Page not fully rendered in XHTML/CSS

[amaragraps]

Dear thescripts Experts,

I have converted my large wavelets page

http://www.amara.com/current/wavelet.html

from HTML into XHTML and CSS and have one large remaining bug. On Safari
and Opera and the Linux Red Hat browser, the full page is not rendered,
even though if you "view" the source in the browser window, all of the
text is listed.

I checked the syntax and I didn't see any glaring syntax errors. So I am
wondering if you have seen a problem like this before, that is, the page
is rendered about 3/4 of the way through, and nothing more. And if you
could give advice.

I'm not a professional Web developer and this is far from my fulltime
job (astronomy research), I learned HTML from my making my few
hundred pages at my site and as a side task for the research instututes
where I've worked since the middle 1990s. I am learning the new markup
(XHTML + CSS) from web-based tutorials and texts, presently.

Thanks very much in advance,
Amara

[Banfa]

Hello Amara,

you may not be able to see any errors but their are plenty there. I do not know this from searching through your code for them I know because I used the HTML validator from the W3C which listed 44 errors in your page, it is located at

http://validator.w3.org

They also have a CSS validator. These validators are not perfect in that 1 error can confuse them and produce further erroneous errors so it is somethimes worth fixes the first few errors and revalidating.

As you may be aware it is fairly vital for cross browser/cross platform support to have fully complient HTML mark-up.

I also use this site for reference

www.w3schools.com

[amaragraps]

>Hello Amara,
>you may not be able to see any errors but their are plenty there. I do
>not know this from searching through your code for them I know because I
>used the HTML validator from the W3C which listed 44 errors in your
>page,


Dear Banfa:

OK, I see what you mean I tried a "lite" syntax checker before:
http://online.htmlvalidator.com/php/onlinevallite.php
which said it was OK (up to the validity that the lite version can give).

I suspect my errors are mostly due to a trick I used 11 years ago (maybe
before <BLOCKQUOTE>) with <UL></UL> bounding regions of text to make an
indented/offset paragraph. (I don't follow up with <li> tags.) Probably I need to
define a class for <p> in order to accomplish the same task in CSS/XTHML.

I really thought converting my HTML to XHTML+CSS would be simple.. :-(.

Thanks very much for your advice. You're right of course.


Ciao from Rome,
Amara

[Banfa]

I suspect my errors are mostly due to a trick I used 11 years ago (maybe
before <BLOCKQUOTE>) with <UL></UL> bounding regions of text to make an
indented/offset paragraph. (I don't follow up with <li> tags.) Probably I need to
define a class for <p> in order to accomplish the same task in CSS/XTHML.

Sounds plausable as a cause for the errors. As you say a <p> with a little CSS should accompish the same thing, just set the margin-left style.

[Banfa]

I really thought converting my HTML to XHTML+CSS would be simple.. :-(

Unfortunately that depends on how the HTML was in the first place, however don't get disheartened, it is worth the effort, I went through the same pain with a website I run a few years ago and it is worth it in the long run because once you have converted things get easier (and it becaomes easier to move with the standards as they move) :D

[amaragraps]

Dear Banfa,

I fixed all of the errors (almost all were not balancing nested <ul> <li>
properly). Now the page is fully compliant, but the page is _still_ not
fully rendered in Safari et al. :-(

Amara

[amaragraps]

It seems that there are, or were, mistakes in the .css file.
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amara.com%2Fcurrent %2Fwavelets.css&usermedium=all

I removed an unclosed comment, and so *most* of the page is rendered now
in Safari et al., but not all, so I must check the CSS warnings. The CSS page
validates, so whatever error is remaining is subtle.

The W3 validators are nice tools.

Amara