Re: [WSG] CSS Debugger in JS
On Wed, 12 May 2004 12:49:38 +1000, Gary Menzel wrote: This looks very kewl - but, while I could cut and paste the stylesheet into the Edit CSS window for FireFox, I could not get the bookmarklets to work. Hi Gary, I found that you can't use a local style sheet for web-based pages. So I made two bookmarks - one for looking at pages on the web, and one for use locally when I'm not connected to the web. I used File Bookmark from the Bookmarks menu and pasted the script into the Location box. I named this bookmark CSS Debug - web. Then I pasted this same script into a text editor. Next I saved the stylesheet into a folder, opened it in the browser, and copied the URL to this file from the address bar. I pasted this URL into the script in the text editor, replacing the http: type URL. Finally I made another File Bookmark entry from this modified script, naming this bookmark CSS Debug - local. Hope this helps. Write me off list if my explanation is obtuse. Life. Love. Peace. David -- David Hucklesby, on 5/11/2004 Read Cinco de Mayo at http://www.hucklesby.com/ -- * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
[WSG] Launched my third xhtml site!!
I'm really thrilled to have launched my third xhtml site today. This one's been nearly a year in the making, and it used old table-based layout techniques at the start, and Ive had to build my own chopping cart, content management system, and it's on its third go-round now even as it's opened. But I'm chuffed, that I've managed to build the site without having to compromise the CSS and xhtml. The underlying ColdFusion code is less than half the size of the first version I build nearly a year ago, since I've learned from this group as I've gone along. I'm now creating pages and applications in ColdFusion in a fraction of the time it used to take me, and I know I can make mods quickly and far more easily than I would have in the first version of this site. Now if only I can get the client to update the news page from the gobbledegook I put there in the demo version of the site. g I'd be interested in your thoughts, but please if you're going to play with the shopping cart, please dont actually send off your order I don't want my client getting a heart attack with the excitement of getting a whole bunch of orders on his first day, only to find they're not real orders. The site is at http://auslegs.com.au Cheers Mike Kear AFP Webworks Windsor, NSW, Australia http://afpwebworks.com Message sent using UebiMiau 2.7.2 * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
RE: [WSG] Launched my third xhtml site!!
I hope you are after honest opinions? Personally I think the background in any of the buttons is to much and will make it difficult to read for some people with disabilities. On the front-page I think there is a lot of wasted space, the top banner has a lot of white space that could be used. The text (introduction) is half way down the bottom and requires scrolling instead of the required in your face introduction. The footer could a whole lot smaller. The colour selection for a product is better served as a dropdown instead of listing all the colours with a button next to it. You should use paging when listing the products, what if they end up having 1000 products? Hold on were you after comments on the XHTML or the site ? ;-)) If you come to the Web standards meeting tonight you will have a chance to strangle me, and so will a lot of other people... -Original Message- From: Mkear [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, 12 May 2004 11:18 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [WSG] Launched my third xhtml site!! I'm really thrilled to have launched my third xhtml site today. This one's been nearly a year in the making, and it used old table-based layout techniques at the start, and I've had to build my own chopping cart, content management system, and it's on its third go-round now even as it's opened. But I'm chuffed, that I've managed to build the site without having to compromise the CSS and xhtml. The underlying ColdFusion code is less than half the size of the first version I build nearly a year ago, since I've learned from this group as I've gone along. I'm now creating pages and applications in ColdFusion in a fraction of the time it used to take me, and I know I can make mods quickly and far more easily than I would have in the first version of this site. Now if only I can get the client to update the news page from the gobbledegook I put there in the demo version of the site. g I'd be interested in your thoughts, but please if you're going to play with the shopping cart, please dont actually send off your order - I don't want my client getting a heart attack with the excitement of getting a whole bunch of orders on his first day, only to find they're not real orders. The site is at http://auslegs.com.au Cheers Mike Kear AFP Webworks Windsor, NSW, Australia http://afpwebworks.com Message sent using UebiMiau 2.7.2 * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * Register now for the 3rd National Conference on Tourism Futures, being held in Townsville, North Queensland 4-6 August - www.tq.com.au/tfconf * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
RE: [WSG] Launched my third xhtml site!!
Can I order a strangulation by proxy? ;o] -- Cameron Adams W: www.themaninblue.com --- Taco Fleur [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If you come to the Web standards meeting tonight you will have a chance to strangle me, and so will a lot of other people... __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Movies - Buy advance tickets for 'Shrek 2' http://movies.yahoo.com/showtimes/movie?mid=1808405861 * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
RE: [WSG] Launched my third xhtml site!!
For $199.90 you can.. -Original Message- From: Cameron Adams [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, 12 May 2004 5:10 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [WSG] Launched my third xhtml site!! Can I order a strangulation by proxy? ;o] -- Cameron Adams W: www.themaninblue.com --- Taco Fleur [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If you come to the Web standards meeting tonight you will have a chance to strangle me, and so will a lot of other people... __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Movies - Buy advance tickets for 'Shrek 2' http://movies.yahoo.com/showtimes/movie?mid=1808405861 * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * Register now for the 3rd National Conference on Tourism Futures, being held in Townsville, North Queensland 4-6 August - www.tq.com.au/tfconf * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Launched my third xhtml site!!
Good on you, Mike. You've confessed before that you're not a designer, so you've done reasonably well given that. (This is meant to sound encouraging!) Just some quick comments: * Instead of the grey bullets, which take up a lot of room on your navigation elements, how about either scrapping them altogether or perhaps making a fat left hand border instead? This would leave a little more room for your text to expand if a user wants to increase font size. * You still have a bit of legacy code in the footer. You could get rid of that align=center stuff with CSS. You could turn the Home | News | etc links into a list in the HTML just as you have at the top of the page and use a border-left with a little padding for the lis. If you add a ul + li to your css for the footer you can turn the left border and padding off for the first li, even if IE users will still be stuck with them. * Can you line up the top of the product pictures with the red product codes? This would look better than having them floating half way vertically. * Don't forget that you can make text a different colour from black. You could go with a darkish grey or perhaps a dark, desaturated green to go with the dominant colour of the page. Don't worry about web-safe colours any more. * Can you make the colour of the shopping cart icons match the green of the other elements? If you could extract those little shopping cart images from the current buttons and attach them to some real text links (with a border-left and a background-image) this would be better coding/accessibility practice and would look better, too. And perhaps place them at top right of the header with the same margin (top and right) as that of the table-leg l in the logo from the line above it. * It's a bit confusing (to me) that the shopping cart icons appear on pages that don't seem to relate to ordering. Would it be best either to confine them to a set of logical pages or have them appear (visibility: visible;) only when an ordering process has been undertaken? All the best -Hugh Todd (Hope the WSG can cope with this mix of coding and design comments.) I'm really thrilled to have launched my third xhtml site today. * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
[WSG] Looks good in IE but a little off in Moz? Could I ask for some peeks and ideas?
Hey - building a site using XHTML 1.1 and CSS and while I have the look right in IE, Moz is screwing a few things up. While acceptable in a visual sense, I can see the difference and want to minimize this and do it right Also, what in XHTML 1.1 can I use to replace the lang=en-US attribute? I keep seeing references to some XML:lang variation but am unable to find anything further on how to implement this. Thanks as always! Brian Grimmer theGrafixGuy * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
[WSG] DOHeth! URL Helps doesn't it!
Sorry bout that J http://www.mosincorporated.com/site2/ Hey - building a site using XHTML 1.1 and CSS and while I have the look right in IE, Moz is screwing a few things up. While acceptable in a visual sense, I can see the difference and want to minimize this and do it right Also, what in XHTML 1.1 can I use to replace the lang=en-US attribute? I keep seeing references to some XML:lang variation but am unable to find anything further on how to implement this. Thanks as always! Brian Grimmer theGrafixGuy
RE: [WSG] Forms, labels headers
Ok Michael, Rewrite www.seowebsitepromotion.com, making it appear as is, meeting 640, 800 and 1024+, windowed of not, whilst maintaining non collapsing/overlapping columns whose alternate sheets 1px delimiting column borders do not break at certain resolutions in certain browsers -- and I'll take my hat off to you. Why bother? That's like the 'make your site accessible to handhelds' argument. In the real world, nobody is going to access my site with a handheld because it contains no relevant data. It's meant to be viewed on a desktop. If I were offering columnar data, like flight schedules and fairs I would ensure wireless pad users could access the data (but, of course, because of the limiting screen size, I wouldn't use tables but collapsing divs), since they may be en-route to the airport and needed last minute departure times. But as Neerav implies, there is the law of diminishing returns, and accessibility is about making your site as accessible to as great an audience - a real, not imagined or hypothetical audience - as possible. Use the currently available tools and wait for CSS and browsers to go columnar. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer www.seowebsitepromotion.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Michael Donnermeyer Sent: 12 May 2004 02:19 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [WSG] Forms, labels headers using a CSS for the sake of it approach creating multi column layouts and faffing about I don't look at it that way...it's quite easy to get everything to work right without tables if you're willing to put the effort in. Since mid 03 I have stopped using tables for anything other than what they're supposed to contain...tabular data. That's their purpose in the world, just like ours is to pay outrageous taxes and work our butts off for low pay (isn't it?). I've had very few issues arise since...less than the layouts before, that's for sure. The worst thing that ever happened to the web was the idea of using tables for layout, although frames are a very close second. Accessibility should be the primary concern of every developer for the web. The web was intended to make sharing information/data/etc. simple and far-reaching. Why a developer would make so much more work for him/her self is beyond me when there's a valid, easy, better, standardized alternative. ~MD On May 11, 2004, at 20:49, James Ellis wrote: 1. I have a multi-column layout... when I psuh the site to a layout for handheld I'll turn off the floats that handle the columns. The content will then cascade down the page. This will involve adding a new stylesheet and linking to it via a media attr, a user agent sniff or a hyperlink for the user. 2. I have a multi-column layout... when I push the site to a layout for handheld I'll have to change the markup so that the table rows have only one cell in them each. This will also affect the screen and print versions of the site (so I'll have to do mutiple markup for the same content). Which one is easier and better in the long run? faffing around with rowspans and colspans can be frustrating as well. The difference being that one method has a future, the other doesn't. Cheers James Neerav wrote: hear hear .. multi-columnnar sites are much easier to do with a single wrap around table and work cross-browser than using a CSS for the sake of it approach creating multi column layouts and faffing about s=as Mike says standards are all well and good, and where possible I have no problem with adhering to the letter and spirit of webs standards, but sometimes things like wrap around tables are indispensible. * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
RE: [WSG] Site Review and some guidance on inheritance please
Alan wrote:
page at the moment but I am interested in how it looks to you
guys.
It is a starting point and compared to my early attempts quite sucessful.
I have one thing I am struggling on - perhaps some of you know a good
resource that will help me understand this concept. The text Latest
Results should be black but is white. I think this is because the h2
setting is more specific than the class content and the id
results. So
how do I specify that h2 within results should be a
different colour than
a general h2? I have tried various different formats gleaned
from the web
but can't get any of them to work.
try
#results h2 {color: black; }
it means that all h2's inside the container with the id of results with have a color
of black
or you could try
.content h2 {color: black; }
which means that all h2's inside the containers with a class of content with have a
color of black
in both cases it is parent (results, content), child (h2) relationship.
Nick
*
The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/
See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
for some hints on posting to the list getting help
*
RE: [WSG] Forms, labels headers
That's like the 'make your site accessible to handhelds' argument. In the real world, nobody is going to access my site with a handheld because it contains no relevant data. Bold assumption. Does that mean that you are absolutely sure that any person who might be potentially interested in the content provided on your site won't use handheld for browsing? But as Neerav implies, there is the law of diminishing returns, and accessibility is about making your site as accessible to as great an audience - a real, not imagined or hypothetical audience - as possible. Once again, does that mean that handheld devices, celular phones and all other non desktop browsing stuff does not exist in the real world? Use the currently available tools and wait for CSS and browsers to go columnar. And then what? Complain about old browsers being used by too many people to be ignored, complexity of the CSSx etc? But I agree - use tools currently available, not those from last century (199x). Sure you can use whatever you wish to, but statement that current CSS is not ready for real world is wrong, IMO. And by the way: xhml1.1 cannot be served as text/html. And IE does not support application/xthml+xml. Why not to stick with HTML4.01 till better times? Regards, Rimantas * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
[WSG] Re: some guidance on inheritance please
Nick and Cameron, Cheers guys - now working OK. Alan * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
RE: [WSG] Forms, labels headers
Hi Rimantas, Bold assumption. Does that mean that you are absolutely sure that any person who might be potentially interested in the content provided on your site won't use handheld for browsing? No, I'm not sure; I just don't care. I have not developed the site for them. Once again, does that mean that handheld devices, celular phones and all other non desktop browsing stuff does not exist in the real world? I just don't care. I have not developed the content for them. And then what? Complain about old browsers being used by too many people to be ignored, complexity of the CSSx etc? I'm not complaining. I use of current technology. And my sites will be accessible to older browsers. Once again, does that mean that handheld devices, celular phones and all other non desktop browsing stuff does not exist in the real world? You're mixing statements. Sure you can use whatever you wish to, but statement that current CSS is not ready for real world is wrong, IMO. Look at papers, magazines and websites. Columns, columns and columns. Can these be easily achieved using current CSS? And by the way: xhml1.1 cannot be served as text/html. No, it can't; it's - to use the cute phrase - tag soup. And IE does not support application/xthml+xml. Yup, silly, eh. Why not to stick with HTML4.01 till better times? Because I need to look to the future. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer www.seowebsitepromotion.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Rimantas Liubertas Sent: 12 May 2004 10:36 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [WSG] Forms, labels headers That's like the 'make your site accessible to handhelds' argument. In the real world, nobody is going to access my site with a handheld because it contains no relevant data. Bold assumption. Does that mean that you are absolutely sure that any person who might be potentially interested in the content provided on your site won't use handheld for browsing? But as Neerav implies, there is the law of diminishing returns, and accessibility is about making your site as accessible to as great an audience - a real, not imagined or hypothetical audience - as possible. Once again, does that mean that handheld devices, celular phones and all other non desktop browsing stuff does not exist in the real world? Use the currently available tools and wait for CSS and browsers to go columnar. And then what? Complain about old browsers being used by too many people to be ignored, complexity of the CSSx etc? But I agree - use tools currently available, not those from last century (199x). Sure you can use whatever you wish to, but statement that current CSS is not ready for real world is wrong, IMO. And by the way: xhml1.1 cannot be served as text/html. And IE does not support application/xthml+xml. Why not to stick with HTML4.01 till better times? Regards, Rimantas * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
RE: [WSG] Forms, labels headers
Look at papers, magazines and websites. Columns, columns and columns. Can these be easily achieved using current CSS? Yes. Because I need to look to the future. Well, then we see different future. I see increasing usage of handheld browsers for which one column is the best bet so far. You are looking to fhe future with xhtml1.1 (which is much much younger than CSS) but care for the older browsers. Properly marked up content is accessible for any browser even withous CSS support, nothing new in that. Anyway, I can see your point. Mine is different one and we both have arguments for them, so let's stop here. At least your site is an good example of well coded hibryd layout ;) Regards, Rimantas * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
RE: [WSG] Forms, labels headers
Mine is different one and we both have arguments for them, so let's stop here. Good call, Rimantas. Have a good one, Mike -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Rimantas Liubertas Sent: 12 May 2004 13:00 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [WSG] Forms, labels headers Look at papers, magazines and websites. Columns, columns and columns. Can these be easily achieved using current CSS? Yes. Because I need to look to the future. Well, then we see different future. I see increasing usage of handheld browsers for which one column is the best bet so far. You are looking to fhe future with xhtml1.1 (which is much much younger than CSS) but care for the older browsers. Properly marked up content is accessible for any browser even withous CSS support, nothing new in that. Anyway, I can see your point. Mine is different one and we both have arguments for them, so let's stop here. At least your site is an good example of well coded hibryd layout ;) Regards, Rimantas * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Forms, labels headers
On Wed, 2004-05-12 at 12:33 +1000, Jake Badger wrote: It's not as though if we hadn't had tables for layout we would have sat around doing nothing. If it hadn't been for table layout CSS would have been developed sooner and taken up a lot faster. Assuming that the web would have been popular enough to warrant our attention even if it hadn't been as visually interesting as tabular layouts allowed it to be, sure. I'm not sure that that's a safe assumption to make, however. Apologies to the list admins if this is moving off-topic. Andrew Taumoefolau * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
[WSG] Design Philosophy
I have seen some articles on the web that say we shouldn't care about how our web sites look as long as theyuse valid mark up language and separate content from presentation. Personally I want to design web sites that:- 1) Look good in standards compliant browsers. 2) Degrade gracefully in other browsers. 3) Are accessible to other devices (one of my readers uses Internet Television so this is a real practical issue for me). Is this a reasonable philosophy or is there something I have missed in this debate? Alan
RE: [WSG] Launched my third xhtml site!!
On Wed, 12 May 2004 00:09:41 -0700 (PDT), Cameron Adams wrote: Can I order a strangulation by proxy? ;o] I wondered why he snuck in late, after we'd done the introductions! g Lea -- Lea de Groot Elysian Systems - http://elysiansystems.com/ Brisbane, Australia * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
[WSG] Brisbane Meeting Report
A short report, as its bloody late and I really should go to bed. Tonight's first WSG meeting in Brisbane was a resounding success. Thank you Tony, for your presentation. Your details of form layout, your apps online and the ensuing discussion were interesting and enlightening - looking forward to reading your announcement of your discovery, first announced at Our Meeting (I feel so honoured :)) Thank you, Russ and Peter, not only for coming up and helping us run the meeting so smoothly, but for starting up the WSG in the first place so that this list could happen, and BWSG come about :) Thank you Gary, Vaughan and Carole-Ann for being the bods on the spot, supplying the premises and supplying the food (I cleverly arrived just after all the bits were chopped) And thank you, too, to everyone who attended - without you the night wouldnt have been a success, let alone interesting and fun. :) Looking forward to the next one! Lea -- Lea de Groot Elysian Systems - http://elysiansystems.com/ Brisbane, Australia * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Design Philosophy
Alan, What articles are you referring to? Andrei Herasimchuk writes some excellent posts against this kind of attitude at his site, Design By Fire (http://www.designbyfire.com/). See for instance the now famous Design Matters (http://www.designbyfire.com/59.html) or Gurus v. Bloggers, Round 1 (http://www.designbyfire.com/76.html). cheers dez Alan Milnes wrote: I have seen some articles on the web that say we shouldn't care about how our web sites look as long as they use valid mark up language and separate content from presentation. Personally I want to design web sites that:- 1) Look good in standards compliant browsers. 2) Degrade gracefully in other browsers. 3) Are accessible to other devices (one of my readers uses Internet Television so this is a real practical issue for me). Is this a reasonable philosophy or is there something I have missed in this debate? Alan * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Design Philosophy
Jeremy, Can I copy your statement, paste it in Illustrator, make it prettty bold, and post it here at work on the bulletin board? Please?! Too many creatives here (at where I work) don't seem to understand this concept... thanks, Zulema · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ! ! b l u e w e b d e s i g n e r email : [EMAIL PROTECTED] website : http://zoblue.com/ weblog : http://blog.zoblue.com/ · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Quoting Jeremy Flint [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On the web, you really have NO control over your site once it is public. Users have the ability to disable styles, images, apply different fonts and colors that override yours. The only thing you truly have control over is the information and the code behind it. All asthetic aspects of a site are open to whether a user wants to see them. - Jeremy Flint www.jeremyflint.com Alan Milnes wrote: I have seen some articles on the web that say we shouldn't care about how our web sites look as long as they use valid mark up language and separate content from presentation. Personally I want to design web sites that:- 1) Look good in standards compliant browsers. 2) Degrade gracefully in other browsers. 3) Are accessible to other devices (one of my readers uses Internet Television so this is a real practical issue for me). Is this a reasonable philosophy or is there something I have missed in this debate? Alan * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Brisbane Meeting Report
On Thu, 2004-05-13 at 00:02 +1000, Lea de Groot wrote: A short report, as its bloody late and I really should go to bed. Tonight's first WSG meeting in Brisbane was a resounding success. Ditto that, and the rest. Thanks to all involved. What a wonderful thing it is to realise that there really are human beings that exist that are as attached to the web as I am :). Cheers, Andrew * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Design Philosophy
What articles are you referring to? Well there's quite a few but here's one where the basic idea is right but I find it just a tad idealistic:- http://www.westciv.com/style_master/house/good_oil/not_paper/ Alan * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
[WSG] reference entity year end with ; ???
It's frustrating as it can be very difficult to find information about these things via Google. Anyways, I'm getting alot of error messages when I validate - in particular I'm getting messages like this: 7. Line 50, column 40: cannot generate system identifier for general entity year td class=calndrHdra href=?month=4year=2004a=Homelaquo;/a/td 8. Line 50, column 40: general entity year not defined and no default entity td class=calndrHdra href=?month=4year=2004a=Homelaquo;/a/td 9. Line 50, column 44: reference not terminated by REFC delimiter td class=calndrHdra href=?month=4year=2004a=Homelaquo;/a/td 10. Line 50, column 44: reference to external entity in attribute value td class=calndrHdra href=?month=4year=2004a=Homelaquo;/a/td 11. Line 50, column 44: reference to entity year for which no system identifier could be generated td class=calndrHdra href=?month=4year=2004a=Homeq=indexlaquo;/a/td 12. Line 50, column 39: entity was defined here td class=calndrHdra href=?month=4year=2004a=Homelaquo;/a/td Oi vey, wondering what I'm doing with this stuff anymore... Can somebody shed some light on these messages? v * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
RE: [WSG] reference entity year end with ; ???
What it's trying to say is that you need to change your '' to the 'amp;' entity in your URL's. The XHTML validator is trying to parse year, which isn't valid. Check out this (Section C12) for more info: http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/ Will Chatham -Original Message- From: Vaska.WSG [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2004 11:04 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [WSG] reference entity year end with ; ??? It's frustrating as it can be very difficult to find information about these things via Google. Anyways, I'm getting alot of error messages when I validate - in particular I'm getting messages like this: 7.Line 50, column 40: cannot generate system identifier for general entity year td class=calndrHdra href=?month=4year=2004a=Homelaquo;/a/td 8.Line 50, column 40: general entity year not defined and no default entity td class=calndrHdra href=?month=4year=2004a=Homelaquo;/a/td 9.Line 50, column 44: reference not terminated by REFC delimiter td class=calndrHdra href=?month=4year=2004a=Homelaquo;/a/td 10. Line 50, column 44: reference to external entity in attribute value td class=calndrHdra href=?month=4year=2004a=Homelaquo;/a/td 11. Line 50, column 44: reference to entity year for which no system identifier could be generated td class=calndrHdra href=?month=4year=2004a=Homeq=indexlaquo;/a/td 12. Line 50, column 39: entity was defined here td class=calndrHdra href=?month=4year=2004a=Homelaquo;/a/td Oi vey, wondering what I'm doing with this stuff anymore... Can somebody shed some light on these messages? v * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
RE: [WSG] Design Philosophy
Can I copy your statement, paste it in Illustrator, make it prettty bold, and post it here at work on the bulletin board? Please?! You could, but then you'd just show that you haven't understood the basic premise behind his statement...as you're effectively trying to force a certain visual presentation onto users, rather than letting them decide how it should be presented... Unless it's meant to be an ironic statement... ;) P Patrick H. Lauke Webmaster / University of Salford http://www.salford.ac.uk * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Design Philosophy
sure, go ahead. - Jeremy Flint www.jeremyflint.com !!blue wrote: Jeremy, Can I copy your statement, paste it in Illustrator, make it prettty bold, and post it here at work on the bulletin board? Please?! Too many creatives here (at where I work) don't seem to understand this concept... thanks, Zulema · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ! ! b l u e w e b d e s i g n e r email : [EMAIL PROTECTED] website : http://zoblue.com/ weblog : http://blog.zoblue.com/ · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Quoting Jeremy Flint [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On the web, you really have NO control over your site once it is public. Users have the ability to disable styles, images, apply different fonts and colors that override yours. The only thing you truly have control over is the information and the code behind it. All asthetic aspects of a site are open to whether a user wants to see them. - Jeremy Flint www.jeremyflint.com Alan Milnes wrote: I have seen some articles on the web that say we shouldn't care about how our web sites look as long as they use valid mark up language and separate content from presentation. Personally I want to design web sites that:- 1) Look good in standards compliant browsers. 2) Degrade gracefully in other browsers. 3) Are accessible to other devices (one of my readers uses Internet Television so this is a real practical issue for me). Is this a reasonable philosophy or is there something I have missed in this debate? Alan * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Design Philosophy
Actually, I think it was Jeff Veen who mentioned something along those lines at SXSW. Kind of stuck with me. - Jeremy Flint www.jeremyflint.com !!blue wrote: Jeremy, Can I copy your statement, paste it in Illustrator, make it prettty bold, and post it here at work on the bulletin board? Please?! Too many creatives here (at where I work) don't seem to understand this concept... thanks, Zulema · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ! ! b l u e w e b d e s i g n e r email : [EMAIL PROTECTED] website : http://zoblue.com/ weblog : http://blog.zoblue.com/ · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Quoting Jeremy Flint [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On the web, you really have NO control over your site once it is public. Users have the ability to disable styles, images, apply different fonts and colors that override yours. The only thing you truly have control over is the information and the code behind it. All asthetic aspects of a site are open to whether a user wants to see them. - Jeremy Flint www.jeremyflint.com Alan Milnes wrote: I have seen some articles on the web that say we shouldn't care about how our web sites look as long as they use valid mark up language and separate content from presentation. Personally I want to design web sites that:- 1) Look good in standards compliant browsers. 2) Degrade gracefully in other browsers. 3) Are accessible to other devices (one of my readers uses Internet Television so this is a real practical issue for me). Is this a reasonable philosophy or is there something I have missed in this debate? Alan * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] reference entity year end with ; ???
El mié, 12-05-2004 a las 17:03, Vaska.WSG escribió: 7.Line 50, column 40: cannot generate system identifier for general entity year td class=calndrHdra href=?month=4year=2004a=Homelaquo;/a/td Oi vey, wondering what I'm doing with this stuff anymore... Can somebody shed some light on these messages? Convert your '' to the amp; entity (a bunch of similar emails are heading your way in this very moment :) -- Manuel trabaja para Simplelógica, construcción web (+34) 985 22 12 65 http://simplelogica.net * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] reference entity year end with ; ???
Vaska, The answer is simple. Your URLs contain ampersands (), which are a character which cannot be used directly in HTML. Why? Because it's used for entities, like amp; and copy; and #8212;. Without boring you with the details, you need to use ?month=4amp;year=2004amp;a=Home, not ?month=4year=2004a=Home to pass validation (hence write well-formed HTML). No, the validator is not broken or wrong. Yes, I know every book tells you to use a plain ampersand. Yes I know it works in most browsers and situations today, but plain ampersands are not correct :) If it's a huge deal to re-write your application at this point, you might consider writing a quick function (in PHP, I'd use ob_start() with a call back function with a regex to replace all the problematic ampersands in URLs on the way to the browser), but your mileage may vary. You're better off getting it right now, rather than relying on such a beast. Justin On 13/05/2004, at 1:03 AM, Vaska.WSG wrote: It's frustrating as it can be very difficult to find information about these things via Google. Anyways, I'm getting alot of error messages when I validate - in particular I'm getting messages like this: 7. Line 50, column 40: cannot generate system identifier for general entity year td class=calndrHdra href=?month=4year=2004a=Homelaquo;/a/td [snip] Oi vey, wondering what I'm doing with this stuff anymore... Can somebody shed some light on these messages? --- Justin French http://indent.com.au * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] reference entity year end with ; ???
Thanks, all of this is just making more stupid by the second... ;) On 12 May 2004, at 17:15, Chatham, Will wrote: What it's trying to say is that you need to change your '' to the 'amp;' entity in your URL's. The XHTML validator is trying to parse year, which isn't valid. Check out this (Section C12) for more info: http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/ Will Chatham * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Design Philosophy
Alan That article was written in 1999 as an intervention against the printed page paradigm and to get desinegers to transition to CSS. While John Allsopp does have some fairly strident views on web design* which make for good discussions, based on the criterion you set out in your first post, I think John would entirely agree, ie. 1) Look good in standards compliant browsers. 2) Degrade gracefully in other browsers. 3) Are accessible to other devices I think that John's main thesis, then as now, is about encouraging a more felxible way of viewing web design, one which harnesses the strengths of the medium. A Dao of Web Design written a year later is probably the most well articulated piece in this regard. I don't believe John holds the view that we shouldn't care about how our web sites look as long as they use valid mark up language and separate content from presentation and I certainly don't believe that to be the gist of the article you cited either. The latest release of Style Master has some pretty good looking templates which I think shows an understanding of the value of good design. (*Since the Melbourne meeting where he articulated his views on image replacement, John has been promising to detail his positiont in writing, hint, hint...) cheers dez Alan Milnes wrote: What articles are you referring to? Well there's quite a few but here's one where the basic idea is right but I find it just a tad idealistic:- http://www.westciv.com/style_master/house/good_oil/not_paper/ Alan * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Design Philosophy
Yes, but are there any really hard statistics about what the public is doing. We know roughly 7% don't use or diable javascript. But what about disabling styles? On 12 May 2004, at 16:13, Jeremy Flint wrote: On the web, you really have NO control over your site once it is public. Users have the ability to disable styles, images, apply different fonts and colors that override yours. The only thing you truly have control over is the information and the code behind it. All asthetic aspects of a site are open to whether a user wants to see them. * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] reference entity year end with ; ???
Thanks Justin, It's clear to me. But what I can't figure out is why I've never noticed this one before? Really...I'm just amazed this hasn't crossed my path before... It will probably only take a couple of hours to make all the changes, not very much in the grand scheme of things...v On 12 May 2004, at 17:29, Justin French wrote: Vaska, The answer is simple. Your URLs contain ampersands (), which are a character which cannot be used directly in HTML. Why? Because it's used for entities, like amp; and copy; and #8212;. Without boring you with the details, you need to use ?month=4amp;year=2004amp;a=Home, not ?month=4year=2004a=Home to pass validation (hence write well-formed HTML). No, the validator is not broken or wrong. Yes, I know every book tells you to use a plain ampersand. Yes I know it works in most browsers and situations today, but plain ampersands are not correct :) If it's a huge deal to re-write your application at this point, you might consider writing a quick function (in PHP, I'd use ob_start() with a call back function with a regex to replace all the problematic ampersands in URLs on the way to the browser), but your mileage may vary. You're better off getting it right now, rather than relying on such a beast. Justin * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Design Philosophy
On 12/05/2004, at 11:03 PM, Alan Milnes wrote: I have seen some articles on the web that say we shouldn't care about how our web sites look as long as they use valid mark up language and separate content from presentation. Personally I want to design web sites that:- 1) Look good in standards compliant browsers. Look good is a subjective term, but yes, I'm designing websites which look good. 2) Degrade gracefully in other browsers. I design for standards-compliant browsers first, optimising for the future, rather than the past. Once I'm happy, I'll use a combination of the following to attack older, less compliant browsers: 1. @import (to hide the CSS from NN4, IE4, etc), so they just get plain text. I'm guessing WebTV falls into this category too. 2. IE-only conditional comments [1] to provide style-sheets targeted at IE5/5.5/6 if they're proving to be problematic with the main style sheet. As I'm sure you're aware, Graceful Degradation means you (and your clients) do need to let go of pixel-perfect designs on older browsers. Make sure the content is accessible first, and then see what you can do about style on top of that. 3) Are accessible to other devices (one of my readers uses Internet Television so this is a real practical issue for me). The beauty of standards is that most of the work is done for you here. If you mark-up your pages with structural, semantically rich XHTML without any presentational code, you've made a good start. Now, make sure that your pages function and are legible with JavaScript turned off, and with CSS turned off (or just comment out your style sheets). REALLY good start. Then have a glance at the 508 and WAG accessibility checklists, and cover as much of it as you can within reason (another subjective term). The biggest hurdle right now in terms of multiple devices is that a lot of hand-helds and PDAs are reading the screen media stylesheets, instead of the hand-held media stylesheets. Who knows what WebTV reads (if any). Is this a reasonable philosophy or is there something I have missed in this debate? Totally reasonable, well within reach, and it's all around you. There are thousands of beautiful, valid, standards-compliant, reasonably accessible, usable, cost-effective websites out there. It can be done. Those who argue that design doesn't matter are probably not taking into account the real-world business, branding and marketing needs of my clients, which is why I think they're wrong :) I do agree that the content and code should be the primary objectives, but we can have our cake and eat it too. --- Justin French http://indent.com.au * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] reference entity year end with ; ???
It's frustrating as it can be very difficult to find information about these things via Google. Anyways, I'm getting alot of error messages when I validate - in particular I'm getting messages like this: 7. Line 50, column 40: cannot generate system identifier for general entity year td class=calndrHdra href=?month=4year=2004a=Home«/a/td ... Oi vey, wondering what I'm doing with this stuff anymore... Can somebody shed some light on these messages? Yes :) All links in your (x)html should be url-encoded. That means, if you have link that looks like xyz.php?var1=somevar2=thing in your source it should look like this: xyz.php?var1=someamp;var2=thing Note the amp; instead of . Validators sees and expects it to be some entity. Those look like something;, 'something' being name of the entity. Hence the complain about entity year. Always write variable delimiters as amp; in your links and validator will stay happy. Or you can use semicolons for the same purpose. Regards, Rimantas * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
RE: [WSG] Design Philosophy
Yes, but are there any really hard statistics about what the public is doing. We know roughly 7% don't use or diable javascript. But what about disabling styles? rant type=unfocussed rambling Why is that relevant? Heck, it's almost like we're going back to the old how many % of users still run at 800x600...lamers We know it's 7% ? Do we ? Lies, statistics and lies...it always comes down to *your* particular audience. Yes, we have to give up a level of control on how our pages are presented (if you want pixel perfect, go back to print, or use flash/PDF/etc), but we gain flexible delivery based on user preferences. We're not forcing our visual sensibilities onto users that don't want them (e.g. those surfing with a simple text browsers couldn't give a damn about lines and lines of markup relating to presentation, or stylesheets). However, that's obviously *not* the same as saying that we should therefore not care about presentation at all. /rant P * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
[WSG] Re: Design Philosophy
That article was written in 1999 as an intervention against the printed page paradigm and to get desinegers to transition to CSS. Sorry if I picked a bad example - have been reading a lot the last few days! Justin French Thanks for the feedback and encouragement Justin. Alan * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
RE: [WSG] Launched my third xhtml site!!
Thanks Hugh, Cameron, Taco for your thoughts on my site. I really appreciate your going to the trouble to look for me and let me know what you think. This is something that normally happens across a desk in a bigger shop, but since I'm a one-man-band, I have no one but the client to ask about these things. A lot of the points you raise are a result of the client wishes. For example his son made the large front page graphic that takes up so much space. I don't know how to tell him we ought to lose it, so I just figured I'd work around it. I think it will go on the next site review in a month or so. The other things can be altered when I next work on the site after it's had a while running live. The client will have things he wants changed and I'll do them then. Thanks again for your thoughts.This group is extremely valuable to me as a resource for lots of things, not just improving my standards compliance. Cheers Mike Kear Windsor, NSW, Australia AFP Webworks http://afpwebworks.com Message sent using UebiMiau 2.7.2 * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Design Philosophy
the meaning behind my statement was more to the fact that there are a lot of different options for people to browse the web now. its not like 5 years ago when all people were using were computers with browsers. now people are using cell phones, palm pilots, pocket pcs, etc. there are screen readers for the visually impaired, as well as applications that blowup the onscreen content. you have people using Lynx (text-based browsing) for one reason or another. I know of several school systems (k-12) that still standardize on NS4 because that is what some web application they use supports. you can't design a site to pixel precision and expect others to see it that way. so it's not really a matter of statistics. its more a matter of how widespread the medium has become, extending to non-traditional devices and browsers. - Jeremy Flint www.jeremyflint.com P.H.Lauke wrote: Yes, but are there any really hard statistics about what the public is doing. We know roughly 7% don't use or diable javascript. But what about disabling styles? rant type=unfocussed rambling Why is that relevant? Heck, it's almost like we're going back to the old how many % of users still run at 800x600...lamers We know it's 7% ? Do we ? Lies, statistics and lies...it always comes down to *your* particular audience. Yes, we have to give up a level of control on how our pages are presented (if you want pixel perfect, go back to print, or use flash/PDF/etc), but we gain flexible delivery based on user preferences. We're not forcing our visual sensibilities onto users that don't want them (e.g. those surfing with a simple text browsers couldn't give a damn about lines and lines of markup relating to presentation, or stylesheets). However, that's obviously *not* the same as saying that we should therefore not care about presentation at all. /rant P * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
[WSG] css and accessibility question
Good evening list, My understanding is that an image _always_ needs a description for accessibility purposes, even if the image is there for decorative purposes and adds no important information to the page. Now, somebody told me that, if the image is there purely for decorative purposes and adds no important information to the page, it doesn't need a description and putting it in CSS as background image makes sense. However, if the image needs a description, it should be in the html because it is content. If you do put it in the css and give a title to the div, it is wrong use of css. Is this correct and am i wrong? In the (odd) case i'm right, is there some spec that states that an image always needs a description? -- Best regards, Luc http://www.dzinelabs.com Powered by The Bat! version 1.63 Beta/7 with Windows 2000 (build 2195), version 5.0 Service Pack 4 and using the best browser: Opera. Observe your enemies for they first find out your faults. * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
RE: [WSG] Design Philosophy
It seems to me that too many people confuse Design with artwork or colours, pictures the pretty stuff.But design goes a lot further than that. Its to do with DOES IT DO THE JOB IT'S FOR?. A designer has to take account of the medium hes designing for. A designer for a magazine has to think in terms or 4 or 6 colour printing presses, A4 paper size, space for headers, page numbers, gutter margins, all that stuff. A designer of home electrical appliances has to think in terms of safety, fashion look, easy use for all people including children, people with disabilities, colours dictated by the capabilities of the manufacturing factory regarding powder coating or enamel, or plastics etc etc. A designer of warships has to think in terms of huge bits of steel, predominantly grey/green colouring, allowing for battle damage but still keeping the ship functioning etc. And a web designer doesn't have those parameters to work with. A web designer has to design with colours that may vary from user to user, font sizes (and therefore page layout) that differs from user to user, little control over the browser the user's going to use now or in the future, varying font sets. If a designer comes up with a pretty-looking design that requires every browser to produce exactly the same look on a screen, and doesn't have a way (i.e. CSS hacks etc) to make that happen in every browser, then it's a poor design, no matter what it looks like because it's too inflexible. I'd suggest that such a designer is probably still thinking like a magazine designer and isnt thinking in the medium he's working with yet. One of the parameters of the medium a web designer has to learn to work with is that the output is FLEXIBLE. If the design isn't flexible it's a poor design. As an example (obvious perhaps but it will illustrate the point): If the design requires a particular font to be installed then it's a poor design. The design should allow for a variety of fonts. A good design will look different, but acceptable if the font displayed is one of a range of fonts. Similarly so with all the other parameters. If the design requires a colour to be rendered in precisely the same way on all users' machines, it's a poor design, because you have no control over users' monitors, and how well they're maintained. Designers who think they just handle the way a site looks aren't doing all their job. It's conceivable you could have a gorgeous looking site that is poorly designed because it doesn't work properly in the browsers of the target market. Or it looks fantastic but its difficult to find the information you're looking for. It's also conceivable that a very well designed site might be very boring to look at but functions very well indeed. In other words, if you're a web designer, and you think that is roughly the same as graphic artist you're a long way short of the mark. Cheers Mike Kear Windsor, NSW, Australia AFP Webworks http://afpwebworks.com Message sent using UebiMiau 2.7.2 * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
[WSG] IE5 v Mozilla
Can anyone tell me what causes the table under Latest Results not to take the whole 100% width of the div?? http://www.gameplan.org.uk/ http://www.gameplan.org.uk/styles/gplan.css Thanks Alan * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
RE: [WSG] Design Philosophy
I have been following this thread and this is a wonderful answer. Nancy Johnson -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mkear Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2004 9:45 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [WSG] Design Philosophy It seems to me that too many people confuse Design with artwork or colours, pictures - the pretty stuff.But design goes a lot further than that. It's to do with DOES IT DO THE JOB IT'S FOR?. A designer has to take account of the medium he's designing for. A designer for a magazine has to think in terms or 4 or 6 colour printing presses, A4 paper size, space for headers, page numbers, gutter margins, all that stuff. A designer of home electrical appliances has to think in terms of safety, fashion look, easy use for all people including children, people with disabilities, colours dictated by the capabilities of the manufacturing factory regarding powder coating or enamel, or plastics etc etc. A designer of warships has to think in terms of huge bits of steel, predominantly grey/green colouring, allowing for battle damage but still keeping the ship functioning etc. And a web designer doesn't have those parameters to work with. A web designer has to design with colours that may vary from user to user, font sizes (and therefore page layout) that differs from user to user, little control over the browser the user's going to use now or in the future, varying font sets. If a designer comes up with a pretty-looking design that requires every browser to produce exactly the same look on a screen, and doesn't have a way (i.e. CSS hacks etc) to make that happen in every browser, then it's a poor design, no matter what it looks like because it's too inflexible. I'd suggest that such a designer is probably still thinking like a magazine designer and isnt thinking in the medium he's working with yet. One of the parameters of the medium a web designer has to learn to work with is that the output is FLEXIBLE. If the design isn't flexible it's a poor design. As an example (obvious perhaps but it will illustrate the point): If the design requires a particular font to be installed then it's a poor design. The design should allow for a variety of fonts. A good design will look different, but acceptable if the font displayed is one of a range of fonts. Similarly so with all the other parameters. If the design requires a colour to be rendered in precisely the same way on all users' machines, it's a poor design, because you have no control over users' monitors, and how well they're maintained. Designers who think they just handle the way a site looks aren't doing all their job. It's conceivable you could have a gorgeous looking site that is poorly designed because it doesn't work properly in the browsers of the target market. Or it looks fantastic but its difficult to find the information you're looking for. It's also conceivable that a very well designed site might be very boring to look at but functions very well indeed. In other words, if you're a web designer, and you think that is roughly the same as graphic artist you're a long way short of the mark. Cheers Mike Kear Windsor, NSW, Australia AFP Webworks http://afpwebworks.com Message sent using UebiMiau 2.7.2 * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] css and accessibility question
Hi Luc, It's my understanding that if you want the page to validate and pass some basic 508 stuff, ALT tags must be present for any images that are included in the page markup. I have seen before (perhaps ALA?) that if the image is decorative a simple null would surfice as an ALT tag. I think this, like most things, involves a bit of preference and I don't believe there is a definitive answer. Using a CSS image replacement technique (and there are a few available) is always a valid option but comes with it's own series of issues (what happens when images are disabled? etc...) So what to do? I (notice the preference) tend to use CSS background images where I can unless the img serves a real purpose, then it's included in the markup and ALT tagged appropriately. Hope that helped, Brian Luc wrote: Good evening list, My understanding is that an image _always_ needs a description for accessibility purposes, even if the image is there for decorative purposes and adds no important information to the page. Now, somebody told me that, if the image is there purely for decorative purposes and adds no important information to the page, it doesn't need a description and putting it in CSS as background image makes sense. However, if the image needs a description, it should be in the html because it is content. If you do put it in the css and give a title to the div, it is wrong use of css. Is this correct and am i wrong? In the (odd) case i'm right, is there some spec that states that an image always needs a description? * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] IE5 v Mozilla
Hi Alan, Try: table width=100% Brian Alan Milnes wrote: Can anyone tell me what causes the table under Latest Results not to take the whole 100% width of the div?? http://www.gameplan.org.uk/ http://www.gameplan.org.uk/styles/gplan.css Thanks Alan * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] css and accessibility question
If the content of the image is not anything of meaning to someone who can't see the image, then a simple alt= would suffice as it would validate xhtml. if the image has some sort of text in it (for instance, a menu item), then an alt tag needs to be present. but what if the image is surrounded by a link? would the title attribute of the link be sufficient? - Jeremy Flint www.jeremyflint.com Brian Foy wrote: Hi Luc, It's my understanding that if you want the page to validate and pass some basic 508 stuff, ALT tags must be present for any images that are included in the page markup. I have seen before (perhaps ALA?) that if the image is decorative a simple null would surfice as an ALT tag. I think this, like most things, involves a bit of preference and I don't believe there is a definitive answer. Using a CSS image replacement technique (and there are a few available) is always a valid option but comes with it's own series of issues (what happens when images are disabled? etc...) So what to do? I (notice the preference) tend to use CSS background images where I can unless the img serves a real purpose, then it's included in the markup and ALT tagged appropriately. Hope that helped, Brian Luc wrote: Good evening list, My understanding is that an image _always_ needs a description for accessibility purposes, even if the image is there for decorative purposes and adds no important information to the page. Now, somebody told me that, if the image is there purely for decorative purposes and adds no important information to the page, it doesn't need a description and putting it in CSS as background image makes sense. However, if the image needs a description, it should be in the html because it is content. If you do put it in the css and give a title to the div, it is wrong use of css. Is this correct and am i wrong? In the (odd) case i'm right, is there some spec that states that an image always needs a description? * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
RE: [WSG] css and accessibility question
In the (odd) case i'm right, is there some spec that states that an image always needs a description? The http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd requires an alt attribute for images, and the HTML DTD shows a similar requirement: !ELEMENT img EMPTY !ATTLIST img %attrs; src %URI; #REQUIRED alt %Text; #REQUIRED longdesc%URI; #IMPLIED height %Length; #IMPLIED width %Length; #IMPLIED usemap %URI; #IMPLIED ismap (ismap)#IMPLIED * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
[WSG] WAS: css and accessibility question
Good evening list, Tnx to all who have answered. I'm a bit clear on it now :-) -- Best regards, Luc http://www.dzinelabs.com Powered by The Bat! version 1.63 Beta/7 with Windows 2000 (build 2195), version 5.0 Service Pack 4 and using the best browser: Opera. Dieting is wishful shrinking. * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] css and accessibility question
On Wed, 12 May 2004 15:06:46 -0400, Brian Foy wrote: I have seen before (perhaps ALA?) that if the image is decorative a simple null would surfice as an ALT tag. Syntactivally, this should be implemented as: img src=thingy.jpg width=nn height=nn alt= ie, the alt attribute should be blank - a quoted string of no length. HIH Lea -- Lea de Groot Elysian Systems - http://elysiansystems.com/ Brisbane, Australia I ... can mostly solve the problems of the universe in one line of perl -- John Carter * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
RE: [WSG] Launched my third xhtml site!!
Hi Mike, I'm glad to hear you did not take the comments badly. It's always good to receive criticism, it only improves your and everyone else's work, I know it does mine. I understand what it is like to work with a client that puts in ideas that don't work so well, its an art to guide them away from the bad input they provide. You have to make them understand that it is not about them liking the site in end, but about the clients liking and being able to use the site so the user can order stuff and they can make money. If they make bad decisions it is up to you to explain why the decision they made is bad, and a simple its no good will not do for them, they need valid points to understand why their idea is no good. After you explained this to them it's best to take an attitude like you done your work and its up to them how they handle the information that you given them. T -Original Message- From: Mkear [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, 12 May 2004 9:57 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [WSG] Launched my third xhtml site!! Thanks Hugh, Cameron, Taco for your thoughts on my site. I really appreciate your going to the trouble to look for me and let me know what you think. This is something that normally happens across a desk in a bigger shop, but since I'm a one-man-band, I have no one but the client to ask about these things. A lot of the points you raise are a result of the client wishes. For example his son made the large front page graphic that takes up so much space. I don't know how to tell him we ought to lose it, so I just figured I'd work around it. I think it will go on the next site review in a month or so. The other things can be altered when I next work on the site after it's had a while running live. The client will have things he wants changed and I'll do them then. Thanks again for your thoughts.This group is extremely valuable to me as a resource for lots of things, not just improving my standards compliance. Cheers Mike Kear Windsor, NSW, Australia AFP Webworks http://afpwebworks.com Message sent using UebiMiau 2.7.2 * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * Register now for the 3rd National Conference on Tourism Futures, being held in Townsville, North Queensland 4-6 August - www.tq.com.au/tfconf * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
[WSG] Application of Web standards in real life
...just starting a new thread on this one so it doesn't get mixed up in the other one (forms labels etc). Cheers James James Do you know what percentage of people browsing the net use handhelds? I have been unable to find any statistics on it, but suspect its a very small number. My mode of operation is to always keep in mind the law of diminishing returns when designing for a client as commercial realities must be paramount when trying to earn a living So ... 1. Depending on the client ill aim for HTML 4 transitional or XHTML 1.0 transitional validation and complying to the spirit of web standards (no presentational tables etc and code that validates), or to the letter (code that validates). In both cases I will do my best to make it accessible. 2. Whatever design is decided upon i'll get it to work well on the newest mozilla, IE 4, 5, 5.5, 6, newest opera, see if it looks tolerable on Safari using Dan vine's icapture and in Netscape 4.08 3. Anything else is a bonus, eg: my personal site is table free, and scales from very small resoltions to very large with no problems (AFAIK) because I had the time to make it so. However some clients are not willing for you to go the Nth degree of cross browser compatibility, ill do my best to convince them but in the end its their choice -- Neerav Bhatt http://www.bhatt.id.au Web Development IT consultancy James Ellis wrote: 1. I have a multi-column layout... when I psuh the site to a layout for handheld I'll turn off the floats that handle the columns. The content will then cascade down the page. This will involve adding a new stylesheet and linking to it via a media attr, a user agent sniff or a hyperlink for the user. 2. I have a multi-column layout... when I push the site to a layout for handheld I'll have to change the markup so that the table rows have only one cell in them each. This will also affect the screen and print versions of the site (so I'll have to do mutiple markup for the same content). Which one is easier and better in the long run? faffing around with rowspans and colspans can be frustrating as well. The difference being that one method has a future, the other doesn't. Cheers James Neerav wrote: hear hear .. multi-columnnar sites are much easier to do with a single wrap around table and work cross-browser than using a CSS for the sake of it approach creating multi column layouts and faffing about s=as Mike says standards are all well and good, and where possible I have no problem with adhering to the letter and spirit of webs standards, but sometimes things like wrap around tables are indispensible. * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
[WSG] Application of web standards in real life (new thread)
Sorry about this everyone, flames to my address if you want. Trying again from scratch. Cheers James James Do you know what percentage of people browsing the net use handhelds? I have been unable to find any statistics on it, but suspect its a very small number. My mode of operation is to always keep in mind the law of diminishing returns when designing for a client as commercial realities must be paramount when trying to earn a living So ... 1. Depending on the client ill aim for HTML 4 transitional or XHTML 1.0 transitional validation and complying to the spirit of web standards (no presentational tables etc and code that validates), or to the letter (code that validates). In both cases I will do my best to make it accessible. 2. Whatever design is decided upon i'll get it to work well on the newest mozilla, IE 4, 5, 5.5, 6, newest opera, see if it looks tolerable on Safari using Dan vine's icapture and in Netscape 4.08 3. Anything else is a bonus, eg: my personal site is table free, and scales from very small resoltions to very large with no problems (AFAIK) because I had the time to make it so. However some clients are not willing for you to go the Nth degree of cross browser compatibility, ill do my best to convince them but in the end its their choice -- Neerav Bhatt http://www.bhatt.id.au Web Development IT consultancy James Ellis wrote: 1. I have a multi-column layout... when I psuh the site to a layout for handheld I'll turn off the floats that handle the columns. The content will then cascade down the page. This will involve adding a new stylesheet and linking to it via a media attr, a user agent sniff or a hyperlink for the user. 2. I have a multi-column layout... when I push the site to a layout for handheld I'll have to change the markup so that the table rows have only one cell in them each. This will also affect the screen and print versions of the site (so I'll have to do mutiple markup for the same content). Which one is easier and better in the long run? faffing around with rowspans and colspans can be frustrating as well. The difference being that one method has a future, the other doesn't. Cheers James Neerav wrote: hear hear .. multi-columnnar sites are much easier to do with a single wrap around table and work cross-browser than using a CSS for the sake of it approach creating multi column layouts and faffing about s=as Mike says standards are all well and good, and where possible I have no problem with adhering to the letter and spirit of webs standards, but sometimes things like wrap around tables are indispensible. * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
[WSG] Ten questions for Nick Finck
The latest in our series of WSG Ten question interviews. This time it is Nick Finck. Nick talks about Digital Web, structure, web standards, liquid layouts and blogging: http://webstandardsgroup.org/features/nick-finck.cfm Thanks Russ The Australian Museum. Australia's first - and leading - natural sciences and anthropology museum. Visit www.amonline.net.au The views in this email are those of the user and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Museum. The information contained in this email message and any accompanying files is or may be confidential and is for the intended recipient only. If you are not the intended recipient, any use, dissemination, reliance, forwarding, printing or copying of this email or any attached files is unauthorised. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete it and notify the sender.The Australian Museum does not guarantee the accuracy of any information contained in this e-mail or attached files. As Internet communications are not secure, the Australian Museum does not accept legal responsibility for the contents of this message or attached files.
Re: [WSG] Application of web standards in real life (new thread)
On 13/05/2004, at 1:21 PM, Chris Blown wrote: The paramount problem is not actually the technique that you use, or which way is wrong / better, rather the problem is that varying degrees of the standards are implemented in the swag of devices that are now able to load our content. Add to this the anomalies that arise from slightly different interpretations of the standards by the browser developers and you end up with a pretty tricky job. There are so many variables associated with these new devices. The small screen alone is the major concern, not to mention the memory limitations. The point about the future is true, though the rate at which these devices are moving, we'll have bigger screens and more memory before too long. What happens then, do you still need to support those people carrying around that old Nokia 6600.. That's the trick.. right? Consider this. If you manage to build a site that is standards compliant and works in almost every device as expected, then you deserve a bloody good pat on the back and make sure you post a link to WSG so we can learn how you managed to do it ;) And isn't a great deal of the difficulty with trying to support all these different devices one of access? I think there are limits as to how many different devices we can get our hands on to test. Oh for the day when by simply coding to standards our work will display well in all devices! Sarah * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
[WSG] IE layout issue
i have this layout http://204.157.1.128/~wadigi/index.html which seems to work fine in every modern browser bar ie6 . the content div seems to drop and the right side bar nav seems to be missing as well ... any ideas ? * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
[WSG] centering an element
i am trying to center an element in the middle of the screen using css... when the browser resizes it moves into the new middle. with tables i simple make a table 100% height and width. then put a fixed width table inside it with postition set to centre i can only find info on centering columns thank you * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
RE: [WSG] centering an element
and then in finding the quirksmode url I found this! http://vmalek.murphy.cz/ Has anyone discovered any issues with this method? -Original Message- From: glenn [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2004 11:35 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [WSG] centering an element i am trying to center an element in the middle of the screen using css... when the browser resizes it moves into the new middle. with tables i simple make a table 100% height and width. then put a fixed width table inside it with postition set to centre i can only find info on centering columns thank you * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
RE: [WSG] centering an element
www.quirksmode.org/css/centering.html seems that you need to use a table if you want vertical alignment that is consistent across recent browsers. I haven't been able to do it without using a table either... HTH. -Original Message- From: glenn [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2004 11:35 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [WSG] centering an element i am trying to center an element in the middle of the screen using css... when the browser resizes it moves into the new middle. with tables i simple make a table 100% height and width. then put a fixed width table inside it with postition set to centre i can only find info on centering columns thank you * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
