[Gllug] Website developement

Sun Jul 15 17:02:15 UTC 2001

>
> > Don't forget to validate all pages with http://validator.w3.org/ -
> > people might not call me the world's greatest website author but I
> > value
> > standards conformance and simplicity over anything else.
>
> I have done, very embaracing quantity of errors.
>
> For somereason it doesn't like my body tags
>
> <body BGcolor="#ffffff" link="#ff0000" vlink="#0000ff">
>
> it says that in HTML 4.01 Bgcolor, link and vlink aren't valid
> attirbutes! which has confused me no end.

Because it is depreciated in favour of using CSS ;o) using a linked style
sheet saves no end of hassle as you just set up the style for all of your
tags in one .css file and only update that file to change all of them. On my
site - http://www.rendermania.com/ - I have two of them and a simple
JavaScript to switch between them depending on if it is being viewed on
Explorer or Netscape.

Also you may want to make sure you are validating against HTML 4
transitional instead of strict as it allows backwards compatibility and lets
you get away with more. Strict is absolutely what you should use, but most
browsers allow you to get way without anyway. Anyway HTML 4 is already a bit
old - XHTML is meant to be around - although I haven't really been following
it - basically an XML-isation of HTML - if that makes any sense!

Another thing you should look for is SSI - server side includes. These are
usually on on most web servers and allow pages to be combined on the
server - I use it for my navigation panel. It is far better than using
frames as it is completely transparent to the user.

My front page is just this:

<TABLE>

  <TR>

<!--#include virtual="/includes/menu.html" -->

<td width="16"> <!--Margin spacer--></td>
<TD valign="top">

<!--#include virtual="/news.html" -->

</TD>
</TR></TABLE>

Then I update the news by just changing news.html - don't have to bother
about the rest of it. However I could make this a hell of a lot more
dynamic. (and should - just don't have the time!) If you want to preview it
locally just set up Apache and turn SSI on. Then just make sure you save the
pages as .shtml

Simon
http://www.rendermania.com/
UIN 11123737

> Do you know of any guides to CSS?
>
> Thanks
>
> D
>
> > --jcm
> >

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