RE: Question About DocTypes (Full Version)

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Bruce2000 -> RE: Question About DocTypes (1/21/2007 15:53:25)

Here is the page I started. http://www.bruceleibowitz.net/work2.htm

I did fix that error, somehow there was a <B> tag in the qualificiations table - dont know where it came from. I downloaded the total validator for firefox. There's some errors.

It is telling me that "background" (as in background image) is not a valid attribute for the tag <td> - in other words, a background image for a cell. Is this true, that the standard way to do that is in CSS? It says that is a browser-specific attribute and if its for layout then it should be in a stylesheet. And the <body> attribute also not valid. You can see that without specifying body left my page is not docked against the left and top sides. leftmargin="0" fixed that, but it looks like that has to be in a stylesheet? Oh, and also the <p> tag is not valid inside a cell <td>? How else would I make the cell text center or left?

bruce



Tailslide -> RE: Question About DocTypes (1/21/2007 16:04:39)

You can use any of the following to do those things: 

td {text-align:left;}
or
td {text-align:center;}

body {margin:0;}


Far as the background image goes - to be honest I don't know. Certainly in XHTML strict you can't use stuff like that in the markup - I thought that it was ok in HTML 4.01 - possibly it's because it's strict...

To be honest it's been so long since I've included any formatting in the markup that I'm not sure - it's just sooo much easier to have all that stuff in a stylesheet so you can change it site-wide in seconds.



womble -> RE: Question About DocTypes (1/21/2007 16:12:30)

The background image on table cells is an M$ proprietary property. To get it to validate you'll need to give that table cell an ID, and put it in the CSS, so for example if you called that cell indexhdr, you'd have: 

#indexhdr { background-image: "../images/indexhdr.jpg"; }


The majority of the errors you've got there are for either missing tags or for using end tags for elements that aren't open. All you need to do is remove the offending tags, or add in any missing ones and those errors'll disappear. You may find that once you've done that the "document doesn't allow element "P" here" ones disappear as well.
quote:

his might mean that you need a containing element, or possibly that you've forgotten to close a previous element.

Very often, fixing one error also fixes others in the process as well.




rubyaim -> RE: Question About DocTypes (1/21/2007 16:41:40)

Bruce, a strict doctype will force the separation of markup and presentation and not allow redundant tags, transitional is more forgiving as it is meant for those making the transition from older or proprietary markup to standards compliant markup.

If you want a doctype every time you start a new page in FrontPage you can change normal.htm (below assumes FP2003)

> Open FrontPage
> File
> Open
> Browse to
C: \ Program Files \ Microsoft Office \ Templates \ 1033 \ PAGES11 \ normal.tem \
> Put in the doctype you want as a default.
> Save the file

Try not to get too frustrated, in the long run using a strict doc type and really getting into the code is worthwhile.

There is also no harm in using a transitional doctype and then working towards strict.

When you validate a page and get errors, you can often search for the actual error message to see what is wrong, if you are using html tidy it will often offer solutions (though don't actually trust the tick or cross you see in tidy, always use the validator).

From Microsoft (Working with HTML DOCTYPE Declarations in FrontPage) :
quote:


Using DOCTYPE Declarations in FrontPage
As with most modern Web development tools, FrontPage may use design-time proprietary code and attributes for HTML tags that does not validate according to the standards of the W3C. If you use any design-time tools in FrontPage, your pages may not validate when submitted to a validator.

If you want to use DOCTYPE declarations in your FrontPage Web pages, you should either avoid using FrontPage design-time tools that insert custom markup or use the Optimize HTML feature (Tools menu) in FrontPage to remove most or all FrontPage design-time markup. This allows you to run the pages through a validator without receiving errors on FrontPage markup code.

For this reason, FrontPage does not include DOCTYPE declarations in new pages by default. You can add DOCTYPE declarations to your Web pages in three ways: You can paste the DOCTYPE declaration in Code view; you can insert a code snippet; or you can modify the default template that FrontPage uses to create new pages.





Bruce2000 -> RE: Question About DocTypes (1/21/2007 16:58:29)

quote:

ORIGINAL: jaybee
It was a way of MS controlling the browser market. Get FP to produce code that only worked right in IE and probably threw a wobbler in all the others. This origianlly applied to Netscape who they were trying to squish.



I'm starting to realize just how evil M$ is!



womble -> RE: Question About DocTypes (1/21/2007 17:22:19)

That's only the start of it. [;)]



jaybee -> RE: Question About DocTypes (1/21/2007 17:32:27)

quote:

(below assumes FP2003)

> Browse to
C: \ Program Files \ Microsoft Office \ Templates \ 1033 \ PAGES11 \ normal.tem \

It also assumes a standard install. Not everybody will find the file there.



rubyaim -> RE: Question About DocTypes (1/21/2007 17:36:23)

quote:

It also assumes a standard install. Not everybody will find the file there.

One assumes that those with a non-standard install will know where things are, most of us will find this file at that location [8|]



Bruce2000 -> RE: Question About DocTypes (1/25/2007 4:06:42)

I decided to play around and type in some common sites in the html online validator. And I was very surprised to learn that there are many big time websites that don't appear to be "valid"! for example, cnn.com, yahoo.com, americanidol.com, google.com, even amazon.com! Most of them have no doctype found, while a few do have a doctype but many, many errors! For example, amazon.com has 1,138 errors and no doctype found!

all of these sites are big enough that they pay people megabucks to design their sites....why then are they not valid and all containing doctypes if this is so important to web standardization? I even checked my own employer's website and we have no doctype and numerous errors but yet it seems to look ok on the web.

Bruce



jaybee -> RE: Question About DocTypes (1/25/2007 5:38:14)

Yes they look OK but if they're not valid, they're not even halfway accessible. It all depends on how much you care about providing a site that can be accessed by everybody. Unfortunately most don't care and many will even argue the toss.

The large sites you quoted employ teams of jobsworth's. they are there from 9-5 and they do the site, they don't bother to keep up to date with legislation and best practice unless their boss orders them to, in which case they'll go through it in work's time.

However, these large sites are on very dodgy ground. There are many high profile companies being warned to comply or be taken to court in the UK, Australia and increasingly the US. There's a big battle going on against the Target DIY chain right now.



Tailslide -> RE: Question About DocTypes (1/25/2007 5:52:54)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Bruce2000

all of these sites are big enough that they pay people megabucks to design their sites....why then are they not valid and all containing doctypes if this is so important to web standardization? I even checked my own employer's website and we have no doctype and numerous errors but yet it seems to look ok on the web.

Bruce


They might well look and work fine on current browsers - but if they're not coded correctly who's to say whether they'll work well on the next generation of browsers, or on screenreaders etc etc.

Having a site with valid coding is just the start. Ideally your site should do what you need it to do business-wise, it should look attractive, it should use valid, semantic coding and it should be accessible to as many people as possible.

Sometimes we make compromises on one or more of these requirements but we should ensure that we have an idea of the consequences of those compromises and ensure there's a good reason for them.



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