I do use the latter, as I'm sure most would, but not for full-page development.

Understand and, if you can, FIX what's "wrong" with the validation.

If you think you have everything on the page right, and something's not displaying correctly, you can also use the validator to find problems. DO NOT use this as your FIRST check. Do everything you can to find the problem, yourself, first. And, be aware that other things come into the mix, too. For example, CSS, JavaScripts, etc. Your page may even validate, but not present correctly. Those are why you try to fix it before you validate.

Be aware that one error can cause the validator to report many. For example, if you include links in your pages, if there are ampersands ("&") in the link (these identify variables passed), and you haven't "escaped" them (ironically, escape an ampersand in a link with "&"), the validator counts the "&", the characters following, usually to an equal sign ("=") AND the equal sign (basically saying it couldn't generate a system identifier for the entity - the characters between "&" and "=".) Escape the "&" and all will be forgiven. That is just ONE example. Don't be too put off by the number of errors generated, until you understand what caused them. (Though, if you're REALLY good, NO errors should be generated!)

(The only pages that do not validate on any of OFP's sites should be older pages used as examples and any Forms. The latter is simply because I've not yet learned how to incorporate JavaScript - I don't know or have access to PHP, VB or C# - to define/validate the fields.)

Yes, you can "bloat" your CSS with too many styles - some of which you don't use. (Many would say that I probably did with OFPv2), but most of the "styles" used should be there or in the page's style-sheet, not on individual tags. This is one of the arguments against using MS Office programs.

Be aware of the "cascading effect".

If a style isn't working, double-check that you used colons, semi-colons, and "squiggly-brackets" correctly. If you didn't, at the very least PART of the style, itself, and possibly, the rest of the stylesheet, will not work correctly.

This will tell you if your syntax is correct. It CANNOT tell you if a style is USED correctly.

Remember what I said about the "cascading effect".

Search (I use Google) for "html" and/or "css" and what you're trying to do. Use quotes to make phrases.

Double-check to make sure more than one person said that's the way to do it. (Don't EVER take the suggestions of ONE site - even, and maybe ESPECIALLY, THIS one - as gospel. If other people cite and link to it in their discussions, then they probably knew what they were talking about.)

Yes... You may get some asshole replying to you, or they may say something you don't understand about the way you're posting, or some other non-answer.

For the latter, search for THAT term, so you know what you did wrong.

But, there are PLENTY of "elitists" out there willing to help, if they have the time and energy. (Thank you to all of you.)