problem with validated site

[Corey Walker]

Hello:

I developed a nice looking web page which provided people with a brief
overview of our society's publications (our different newsletters).
However, while I'm by no means an expert or professional website
designer, I know enough about XHTML 1.0 to know that the best way to
guarantee interoperability on all, or at least most browsers, including
lynx is to make sure my site complies with the w3 standards. So, I ran
my site through the XHTML 1.0 Transitional validator, and it didn't
pass, so I had it clean up my markup using Tidy. I then copy and pasted
that markup into the validator, and it validated. However, when I viewed
the valid page online, it looked funny.

This is the page: http://www.reaps.org/walker_html/publications.html .
I'm not sure why the different paragraphs all have different fonts, when
I can't even see a <fonttag. My challenge is that a bunch of pages
on our site were recently redesigned by a professional website designer,
and now every time I create a new page, I try to use other pages he's
done as a template. But I'm not familiar with all his code (for example,
I have no idea what the <spantag does). And since I can't find our
O'Reilly HTML book around here, I'm hoping somebody can take a look at
the source code, and let me know what I've done wrong, and how I can fix it.

Also, if I want to make each paragraph a different colour, what is the
valid way of doing that in XHTML 1.0 Transitional. I will eventually use
CSS for my formatting, but I want to wait until my paid time is does,
and I'm volunteering again. Then, I can take as much time as I need to
figure out the CSS code, without worrying about how well I'm using my time.

Thanks for your help; I look forward to learning from your feedback.

Corey Walker
Webmaster, Recycling and Environmental Action Planning Society

[Jonathan N. Little]

Corey Walker wrote:

Hello:

I developed a nice looking web page which provided people with a brief
overview of our society's publications (our different newsletters).
However, while I'm by no means an expert or professional website
designer, I know enough about XHTML 1.0 to know that the best way to
guarantee interoperability on all, or at least most browsers, including
lynx is to make sure my site complies with the w3 standards.

Not enough, you know wrong. Been discussed at great length here and alt.html

See:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...rt&btnG=Search
xhtml browser support - Google Search

HTML 4.01 Strict is what you want

So, I ran
my site through the XHTML 1.0 Transitional validator, and it didn't
pass, so I had it clean up my markup using Tidy. I then copy and pasted
that markup into the validator, and it validated. However, when I viewed
the valid page online, it looked funny.

This is the page: http://www.reaps.org/walker_html/publications.html .
I'm not sure why the different paragraphs all have different fonts, when
I can't even see a <fonttag.

Oi vai! Because they are styled differently with different classes. You
have paragraphs? Funny you didn't markup up that way! Paragraphs are
defined with <p></pnot using multiple line breaks <br>.

My challenge is that a bunch of pages on
our site were recently redesigned by a professional website designer,
and now every time I create a new page, I try to use other pages he's
done as a template. But I'm not familiar with all his code (for example,
I have no idea what the <spantag does). And since I can't find our
O'Reilly HTML book around here, I'm hoping somebody can take a look at
the source code, and let me know what I've done wrong, and how I can fix
it.

Best advice is stop. Learn a bit about proper markup. Use HTML 4.01
strict and lose the XHTML

Try the tutorials at www.htmldog.com

>
Also, if I want to make each paragraph a different colour, what is the
valid way of doing that in XHTML 1.0 Transitional. I will eventually use
CSS for my formatting, but I want to wait until my paid time is does,
and I'm volunteering again. Then, I can take as much time as I need to
figure out the CSS code, without worrying about how well I'm using my time.

Thanks for your help; I look forward to learning from your feedback.

Corey Walker
Webmaster, Recycling and Environmental Action Planning Society

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

[Stan Brown]

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 20:26:01 GMT from Corey Walker
<we*******@reaps.org>:

This is the page: http://www.reaps.org/walker_html/publications.html .
I'm not sure why the different paragraphs all have different fonts, when
I can't even see a <fonttag.

Thanks for giving a URL instead of just pasting code.

Actually, you *don't* have any paragraphs. You have a big mass of
text with <br><br>, and groups of sentences are styled with <span>.
This makes it unnecessarily hard to figure out what's going on.

You have nested <span>s. Everything up to "types of worms" is in c2
within c1, and what comes after is in c2 *not* within c1. That's why
there's a difference.

<br><brgives a blank line in some browsers, not all. If you had <p>
you could style it with a top margin; you can't do that with <span>.

Why not replace all that garbage with honest-to-gosh paragraphs?

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2.1 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
Why We Won't Help You:
http://diveintomark.org/archives/200..._wont_help_you

[John Hosking]

Corey Walker wrote:

>
This is the page: http://www.reaps.org/walker_html/publications.html .
I'm not sure why the different paragraphs all have different fonts, when
I can't even see a <fonttag.

The short, simple answer is that the span with class "c1" covers the
first three paragrpahs (even though they're not marked up as paragraphs)
and ends before the fourth paragraph. Span.c1 asks for font-family:
Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, which is apparently different from the
default font your browser is set to use (I'm betting you see Times New
Roman on that last graph). That's just the short, immediate answer, but
it won't improve your life significantly.

Read the posts by André and Jonathan, and heed what they say (although
Jonathan berates you a little much for markup you've apparently only
inherited). The fact that their posts are long point to the tragic
condition of your site. Diving in to learn HTML and CSS would be the
best thing you could do, while second choice is probably finding
*another* "professional website designer" (a good one this time), who
will redo the site for free. Good luck with that. ;-)

BTW, two weeks ago I suggested defining a background color, but your
site still lacks such a definition. Something like this in the CSS:

body { color:black; background-color:white; }

I have no idea what the <spantag does). And since I can't find our
O'Reilly HTML book around here, I'm hoping somebody can take a look at
the source code, and let me know what I've done wrong, and how I can fix
it.

The W3C has resources online, and references for HTML and CSS abound.
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/global.html#h-7.5.4 is the HTML 4.01
version of the text about <span>, but I believe XHTML's is no different,
and anyway, you shouldn't be attempting to use XHTML right now.
HTML 4.01: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
CSS 2.1: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
Tutorials as mentioned by the others or as found via a search engine.

--
John
Pondering the value of the UIP: http://improve-usenet.org/

[Corey Walker]

John Hosking wrote:

Corey Walker wrote:

>>
This is the page: http://www.reaps.org/walker_html/publications.html .
I'm not sure why the different paragraphs all have different fonts,
when I can't even see a <fonttag.

The short, simple answer is that the span with class "c1" covers the
first three paragrpahs (even though they're not marked up as paragraphs)
and ends before the fourth paragraph. Span.c1 asks for font-family:
Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, which is apparently different from the
default font your browser is set to use (I'm betting you see Times New
Roman on that last graph). That's just the short, immediate answer, but
it won't improve your life significantly.

Read the posts by André and Jonathan, and heed what they say (although
Jonathan berates you a little much for markup you've apparently only
inherited). The fact that their posts are long point to the tragic
condition of your site. Diving in to learn HTML and CSS would be the
best thing you could do, while second choice is probably finding
*another* "professional website designer" (a good one this time), who
will redo the site for free. Good luck with that. ;-)

BTW, two weeks ago I suggested defining a background color, but your
site still lacks such a definition. Something like this in the CSS:

body { color:black; background-color:white; }

>I have no idea what the <spantag does). And since I can't find our
O'Reilly HTML book around here, I'm hoping somebody can take a look at
the source code, and let me know what I've done wrong, and how I can
fix it.

The W3C has resources online, and references for HTML and CSS abound.
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/global.html#h-7.5.4 is the HTML 4.01
version of the text about <span>, but I believe XHTML's is no different,
and anyway, you shouldn't be attempting to use XHTML right now.
HTML 4.01: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
CSS 2.1: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
Tutorials as mentioned by the others or as found via a search engine.

Thanks for all the feedback people. Actually, most of the CSS stuff was
added by HTML Tidy, believe it or not. The site looked fine before I
"fixed" it with Tidy. But this guy did overuse his span and table tags.
I've created nice looking pages before without nesting everything in
tables and <spantags.

We had a professional designer work on our site before, and it wasn't
quite as fancy, but it was clean, simple, professional and nice. I had
no problem working with her code, because it was all straightforward.
You see, I originally designed a basic site on GeoCities, and then I've
steadily improved and enhanced it. I stepped down for awhile, and a
professional lady took over, and did a beautiful job. Then, she no
longer had time to volunteer her services, so I came back in and
continued working on the site.

Having the site redesigned like this, was not my idea at all. I was told
we were going to get the front page redesigned and that was it. Imagine
my shock when I visited the site one day and found that half the site
had been changed. I think for me now, the simplest thing would be to
scrap his code entirely and write my own. I'll just use his code for the
links table on the left and bottom and the banner at top, which I
actually hate.

John H: I had forgotten about your suggestion to define the background.
I will implement that suggestion, starting with this page. I'll do the
other pages as time permits.

Corey

[Corey Walker]

Actually, re-reading through all the messages, I see that I shouldn't
keep any of his code at all. Yeah, that makes me very happy.

Corey

[Jeff Gaines]

On 21/10/2007 in message <47**********@news.bluewin.chJohn Hosking wrote:

>BTW, two weeks ago I suggested defining a background color, but your site
still lacks such a definition. Something like this in the CSS:

As a complete newb to HTML may I ask a question on this please?

I read 'somewhere' (and I've read so much recently I can't remember where)
that the background should not be coloured as some people have their PC's
set up with specific colours due to visual impairment. Does that make any
sense? I run XP and I experimented with background colours on the PC and
found that IE7 does indeed follow the system settings.

--
Jeff Gaines Damerham Hampshire UK
If it's not broken, mess around with it until it is

[David E. Ross]

On 10/21/2007 1:26 PM, Corey Walker wrote [in part]:

>
My challenge is that a bunch of pages
on our site were recently redesigned by a professional website designer

According to the tiny, tiny font at the bottom of the page (I had to use
the FONT+ button three times to read it), your "professional" was
Digital Sunshine Web Design. I judge how professional a Web developer
is by the developer's own Web pages, so I went to
<http://www.digitalsunshine.com/>. While there are no XHMTL errors on
that page, there are 5 CSS errors in the primary CSS file. That might
not seem like many, but there are only 17 CSS declarations.

There was a second CSS file that had no errors. Also, the page appeared
to have no WCAG-A accessibility errors. This means that Digital
Sunshine seems to understand the language of Web pages quite well. That
does not mean they create good Web pages. (Those of us who are literate
in the English language -- making few or no errors of grammar, syntax,
and punctuation -- still manage to say the wrong thing.)

--
David E. Ross
<http://www.rossde.com/>

Natural foods can be harmful: Look at all the
people who die of natural causes.

[John Hosking]

Jeff Gaines wrote:

>
I read 'somewhere' (and I've read so much recently I can't remember
where) that the background should not be coloured as some people have
their PC's set up with specific colours due to visual impairment. Does
that make any sense? I run XP and I experimented with background colours
on the PC and found that IE7 does indeed follow the system settings.

Well, if you respect your site visitors, you will want to give them as
much control as they need or want over how they view your site. That's
part of what's behind the argument against using font sizes in px or
setting a fixed width for a page.

So ideally (theoretically), you can let the user's browser defaults
determine fonts and FG colors and BG colors. But in practice, that
doesn't always work, because a world of black-only text on white-only
backgrounds isn't as exciting as one with other colors. Corporate logos
and charts and graphics can all provide reason for using other colors,
so a bit of suggestion from a site designer can be appropriate, too.

In the case of the OP's site (by way of example) the previous volunteer
designer (he of the over-ambitious Frankenspans) used a bunch of
graphics which showed black texts on white backgrounds. These look okay
for visitors who have black-on-white set in their browsers. For anyone
else, though, it looks dopey, because they might have, say, a light blue
BG, and the white-BG graphics are just clumpy and ugly.

The OP's pages I looked at earlier seem to be offline now, but the
publications.html page is still visible and shows texts in blue and
green. These wouldn't look too bad on a white BG, but aren't so easy to
read against my browser's blue BG. The header banner graphic also
doesn't match well. He set the FG colors because he thought they'd look
nice, but he assumed a white BG to go with them.

In summary, avoid setting colors if you don't have to, but if you do
have to set them (because of the elements you've chosen), set both a BG
and FG color to ensure a good contrast and accessibility for everyone.

Users with good browsers can still use !important rules in their user
stylesheets to override your site's suggested colors if they have to.

--
John
Pondering the value of the UIP: http://improve-usenet.org/

[Jonathan N. Little]

Jeff Gaines wrote:

On 21/10/2007 in message <47**********@news.bluewin.chJohn Hosking wrote:

>BTW, two weeks ago I suggested defining a background color, but your
site still lacks such a definition. Something like this in the CSS:

As a complete newb to HTML may I ask a question on this please?

I read 'somewhere' (and I've read so much recently I can't remember
where) that the background should not be coloured as some people have
their PC's set up with specific colours due to visual impairment. Does
that make any sense? I run XP and I experimented with background colours
on the PC and found that IE7 does indeed follow the system settings.

No, they can override the style with a user stylesheet or turn it off in
their browser. I would say what more important is consider the contrast
of text and background.

Also if you choose a background image be sure to also define a
background color. Make it basically the same color as the image so the
text is readable while background image loads. We folk stuck on dialup
notice this all the time. Bad sites will have a page with white text on
say a blue background image. The don't define a background color so the
browser default white is displayed as the monster background image
loads...until it does we see white on white!

Another thing is not to define font size in pixels so the user may
enlarger it if they need to.

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

David E. Ross wrote:

Corey Walker wrote [in part]:

>My challenge is that a bunch of pages
on our site were recently redesigned by a professional website designer

According to the tiny, tiny font at the bottom of the page (I had to
use the FONT+ button three times to read it), your "professional" was
Digital Sunshine Web Design. I judge how professional a Web
developer is by the developer's own Web pages, so I went to
<http://www.digitalsunshine.com/>. While there are no XHMTL errors
on that page, there are 5 CSS errors in the primary CSS file. That
might not seem like many, but there are only 17 CSS declarations.

Ah. I see someone already visited 'ditigalsunshine'. Atrocious!

"Our creative web design process follows strict adherence to 'Web 2.0'
development standards ..." <lol Then he has the audacity to place
links to the W3 validators. Sure, the page may be valid HTML, but it is
a sematic mess.

--
-bts
-Motorcycles defy gravity; cars just suck

[John Hosking]

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:

>
Ah. I see someone already visited 'ditigalsunshine'. Atrocious!

"Our creative web design process follows strict adherence to 'Web 2.0'
development standards ..." <lol Then he has the audacity to place
links to the W3 validators.

Although when you follow the "Valid CSS" link, you have to type in the
site's URL yourself. I couldn't find the "Valid Web 2.0" link...

Sure, the page may be valid HTML, but it is a sematic mess.

And a semantic mess, too. ;-) Amazing: a whole site without a single
<pelement.
--
John
Pondering the value of the UIP: http://improve-usenet.org/

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

John Hosking wrote:

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:

> Sure, the page may be valid HTML, but it is a sematic mess.

And a semantic mess, too. ;-) Amazing: a whole site without a single
<pelement.

Heh, I had a speeling fart in that post... sematic ... ditigalsunshine

I have an excuse: the Sox-Indians game was just starting. <g>

--
-bts
-Motorcycles defy gravity; cars just suck

[Corey Walker]

>
The OP's pages I looked at earlier seem to be offline now, but the
publications.html page is still visible and shows texts in blue and
green. These wouldn't look too bad on a white BG, but aren't so easy to
read against my browser's blue BG. The header banner graphic also
doesn't match well. He set the FG colors because he thought they'd look
nice, but he assumed a white BG to go with them.

They're not offline. The URL's I gave at that time were there working
addresses. Once they're finished, I move them where I want them. Try:
http://www.reaps.org/publications/castings/ .

This is interesting, because before I started posting to this forum I
never knew people could set their browser to have different background
colours. I like having colourful pages and was tired of the dreary black
and white look, so I did what lots of web designers have done, and tried
to create each paragraph with a different colour. So, how do I
accomplish my desired effect (a multi-coloured page), so that it works
for people with non-default background colours. There must be a way of
making both worlds happy. At least, I hope there is.

Corey

[Corey Walker]

By the way, the story behind how Digital Sunshine got selected to redo
the site, was that the guy used to be my boss' neighbour. Talk about a
pathetic way of selecting somebody. She liked the site he did for my
church, the Salvation Army in Prince George (www.tsainpg.com) and so she
asked him to redo our site. Yet, when I had her e-mail him asking him to
fix a few things, he hasn't done it. I want the site done in frames, so
if I change a URL, I don't have to change fifty thousand links, but just
one links page that appears in a frame in every page.

I probably shouldn't have uninstalled Adobe Page Mill from my iMac; it
might have made my life easier. But probably not. I think coding
everything by hand in Notepad or SimpleText is the best way to go. And
stupid OS X doesn't even had a decent text editor for doing HTML in.

>
Corey Walker
Webmaster, Recycling and Environmental Action Planning Society

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Corey Walker wrote:

By the way, the story behind how Digital Sunshine got selected to redo
the site, was that the guy used to be my boss' neighbour. Talk about a
pathetic way of selecting somebody.

I've heard worse.

She liked the site he did for my church, the Salvation Army in Prince
George (www.tsainpg.com)

<bleahch!>

<meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 11">

and so she asked him to redo our site. Yet, when I had her e-mail him
asking him to fix a few things, he hasn't done it. I want the site
done in frames, so if I change a URL, I don't have to change fifty
thousand links, but just one links page that appears in a frame in
every page.

No, you don't want to use frames.
http://www.html-faq.com/htmlframes/?framesareevil

Look into server-side includes.
http://allmyfaqs.net/faq.pl?Include_one_file_in_another

I probably shouldn't have uninstalled Adobe Page Mill from my iMac;

One job I got was to repair a PageMill site. The client wondered why it
never appeared in Google. Heh, the *entire* site was a series of images;
not a bit of indexable text anywhere. I hope you don't do that. <g>

--
-bts
-Motorcycles defy gravity; cars just suck

[John Hosking]

Corey Walker wrote:

>
I like having colourful pages and was tired of the dreary black
and white look, so I did what lots of web designers have done, and tried
to create each paragraph with a different colour. So, how do I
accomplish my desired effect (a multi-coloured page), so that it works
for people with non-default background colours. There must be a way of
making both worlds happy. At least, I hope there is.

If you want the whole page to have some non-default (or at least, some
specific) BG color, set it the way I suggested earlier, by including:

body { color:black; background-color:yellow; }

in the CSS. Or instead of yellow, use #FFFF00. Or some other RRGGBB
color combination. Just make sure when you do this that you set a
(pleasingly) contrasting color for the text.

The set the BG for specific paragraphs (or any other element), you use
the same technique:

p { color:black; background-color:#ffdddd; }

for all your paragraphs. Or add class or id names to <pelements to
style them selectively:

p.recyclingtip { color:white; background-color:#00FF00; }
p#footer { color:#FFFFFF; background-color:#0000FF; }

with markup containing

<p class="recyclingtip">Re-use your egg cartons!</p>
<p class="recyclingtip">Coffee grounds can be composted.</p>
<p id="footer">Copyright 2007 REAPS.org</p>

For reasons of national security, I am required by law to instruct you
to avoid publishing a real page which makes "each paragraph a different
colour". By posting pages with garish colors and unreadable text flow
you become subject to arrest and, potentially, imprisonment for life in
the year 1997.
--
John
Pondering the value of the UIP: http://improve-usenet.org/

[Corey Walker]

Look into server-side includes.
http://allmyfaqs.net/faq.pl?Include_one_file_in_another

Back in 1997, when I was first learning very basic HTML, we had some
pages in the Counselling Centre at the University of Northern BC (where
I was working at the time as a student) that used SSI. Unfortunately, my
co-worker was selected to be taught how to do SSI, and I wasn't. I will
have to find out if my web server supports SSI. It does support cgi
scripts, so it probably would support SSI.

How difficult are server-side include, PHP or ASP to learn? The latter
two are very commonly used these days, but I don't know how complicated
they are.

Corey

[David E. Ross]

On 10/21/2007 3:49 PM, Jeff Gaines wrote:

On 21/10/2007 in message <47**********@news.bluewin.chJohn Hosking wrote:

>BTW, two weeks ago I suggested defining a background color, but your site
still lacks such a definition. Something like this in the CSS:

As a complete newb to HTML may I ask a question on this please?

I read 'somewhere' (and I've read so much recently I can't remember where)
that the background should not be coloured as some people have their PC's
set up with specific colours due to visual impairment. Does that make any
sense? I run XP and I experimented with background colours on the PC and
found that IE7 does indeed follow the system settings.

The general rule is that, if you set one color, you should set them all:
background, regular text, links not yet visited, links previously
visited, and links over which the cursor is hovering.

I set my background to a very pale green, which is less straining for
most eyes than white. It is close enough to white (#f0fff0 versus
#ffffff) that it has almost the same contrast as a white background for
any color text.

I don't set colors for regular text or links, violating the general
rule. The usual browser defaults are black for regular text, blue for
unvisited links, and red for visited links. These all give very good
contrast with a pale green background. I assume that those who set
other default text colors also set their background colors to obtain
sufficient contrast. (I set a yellow background for links over which
the cursor is hovering, but I don't set a color for the text of the link.)

I think one of the worst designed Web pages I ever saw had a black
background with a pattern of bright yellow and orange daisies. The text
was red. It was almost impossible to read. This was the home page of
an ISP that obviously was not interested in customers, only in
demonstrating how clever and artistic the Web master was.

--
David E. Ross
<http://www.rossde.com/>

Natural foods can be harmful: Look at all the
people who die of natural causes.

[John L.]

Corey Walker wrote:

>

>Look into server-side includes.
http://allmyfaqs.net/faq.pl?Include_one_file_in_another

Back in 1997, when I was first learning very basic HTML, we had some
pages in the Counselling Centre at the University of Northern BC (where
I was working at the time as a student) that used SSI. Unfortunately, my
co-worker was selected to be taught how to do SSI, and I wasn't. I will
have to find out if my web server supports SSI. It does support cgi
scripts, so it probably would support SSI.

How difficult are server-side include, PHP or ASP to learn? The latter
two are very commonly used these days, but I don't know how complicated
they are.

I highly recommend learning PHP, even if you only learn the basics, as
even a little bit of server-side scripting can go a long way.

You mentioned having the links all in once place for easy maintenance.
This is easy in PHP. Simply create a file with nothing in it but the
navigation (links.html), then, whereever you want the links to appear in
your web pages, just include it with PHP:

<div id="navigation">
<?php include('links.php'); ?>
</div>

The resulting page will look exactly as if the links were typed directly
into the source.

Does your current web host support PHP? If not, it's easy to find one
that does.

[John L.]

John L. wrote:
<snip>

You mentioned having the links all in once place for easy maintenance.
This is easy in PHP. Simply create a file with nothing in it but the
navigation (links.html), then, whereever you want the links to appear in

^^^^^^^^^^

your web pages, just include it with PHP:

<div id="navigation">
<?php include('links.php'); ?>
</div>

Sorry, my file names don't correspond. But you get the idea ;)

[Stan Brown]

21 Oct 2007 22:49:21 GMT from Jeff Gaines
<jg************@yahoo.co.uk>:

I read 'somewhere' (and I've read so much recently I can't remember where)
that the background should not be coloured as some people have their PC's
set up with specific colours due to visual impairment. Does that make any
sense? I run XP and I experimented with background colours on the PC and
found that IE7 does indeed follow the system settings.

Either set both text and background colors, or set neither. If you
set just one, the page inherits the other from the user's default
settings, and they may not work well together.

The PP was not suggesting to set background in isolation, but to set
it *because* foreground was being set.

The particular setting on black on white (or black on a very pale
color) is about the best there is for visual acuity. If anyone has
set black on blue as their default colors, it's because they like
those colors and not because it helps them read better.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2.1 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
Why We Won't Help You:
http://diveintomark.org/archives/200..._wont_help_you

[Stan Brown]

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 05:10:42 GMT from Corey Walker
<we*******@reaps.org>:

I like having colourful pages and was tired of the dreary black and
white look, so I did what lots of web designers have done, and
tried to create each paragraph with a different colour.

That's good if you're Fisher Price. Otherwise it just looks (sorry,
but I can't think of a kinder word) childish.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2.1 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
Why We Won't Help You:
http://diveintomark.org/archives/200..._wont_help_you

[Stan Brown]

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 05:21:42 GMT from Corey Walker
<we*******@reaps.org>:

I want the site done in frames

Stop wanting that. It's a horrendously bad idea.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2.1 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
Why We Won't Help You:
http://diveintomark.org/archives/200..._wont_help_you

[Jonathan N. Little]

Corey Walker wrote:

>

>Look into server-side includes.
http://allmyfaqs.net/faq.pl?Include_one_file_in_another

Back in 1997, when I was first learning very basic HTML, we had some
pages in the Counselling Centre at the University of Northern BC (where
I was working at the time as a student)

Just do the tutorials at www.htmldog.com HTML is very basic, especially
if you leave the the styling to CSS. You can build the page first, then
twiddle with stylesheet to change the appearance. The content shouldn't
change and the markup shouldn't change much, maybe the addition of a
class attribute and or DIV or SPAN generic containers (USE SPARINGLY)

Get the WebDevelopersBar extension for Firefox can make your learning
and development process much easier.

http://chrispederick.com/work/web-developer/
Web Developer

that used SSI. Unfortunately, my
co-worker was selected to be taught how to do SSI, and I wasn't. I will
have to find out if my web server supports SSI. It does support cgi
scripts, so it probably would support SSI.

PHP includes are easier and more powerful. The Response Header using the
WebDevelopersBar for your REAPS site is

Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2007 13:45:39 GMT
Server: Apache
Last-Modified: Sun, 21 Oct 2007 20:11:15 GMT
Etag: "760bd4-17b7-471bb263"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 6071
Content-Type: text/html

200 OK

So you are running Apache and most likely your have PHP. To get you PHP
settings and test if it is enabled in a text editor create a text file
and past the flowing line.

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

Rename the file myphp.php and upload it to your server then travel the url:

http://www.reaps.org/myphp.php

If your have PHP enabled on the server your will get a table of all the
settings, else all you will get is the one line of code.

How difficult are server-side include, PHP or ASP to learn? The latter
two are very commonly used these days, but I don't know how complicated
they are.

PHP is very easy to learn. www.php.net You can build your pages as basic
HTML but with the "php" extension. PHP functions and code can be
inserted within the page like JavaScript snippets but the code is inside
the special

<?php

//php code

?>

tag

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

[André Gillibert]

John Hosking wrote:

If you want the whole page to have some non-default (or at least, some
specific) BG color, set it the way I suggested earlier, by including:

body { color:black; background-color:yellow; }

You forgot: background-image: none;
This may be necessary if the user uses a stylesheet with a background
image.
If you specify the foreground color, background color, or backround image
(even if it's "none"), then, specify all of them. The CSS background
shorthand property helps.
This guideline applies to author and user stylesheet writing.
A particular attention must be ported to the weight of each rule. The most
obvious case is that, if you specify the foreground color as a !important
rule, the background color and image should be specified with a !important
rule.

If the user really needs a specific background and foreground, then, he'll
use !important rules.

--
If you've a question that doesn't belong to Usenet, contact me at
<ta*****************@yahoDELETETHATo.fr>

[André Gillibert]

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:

"Our creative web design process follows strict adherence to 'Web 2.0'
development standards ..." <lol Then he has the audacity to place
links to the W3 validators. Sure, the page may be valid HTML, but it is
a sematic mess.

In september 2007, I wrote the message <op.tyhmrmkk7pu1mk@andreabout the
possibility of writing HTML converying zero semantic information, based on
nested SPAN elements.

It's archived at
http://groups.google.com/group/comp....&output=gplain
When I wrote that, I didn't know this was real.

--
If you've a question that doesn't belong to Usenet, contact me at
<ta*****************@yahoDELETETHATo.fr>

[André Gillibert]

Adrienne Boswell wrote:

What you really want is something like:
<div id="header">
<ul id="menu">
<li>Membership</li>... etc
</ul>
</div>
<div id="leftside">
<ul id="submenu">
<li>Home</li>... etc
</ul>
<div id="content">
<p>Some content is here.</p>
<p>Some more content is here.</p>
</div>
<div id="footer">
<ul>
<li>Home</li>... etc
</ul>
</div>

DIV and SPAN are like pepper... Use them sparingly.
I tried to write non-CSS HTML renderers, and have been incredibely annoyed
by the DIV element. Its semantics are incredibely unclear: Sometimes the
DIV should be interpreted as a wrapper that should be replaced by its
contents, sometimes it indicates a separate section or figure that surely
could be rendered at a different place. I don't like SPAN, but DIV is much
worse.
Remove these DIV, and the page will be better, and yet, with CSS, it can
still be styled as you wish.

--
If you've a question that doesn't belong to Usenet, contact me at
<ta*****************@yahoDELETETHATo.fr>