Re: [WSG] Ecomm using Paypal
I am working on a very bad implementation of a site. My job is to improve it for the timebeing, while we are developing a new standard site. Now the issue is with the payment system with the Paypal. I need to put in shipping cost for the products bought from here.. http://www.netcomm.com.au/products/voip/v35?SQ_PAINT_LAYOUT_NAME=runout&SQ_DESIGN_NAME=runout the hidden value says name="no_shipping"/>, where can i find the right list of the attributes.. as i did try but didnt work. Sounds like you sent this to the wrong mailing list? It doesn't sound like a web standards related question. Cheers, Nick *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] Website Creation Documentation Standards
Hi Lorrie, List, I am a web designer as a hobby and have run into a situation where I am not sure where to search. Does a standard exist for the creation of web site creation documentation? By this I mean documentation that would/might be turned over to the end user: 1. to allow the end user to mange the site himself 2. to document the project and for future reference When you ask about documentation to "allow the end user to mange the site himself" you're not very clear about whether you mean documenting the construction of the site, e.g., the setup of the CSS for developing future pages, or actual use, e.g., adding/updating/deleting content via a CMS. I don't have any suggestions for the former but for the latter I can recommend Screensteps. It's not open source but it is fast: http://www.bluemangolearning.com/ Cheers, Nick *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
[WSG] Article: "Vocalize Firefox" (text-to-speech extensions for Firefox)
I'm wondering if anyone has tried/tested the following potentially useful extensions and if so what their opinion was/is: "Two recently released text-to-speech extensions can transform Firefox into a talking Web browser suitable for users with visual impairments -- and anyone else who can use a speech interface to the Web. Fire Vox is designed to be a full-fledged "screen reader in a browser," usable for daily browsing even for unsighted users. CLiCk, Speak provides point-and-click screen reading, which can be helpful for partially-sighted users or sighted users who have written language difficulties (such as dyslexia)." http://www.linux.com/feature/122197 Nick *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
[WSG] Article: "Vocalize Firefox" (text-to-speech extensions for Firefox)
I'm wondering if anyone has tried/tested the following potentially useful extensions and if so what their opinion was/is: "Two recently released text-to-speech extensions can transform Firefox into a talking Web browser suitable for users with visual impairments -- and anyone else who can use a speech interface to the Web. Fire Vox is designed to be a full-fledged "screen reader in a browser," usable for daily browsing even for unsighted users. CLiCk, Speak provides point-and-click screen reading, which can be helpful for partially-sighted users or sighted users who have written language difficulties (such as dyslexia)." http://www.linux.com/feature/122197 Nick *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Accessible likert scale (disagree/agree/strongly agree/etc) forms
The problem with the code below is that the content of the will be read before every . That makes it very difficult for a screen reader user to read it fast. I would just have the question in a or possibly even a header element. Once the user has read through a few questions and realises that the structure is consistent, they won't need to listen to the whole of each label and they can very quickly skip through the form. What is your opinion on the idea of using SELECT mentioned by Patrick? Nick *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Accessible likert scale (disagree/agree/strongly agree/etc) forms
On 04/12/2007, at 12:07 AM, russ - maxdesign wrote: Hi Nick, The sample code on this page you link to does not look ideal. As has been mentioned on this list a few times, title attributes are often ignored by screen readers. And the use of a table element to lay out the form is a little odd. Unless I am missing something, I'd say it would be much better if it marked up with standard form elements. For example (warning - code below thrown together very quickly): The product is a good value for the dollar id="strongly-agree" type="radio" />strongly agree type="radio" />agree disagree undecided strongly disagree value="Submit" /> You can then use CSS (and a hammer if needed) to position these form elements exactly as you want. That does help Russ, thanks. As I said to Steve though I do wonder how much fun using JAWS or such like would be going through all that for 20 similar questions! Nick *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Accessible likert scale (disagree/agree/strongly agree/etc) forms
Hi Steve, I don't recommend that solution. We have tested this kind of form with a highly proficient screen reader user, and he could not understand it at all. In fact it was one of the few tasks he has ever failed to complete. This is one of those cases where marking up content so it is semantically correct does not mean it can be understood by users. I recommend using elements for each radio button and hiding them off-screen. Yes that is what I thought. Even some vague testing with FANGS over 20 questions just looked so complex I wondered how usable even a correctly marked up one would be. For this reason I played with a SELECT solution mentioned by Patrick. Thanks, Nick This was discussed at length on GAWDS very recently but I don't have time to dig out the thread. Steve -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Nick Lo Sent: 03 December 2007 12:34 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: [WSG] Accessible likert scale (disagree/agree/strongly agree/etc) forms Hello All, I'm working on a Likert scale questionnaire (Strongly Agree/Agree/ Undecided/Disagree/Strongly Disagree) with 20 questions and some Googling came up with the following approach... http://www.enterpriseaccessibility.com/articles/ AccessibleRadioButtons.html ...and I was wondering what the general opinion of this or any other solutions was. Thanks, Nick *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Accessible likert scale (disagree/agree/strongly agree/etc) forms
Hi Patrick, Actually I had already prepared one as an alternative version to discuss with the client so glad you brought it up independently. Nick On 04/12/2007, at 5:10 AM, Patrick H. Lauke wrote: Steve Green wrote: I recommend using elements for each radio button and hiding them off-screen. Possibly even better for keyboard and screenreader users: swapping out the radio buttons approach with a single SELECT. However, this of course throws the expected visual design out the window... P -- Patrick H. Lauke __ re·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively [latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.] www.splintered.co.uk | www.photographia.co.uk http://redux.deviantart.com __ Co-lead, Web Standards Project (WaSP) Accessibility Task Force http://webstandards.org/ __ Take it to the streets ... join the WaSP Street Team http://streetteam.webstandards.org/ __ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
[WSG] Accessible likert scale (disagree/agree/strongly agree/etc) forms
Hello All, I'm working on a Likert scale questionnaire (Strongly Agree/Agree/ Undecided/Disagree/Strongly Disagree) with 20 questions and some Googling came up with the following approach... http://www.enterpriseaccessibility.com/articles/ AccessibleRadioButtons.html ...and I was wondering what the general opinion of this or any other solutions was. Thanks, Nick *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Idiot's guide to JavaScript
From: "Breton Slivka" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Of course if you don't feel like reading it, then don't. You have the reccomendations here for the books that have good information (Unless nobody has yet reccomended David Flanagan's "Javascript: The Definative Guide"). When you're ready for good information, that is, you have a specific problem that calls for a correct solution, then go for those books. Otherwise, read whatever gets you into action, and actually working in the language the quickest. I recommend Flanagan's book highly. I also caution the original questioner to be wary of buzzwords like Dom Scripting and Web 2.0. And to a previous poster, there are times when even the most accomplished scripter might need to use document.write or an inline handler. Be wary of absolutes and, when convenient, check the actual work of some of these authors and you might be surprised - or not :-) For some javascript video entertainment: Douglas Crockford (Yahoo! javascript blokie) has some videos on his site... Video: JavaScript Video: The Theory of the Dom Video: Advanced JavaScript Video: Browser Wars Video: Quality Video: JavaScript: The Good Parts Video: The State of Ajax http://javascript.crockford.com/ ...in the first one (IIRC) he recommends that O'Reilly book as the only one worth considering. However I'm not sure how old that video is compared to some of the books mentioned in this thread. Nick *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] simplyaccessible.org
Hi Graham, Producing a .doc may seem incongruous, but it is just one of around 150 documents covering all Telstra's online standards including wap, platform, styleguides information architecture etc. Yes, apologies for even alluding to that kind of hackneyed response. You now have me distracted by all the interesting info at http://www.telstra.com.au/standards so thanks again. Great to even have access to this kind of resource if only to point out to clients. 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] simplyaccessible.org
I first wanted to say thanks to Derek and Graham for providing all this really great info. Not that I'm fussed and purely playing devil's advocate but I cannot help but see some kind of irony in having an accessibility guideline document in .doc format. It's like the righteous word scribed on the devil's stationery or something, I can hear the indignant echoes of the do not send .doc files argument [1]. I did want to comment that the form error in the label suggestions Derek gave have really got me thinking about how my CMS returns users to forms and alerts them. I was simply having the form errors at the top of the page and changing the appearance of the relevant field's label. This is clearly not good enough for screenreaders and until listening to (WE05 podcast) and reading the examples I had not thought through to a good solution. I presume that what would be best would be a combination of a message like "Please check the errors indicated in the form below" ...at the top of the form and have the "this must not be blank" on the relevant field(s)? Thanks, Nick [1] http://www.google.com/search?q=do+not+send+word+.doc+files Hi all, January this year, when I was still working for Telstra I rewrote their Universal Accessibility Guidelines document http://www.telstra.com.au/standards/docs/accb_03001.doc. You may be interested to have a look at the section on forms and the examples I wrote there. Regards Graham Cook UA Oz -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Derek Featherstone Sent: Tuesday, 11 October 2005 10:56 AM To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: RE: [WSG] simplyaccessible.org On 10/11/05, Terrence Wood wrote: Agreed, you are absolutely correct. Doh! I didn't acutally check the source code, no wonder my earlier post was confusing. Sorry Derek. No worries... If anyone *is* interested in replicating Dereks layout without the extra div's try this: for what it's worth - I did try using that at certain points, but generally preferred to add in explicit divs to provide another hook for styling. YMMV - I also preferred to place each "row" in a block level element so that without author styles each form field and its label is still on a row of its own, though that use case may not be as important. Now then, I'd better get back to it so that I can post the second round of examples... :) Cheers, Derek. -- Derek Featherstone [EMAIL PROTECTED] tel: 613-599-9784 1-866-932-4878 (toll-free in North America) Web Development: http://www.furtherahead.com Personal:http://www.boxofchocolates.ca ** 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: Ouch- was: [WSG] Top Ten Web Design Mistakes - yeah, right!
Hi Terrence, My post was not a personal attack on Nick, nor was it dismissive of his POV. Admittedly, I got the impression he was struggling to come up with an example of how alertbox is difficult to use and perhaps that has tainted my message, but I was genuinely interested in whether he truely wanted to select his articles based primarily on date. I wouldn't say I was struggling at all. I would agree I was looking for a sensible, grown-up alternative to the kind of honest, gut-reaction that I get when I look at that site. I would say the poor visual quality does not encourage me to revisit the site when there are plenty of alternatives on the web that provide as good information that is also pleasant to use. Also for more perspective, I am interested in what Jakob Nielsen has to say. For example I just recently listened to an interview with him on ITconversations.com. So really what my reply to you was doing was actually stopping and trying to work out why I rarely visit his website. I never said that date based scanning was irrelevant - I stated that, in this case, it was secondary to the title, and in fact pointed out what (in my view) the purpose of the dates were. Well, I also had in my head the fact that in a dynamic site you can link table headers to sort their columns, which in this apparently "static" site was not an option, so I was probably thinking ahead a bit too much. In any case the point of the table was to have the user go, e.g.: I want to scan by title so I go down the title column, then across the description to see if the article was relevant, then to the date to see how up-to-date the information may be...or down the date column, etc. In other words using it exactly as a table is meant to be used. Oh and I didn't feel you were personally attacking me, 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] Top Ten Web Design Mistakes - yeah, right!
Much as I hate to... and I'm trying hard not to but ...yes "awkward to use". Let me pick an example: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/ That enormous list of previous columns is visually very difficult to scan. It is chronological so if you are browsing for a particular date your eye must go in and out of the jagged right edge. If you are browsing for a subject the size of text minus enough line spacing, interspersed with bold links (why they are bold is not made clear, presumably popularity) and erratic descriptions. That data would surely display much more logically in a table headed Name, Description, Date. You could then scan down a column, e.g. for a date, much more rapidly and it would encourage a description for each column. Nick On 4 Oct 2005, at 11:30 PM, Nick Lo wrote: I always find it amazing that useit.com has such standing when it is itself such an awkward and unattractive site to use. unattractive, maybe... but awkward to use? kind regards Terrence Wood. ** 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] Top Ten Web Design Mistakes - yeah, right!
I agree with Andreas to the degree that he is really saying this is not THE "Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2005" but rather "Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2005 according to subscribers of a newsletter directed at people interested in Jakob Nielsen's views on usability". In that respect it's a bit like general browser statistics, interesting, but not really that useful. Unless you are building a site targeted at people interested in usability who also enjoy reading Jakob Nielsen's newsletters then these points are merely one of many that could appear in a checklist. I hate to do the all too common dig at Jakob Nielsen but I always find it amazing that useit.com has such standing when it is itself such an awkward and unattractive site to use. Anyway, in the end it comes down to what is relevant to the users of the site you are building. 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] Slashdot HTML 4.01 and CSS
Hi Kenny, Yes I did feel a bit like I really should have added some of my valuable input as is so often seen on Slashdot ...ahem! Then I realised that too would be posting a pointless comment about a posting of a section of an article from a site that posts sections of articles and therefore would be a cycle of unstoppable power. Anyway in non-silliness, love it or hate it that site has a massive amount of traffic and has been the subject of "when is it going to clean up it's html/css act" jibes for a long time so to see it converting is another notch in the righteous pillar of web standards. Nick Ahh... posting a section of an article from a site that posts sections of articles... and so the cycle continues. ;) On 9/23/05, Nick Lo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Slashdot HTML 4.01 and CSS "After 8 years of my nasty, crufty, hodge podged together HTML, last night we finally switched over to clean HTML 4.01 with a full complement of CSS. While there are a handful of bugs and some lesser used functionality isn't quite done yet, the transition has gone very smoothly. You can use our sourceforge project page to submit bugs and we'd really appreciate the feedback. Thanks to Tim Vroom for putting the HTML in place, Wes Moran for writing the HTML in the first place, and Pudge for writing the code to convert 900k users, 60k stories, and 13 million comments to comply. And for the brave, download the stylesheet and start experimenting with new themes and designs for Slashdot: some sort of official contest to re-design Slashdot is coming soon, so you can get a head start now." http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/22/1324207&from=rss ** 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] Slashdot HTML 4.01 and CSS
Slashdot HTML 4.01 and CSS "After 8 years of my nasty, crufty, hodge podged together HTML, last night we finally switched over to clean HTML 4.01 with a full complement of CSS. While there are a handful of bugs and some lesser used functionality isn't quite done yet, the transition has gone very smoothly. You can use our sourceforge project page to submit bugs and we'd really appreciate the feedback. Thanks to Tim Vroom for putting the HTML in place, Wes Moran for writing the HTML in the first place, and Pudge for writing the code to convert 900k users, 60k stories, and 13 million comments to comply. And for the brave, download the stylesheet and start experimenting with new themes and designs for Slashdot: some sort of official contest to re-design Slashdot is coming soon, so you can get a head start now." http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/22/1324207&from=rss ** 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] Styling
Hello all, Just wondering if anyone has had much success styling . I was picturing being able to do a rounded box in the style of A List Apart's mountaintop corners... http://www.alistapart.com/articles/mountaintop/ ...using the legend for the background top curves and the fieldset for the background bottom curves. However doesn't seem to play particularly well, e.g. in Firefox it ignores width settings, etc. So far I've Googled to little avail, so thought I'd ask here if anyone had any ideas/examples/links. Thanks in advance, 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 **
[WSG] IE 7.0 "Details Begin to Leak"
"Partner sources say Microsoft is wavering on the extent to which it plans to support CSS2 with IE 7.0. Developers have been clamoring for Microsoft to update its CSS support to support the latest W3C standards for years. But Microsoft is leaning toward adding some additional CSS2 support to IE 7.0, but not embracing the standard in its entirety, partners say." http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,1776290,00.asp ** 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] Standards and site structuring
Hi Rick, To kick off with an example would anyone say to a client "We should probably call this "Contact Us" as everyone expects and homes in on that wording when they need make contact" I think that becomes absurd really quick, and ultimately leads to software creating websites with no human intervention required. :-( Hey that would be GREAT then I could actually go out and enjoy the sun that is shining so nicely outside my window! Seriously though I think that's carrying it a bit far as of course each site has it's own characteristics and it is common practice to establish naming conventions in websites as it is in programming. I suppose I was alluding to those common not just within a project or market but generally recognised too. Maybe this could result in a reference list of the most commonly recognised naming conventions ...I'm not sure. Thanks, 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] Standards and site structuring
Hi Rosemary, Ok, to answer your actual question not the one I thought you asked ... Actually I wasn't really asking a question as such, more opening up the discussion of what people thought, how they work, etc. So your first response was as correct as the second one. You basically said you do to an extent due to your target audience. Out of interest how much (if any) feedback have you received to say your conventions are the expected ones and whether they helped at all. Thanks, 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] Standards and site structuring
Well good question actually. I was initially just thinking of naming conventions (Title: About Us, file: about_us.html, etc) but that could well be extended. Common interface elements gets pretty in depth and likely well off on a tangent though. On the list we all spend a lot of time on what to the client are relatively hidden standards (those being the underlying markup or code) but in conversation with clients actually deal with a lot of other "standards". Often they themselves will brief with a site structure they see as "standard" (sometimes dependant on the market, etc). I'm really not looking for any specific answers more just generally curious as I know I'm definitely following a fairly common approach even in working across different market segments. To kick off with an example would anyone say to a client "We should probably call this "Contact Us" as everyone expects and homes in on that wording when they need make contact" Nick Site structure... as in URL design? Or internal file structures? Or common interface elements? ** 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] Standards and site structuring
Ha ha, ok, welcome to the battle of the dictionaries. Yes I know it's not a formal standard as defined by any authority but it is a standard as established by it's common and accepted use. Anyway my question was what are people's thoughts about this. For example; I've heard developers complain how brain dead it makes sites. To reign it in to the realm of standards based development; do any of you feel there is a strong case for site structure to follow at least some standards or ahem, convention? Thanks, Nick Just out of interest what "standards" (in the sense of a generalised approach) are you all applying to site structuring? There is a well known article (that I cannot remember the URL for) that discusses the fairly accepted standards for a site like; Home, Contact Us, About Us, News, etc. So I was curious how people here apply those kind of standards to their site structure and also what they feel about doing them for the sake of usability, etc. Thanks, Nick These are more conventions than standards. It's good to follow if possible, but not necessary. ** 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] Standards and site structuring
Just out of interest what "standards" (in the sense of a generalised approach) are you all applying to site structuring? There is a well known article (that I cannot remember the URL for) that discusses the fairly accepted standards for a site like; Home, Contact Us, About Us, News, etc. So I was curious how people here apply those kind of standards to their site structure and also what they feel about doing them for the sake of usability, etc. Thanks, 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] GMail... Terrible!
I think Scott touches on a good point here that GMail is really a web application and many of Google's current projects are really pushing into quite new areas, Google Maps in particular. I think the previous analogy from Andreas; "why do we still bother with these useless ramps infront of public libraries?", completely misses the point. If GMail WAS a library website (being deliberately close to the original comparison here but fill in your own; news site, govt site, whatever) then of course we'd expect it to be accessible. GMail is a web application and is using technologies (like XMLHTTPRequest) which are themselves pushing the capabilities of current browsers. Web applications already struggle within the constraints of browsers and depending on their use often need to be doing so. This is one area I feel where the general referral to "web standards" begins to get on to loose ground. If I handed out a magazine and asked it to be semantically marked up, It would involve some discussion but would certainly be doable, but what if I handed out an email client? I know it would be a lot harder and that's just the semantics. I think this really is a case of needing to cut them some slack, as what they are doing is a bit like the Haute Couture of web development and you would expect it to filter down in time. I think I'd be following Chris' point with what most web developers/programmers have been doing which is asking "why are Google HAVING to do it like that?". I know for sure in the application development I do, I wish there were easier ways. Nick possibly a more interesting question to be asking is exactly what 'standard' should gmail be following? WCAG doesn't seem appropriate to me, as this is certainly more an application than a web page ** 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] Float problem (perhaps) in IE 5 on www.mccn.org.au
Hi Gunlaug,
That was pretty well it. Note in your example the width is applied to
the ul#subscribe li a which when taken literally was pretty silly and
IE 5 took it literally; widening just the link in the to 285px.
All I needed to do was move that width setting to the ul and the column
is back to where it should be. Text is still overflowing out of the
space but I can live with that for tonight.
Many thanks,
Nick
Some stuff in there widens the column in IE5/win.
For a start, take out (or hack) the width:
ul#subscribe li a
{
color: #fff;
font-weight: bold;
/*width: 285px;*/
}
**
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See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
for some hints on posting to the list & getting help
**
Re: [WSG] Float problem (perhaps) in IE 5 on www.mccn.org.au
Hi Bert, Being a "minimalist", all those images for bullets do seem a little archaic. You should be able to achieve the same with css (non repeating background image and padding on the li/dd for instance). If nothing else, it cuts down on code and makes it easier to change the look of these lists later. Well this is kind of a first release and will be adjusted according to feedback so yes you're right. I'm not overly keen on the bullets but after building the entire content management system to run this thing as well as do the front end there are plenty of loose threads. Also, if I reduce font size even one notch, those lists start to indent with a cascading effect. Using a background image and padding might resolve that issue too. Yes thanks very much for noting that, you unwittingly solved a bug that had been reported by a user. and I agree your approach above is probably the best one. I note you have a form inside a fieldset. That should really be the other way around (the validator doesn't complain about it, but it's back-to-front) I was actually unaware that that was the case. I have in another form, done it as you say... http://www.mccn.org.au/subscribe.php ...but have to admit ignorance to which was the right way Finally, you have quite a few paragraphs with all content phasised. If it's that important, why not make it a heading? If it's purely for presentation, why not just apply an italic style to the paragraph? Similarly, why are your headings h4 when there's no h2 or h3 on the page? Curious Well that's a good question and the weak reason is because the header sizes are used across the site. It's really, I have to admit, a bit of a rushed styling reason at this temporary stage (i.e. anticipating changes after feedback). The rest of the pages are a little more semantically structured. Many thanks Bert that was all very helpful, 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 **
[WSG] Float problem (perhaps) in IE 5 on www.mccn.org.au
I've just released... http://www.mccn.org.au/ ...and realised a little late that some last minute tweaks (possibly) have thrown out the "Stay Informed" column on the home page in PC IE 5. Usually I'd battle on and crack it but I'm a little battle weary and this seems to work fine in IE 6 PC, IE 5 Mac, Opera 6 Mac, Firefox 1.0 Mac so I'm calling for assistance. Oh and if there are any other things people would like to point out please feel free. Thanks in advance, 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] Info on correct semantics
I'd say the simplest solution would be to post the URL to any of his pages on the list and let us all point out where they fall short. Nick Some days ago I had a short discussion with a colleague about a display bug in (surprise) IE. The solution he found was to replace all tags (except html, head, body I guess) with and style the layout with CSS. He really means it, and he was proud that he has found a solution to all(!) display problems in IE. ** 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] "Code" or "Markup"
p.s. I won'r post on this (off)topic any more. I'm pretty well responsible for this so just to refer back to my question: During development when referring to HTML (and perhaps CSS) with a client do you use the term "code" or the more pedantically correct, though perhaps less recognised, term "markup" ? My question really had to do with the terms we use with clients. It is probably drifting off topic to go on about the relative naming/histories/etc but I think it is on topic discussing the ways in which we explain what we are trying to achieve. During the process of this some technical explanation becomes necessary and "code" and "mark-up" are an example of terms that become unavoidable. So my question should have been worded to ask more about the way lay-persons react to the terms than to how or why we use them. For example, the point about "mark-up" also referring to costing illustrated where our terms can be more confusing than helpful. Anyway, I don't think it needs to go much further from here so thanks for your input everyone. 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] "Code" or "Markup"
Well having moved into this from print "markup" is really more document related. A word document is marked up when you specify margins, headers, bold, etc., it is not coded (excluding the really pedantic fact that these days there is application code doing the work). Nick I tend to use 'code', because a) this indeed makes more immediate sense for the client, and b) in a less technical definition, markup *can* be considered code, in that markup tags are the codes that the relevant parser requires to render the expected output. In fact, my other commonly used option is just to say 'HTML' - just about everybody understands roughly what that is, conceptually at least. Cheers, Kevin ** 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] "Code" or "Markup"
This seems a silly question but it bounces about enough that whilst discussing it with a client I thought I'd put it to the list. During development when referring to HTML (and perhaps CSS) with a client do you use the term "code" or the more pedantically correct, though perhaps less recognised, term "markup" ? I'm asking as I often wonder which one the client grasps first. From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing: code: Instructions for a computer in some programming language, often machine language. The word "code" is often used to distinguish instructions from data (e.g. "The code is marked 'read-only'") whereas "software" is used in contrast with "hardware" and may consist of more than just code. markup In computerised document preparation, a method of adding information to the text indicating the logical components of a document, or instructions for layout of the text on the page or other information which can be interpreted by some automatic system. For example, the source of this dictionary is marked up by enclosing cross-references in curly braces which are significant to the World-Wide Web server software. 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] Use of
Hi Patrick, On experimenting with it it also appears that address is an inline element so fails to validate if you put e.g. a inside it. From the XHTML 1.0 Transistional DTD: So while it may seem logical to give the internals some structure like... Contact Person Rod Someone Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] ...it just won't allow it. So, unless I'm missing something, seems fairly worthless and doesn't appear set to get any better in future specs. It's intended use "for a document or a major part of a document" also seems to cross over where metadata would probably be more appropriate. Thanks, Nick Address is another half-baked, not completely thought out element, in my opinion. It's fluffy and lacks consistent internal structure definition to be truly useful - so some people just use lots of line breaks (and, it could be argued, in this context is actually semantic, as the explicit break can be seen as an essential part of the address itself, rather than simply a presentational feature). At the same time, its definition is extremely limited in that it must, according to spec, refer to the current document or section. In your specific case, I'd say the use of address is right, as you're providing contact information for the particular section, which talks about the Tasmania branch. Effectively, I wouldn't worry too much about how *exactly* the semantics of address are being followed...once again, it's a badly thought out element, whose definition is both too vague in its structure and too overly specific in its intended application. If you use it, go ahead as per your example...but I would actually question its usefulness. (ok, I *can* imagine some kind of semantic spider collecting meta information on web pages on the fly and looking for addresses on each page to associate with the current document...but I doubt this would be feasible, as there's no way to associate an address explicitly with only a section of a document - unless you go by its container / parent) ** 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] Use of
I'm curious if and how you are all using the address tag. The HTML 4 spec has this to say: -- The ADDRESS element may be used by authors to supply contact information for a document or a major part of a document such as a form. This element often appears at the beginning or end of a document. For example, a page at the W3C Web site related to HTML might include the following contact information: Dave Raggett, Arnaud Le Hors, contact persons for the W3C HTML Activity $Date: 1999/12/24 23:37:50 $ -- ...and out of curiosity jumping ahead the xhtml2 spec says... -- The address element may be used by authors to supply contact information for a document or a major part of a document such as a form. This element often appears at the beginning or end of a document. content model of address element The content model of the address element should be improved to improve its semantic processability. Attributes The Common collection A collection of other attribute collections, including: Core, Events, I18N, Bi-directional, Edit, Embedding, Map, and Hypertext Example: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]">Webmaster -- On a "Contact Us" page I'm currently using it like so: Tasmania Office Contact: Errol Flynn PO Box 123 Hobart TAS 7001 ph.: (03) 6222 1234 fax: (03) 6222 1235 email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]"> [EMAIL PROTECTED] However, the specs above don't make it fully clear if what I'm doing is wrong or right. The phrase "to supply contact information for a document or a major part of a document" seems to rule out it's most common use on a contact page as strictly speaking that's usually contact info for an organisation. Surely simply applies as a block element to ANY address, however it then also seems unclear as to how to format the address within that block. Thanks, 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] Applications that don't open in a new window
Hi Priscilla, I develop in PHP (though the actual language is fairly irrelevant) and based on what you say it sounds like a fingers crossed approach to the problem. Not knowing the perspective of your developer I cannot say whether he is wrong or right, but I can say with absolute certainty there is no fundamental reason to have to open a new window to control the way a user interacts with the form. I'm not sure how far to go without drifting off topic but the thing he may be talking about is "maintaining state". For example; if the user submits the form but their email is invalid, you want to send them back to the same form to correct it. During that submission you need to hold the data they submitted (i.e. maintain state), check it and if incorrect send them back to the form with the data they filled in still there. In multi page forms it is also crucial to carry over data. Neither cases have necessarily anything to do with what windows are open. Personally I, like you, would never open a new window and in fact would see it as yet another thing I'd have to control in the dangerous world of forms. John's comment: "If you can get an email from the PHP guy explaining in more detail what he thinks the issue is, we could discuss it in more detail." Is probably a good idea. Nick Our backend coder (php) insists that a new window should open for this form, so that the user cannot use the browser’s navigation buttons, because if they do some of the information does not make it back to the database (or something like that!). I told him that I don’t want a new window opening as it is not user-friendly and may be difficult for people with physical disabilities to use. We have now reached an impasse. I told him I would supply examples of similar applications online that comply with web standards i.e. do not open in a new window. Does anybody know of any that I can pass on? ** 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] It's so frustrating. Webstandars, accesibility and Firefox as a sales argument.
What you are really getting at is not so much that you charge more because you know about building accessible standards based websites but because your experience is broader. For example you can say ...and because the site is built this way it has such and such benefits to vision impaired users or such and such benefits to search engine spiders. There are numerous angles and numerous articles/tools online which can be used to demonstrate the benefits too. In the end the client should get the sense that you know what you are talking about if you demonstrate the benefits to them. Clients are looking for good advice as much as technical skills (which most often they don't follow anyway). Nick Something I think you all are missing is that you have taken time to learn about standards and accessibility. I think I can charge more for my services because I have more knowledge about standards. So for me the price may be more expensive - but they are paying for my knowledege and experience - rather than more time and work put into a job. ** 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] Sometimes you just cant help people ...
To further that in a speech reader article passed on By Steven Faulkner ([WSG] Observing Users Who Work With Screen Readers ): http://www.redish.net/content/papers/InteractionsPaperAuthorsVer.pdf It says: 6. Many want to skip the navigation but do not do so. Many Web sites include a Skip Navigation link at the beginning of each Web page. Clicking on that link bypasses the global navigation at the top (and left – depending on where the developer has ended the skip navigation). Our participants desperately wanted to not listen to the navigation each time they got to a page. They wanted to get right to the content. But only half of our participants knew what "skip navigation" means. Some ranted to us about the problem of having to listen to the same "stuff" on each page, but they did not choose "skip navigation." Some jumped to the bottom of each page and scanned back up the pages to avoid the "stuff" at the top. If we think about that, it's not surprising. "Navigation" in this context is Web jargon. In fact, the half that knew "skip navigation" were the 508 consultants, the software engineer, and the highly sophisticated computer users. Some developers have used the phrase "skip to content" instead of "skip navigation." That seems like a good idea. Unfortunately, it does not work in JAWS because "content" can be a noun or an adjective in English – and JAWS reads "skip to content" with the accent on the second syllable, like the word for "happy." Our participants did not understand that statement at all. And no one used the JAWS keyboard command, N, which the screen reader developers put into the product to meet 508 requirements and do what Skip Navigation does even if the Web site developer did not include a Skip Navigation tag. Guideline 10. Include a "skip" link at the top of every Web page. Name it "Skip to main content." JAWS reads that correctly as the noun "content" with the accent on the first syllable. That wording was much more meaningful to participants than "skip navigation." Nick I was talking to a blind friend over the weekend, and since he uses Jaws screen reading software, the subject of web sites came up. I was observing as how we in the profession were trying to make things easier for people using other devices than a browser to use the web. “For example, one of the things we’re increasingly doing these days is having a ‘skip to content’ link at the top of the page. In many cases it’s only visible to screen readers.” Then he floored me. He said “oh yes! I’ve seen those.” (interesting turn of phrase from a guy who’s been blind since birth) “but what are they for? I’ve never used them because I don't know what they do.” The point is, he didn’t know what the skip-to-content link was for and therefore he wouldn’t use it, lest he find himself a long way away from where he wanted to go (the content) and then have trouble getting back again. Perhaps we need to be a bit more expansive in the link itself. Perhaps instead of “skip to content’ we need to have the link say “skip to the content of this page” or somesuch. A blind reader will hear Jaws say “VISITED LINK.: SKIP TO CONTENT” and thinking about it, it isn’t totally obvious what that does. ** 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] converting WORD text into clean XHTML
I asked much the same question a little while back and what I got together was: First have the doc saved as "HTML (Filtered)" if it's coming from Word 2003 (earlier versions can get the filtered thingy someone else mentioned). Then in my case I wrote a filter for the content management system I built to pass the Word HTML through. What you could do is use one of the implementations of Tidy ( http://tidy.sourceforge.net/ ) e.g. For a web version try: http://infohound.net/tidy/ ...As I type this I'm just testing it on a big Word filtered HTML doc... and yes it seems to do a decent job. Nick Hi group. I'm wondering if there's some easy (and free) way to convert text from a WORD document into clean XHTML that retains the formatting. Thanks. ** 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] Convincing usability/standards arguments
I think Felix has put in a lot of time and effort with his work at... http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/auth/wauth1.html ...and I found a lot of his demonstrations useful. So before I start I just wanted to thank him for his efforts before using his work as an example of perhaps part of why the font-size argument got so side-tracked. As a designer developer I'd like to see two basic things to convince me of an argument: 1. Well designed examples: With no disrespect intended to Felix, his pages are not very aesthetic. While arguing points that designers must take into consideration, the pages themselves do not demonstrate that the designers visual integrity will not be overly jeopardised. This is really why CSS Zen Garden is successful as it demonstrates aesthetic as well as structural integrity. It's the "picture is worth a thousand words" type thing. This matter is not to be trivialised. A designers income is based on the ability to produce visually appealing work. We all know how carefully we must work with clients as it is to bring them over to a standards-based approach. If we tread too heavily and also produce work that we or the client feel is visually compromised, we risk losing them to one of the many other firms who are not taking a standards-based approach, yet do produce visually appealing sites. -> So my first request would be if you are trying to convince designers, but cannot produce visually appealing examples of points you are trying to demonstrate, give links to sites that do. I already use and send clients/other developers to sites like: http://www.maxdesign.com.au/presentation/index.cfm http://www.htmldog.com/ Because their presentation installs confidence as well as the articles being well written. 2. User examples/case studies: Arguments based around a generic user/visitor/etc don't come across well. One of the good things about this list is the spread of contributors and the spread of markets they cover. With regards to the font-size argument there are clearly users for whom this is more important than others. The considerations made for a "cutting edge" interior design website are not just the same as those for a family care organisation website. -> My second request is then to give some indication as to the type of users this is important to and therefore the priority of consideration that it should be given, i.e. everything is important to somebody but is it important to me? Since at this stage of standards-based web development we are all spending a lot of time educating I thought it would be good to just outline what would be helpful to me and I hope other developers on the list. Thanks, 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] Font size
Hi Felix, Nothing fundamentally wrong with your arguments but to balance them a little I had a client just recently ask for text to be made smaller (it wasn't in any way large) and they often ask for spacing to be reduced in order to get more content "above the fold". I think pointing the blame at designers is a little general when you consider the overriding need for smaller font sizes is to squeeze more content in, particularly with regards to advertising, promotional placements, etc. Nick Setting a smaller % size on the body means, as a designer, you can bring the overall font size for a page down to something a little more usable for most people Where do people get off making this assumption? Where are the poll results that show "most people" think browser text is too big? Nearly everyone I've run into who thinks browser text is too big is a web page designer. Most web browser users I've run into think most web page text is too tiny. Based upon total population, the number of users who think web page text is too small has to be far greater than the number of designers who think the default is too big, who consequently reduce it on the pages they create. I'm not alone in this line of thinking: http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/auth/font-size-quotes.html ** 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] Unwanted gaps between divs
By the way it can be solved by adding padding to it's container:
div#content { margin-left: 190px; margin-right: 200px; padding-top:
3pt; }
However I'm still not clear why.
Thanks,
Nick
I'm having a little brain drain with spacing that I'd like help with.
The layout on a page I'm working in is experiencing the same problem I
can demonstrate better on Russ's example here:
http://css.maxdesign.com.au/selectutorial/steps/step22.htm
Imagine I want a background colour on the header "Heading here" like
so (EditCSS in Firefox is great for seeing this live) e.g.:
div#content h2 { background-color: #ccc; margin: 0pt; font-size: 2em;
color: rgb(0, 51, 102); padding-top: 1em; font-weight: normal; }
Notice if you do that the background colour touches the top banner
edge. So the obvious solution would be to add a little margin in that
h2 e.g.:
div#content h2 { background-color: #ccc; margin: 3pt 0 0 0; font-size:
2em; color: rgb(0, 51, 102); padding-top: 1em; font-weight: normal; }
However then a space appears between the banner and the rest of the
content and the problem is I'm too dense (plus it's hot and muggy
here) to figure out what is the cause of the space.
Thanks in advance,
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
**
**
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] Unwanted gaps between divs
I'm having a little brain drain with spacing that I'd like help with.
The layout on a page I'm working in is experiencing the same problem I
can demonstrate better on Russ's example here:
http://css.maxdesign.com.au/selectutorial/steps/step22.htm
Imagine I want a background colour on the header "Heading here" like so
(EditCSS in Firefox is great for seeing this live) e.g.:
div#content h2 { background-color: #ccc; margin: 0pt; font-size: 2em;
color: rgb(0, 51, 102); padding-top: 1em; font-weight: normal; }
Notice if you do that the background colour touches the top banner
edge. So the obvious solution would be to add a little margin in that
h2 e.g.:
div#content h2 { background-color: #ccc; margin: 3pt 0 0 0; font-size:
2em; color: rgb(0, 51, 102); padding-top: 1em; font-weight: normal; }
However then a space appears between the banner and the rest of the
content and the problem is I'm too dense (plus it's hot and muggy here)
to figure out what is the cause of the space.
Thanks in advance,
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] 10,000 posts, we have a winner...
Even though it is off-topic it has to be done: Shuffles Notes... I'd like to thank Russ, Peter and David McDonald and the poor members of my family that have had to listen to me go on about how "I won a PRIZE!!", etc, etc... I can now justify spending valuable sleep time replying to mailing lists. Russ asked me: "Now, () would you like to do a book review for us when you have read it and post to the WSG site - we are thinking of starting book reviews in the feature section." Of course... it's the least I can do. Oh and OF COURSE I use Apache (I develop PHP based web applications) ;-) Anyway cheers and here's to 20 000! Nick OK, we have decided to give the person who did the 10,000th post a prize (thanks to Core member David McDonald for the idea). Re: Web Standards Eye Candy: http://www.scottschiller.com/ By Nick Lo - Fri 12 Nov 2004 at 10:33 PM So, what does Nick win? One free copy of "Apache Essentials: Install, Configure, Maintain" from Friends of Ed: http://www.friendsofed.com/books/1590593553/ Congratulations to Nick! (Just wondering: what if Nick is an IIS developer? ;-) Well then he can learn a valuable lesson and see the light! Apache is the only way :) ** 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] Web Standards Eye Candy: http://www.scottschiller.com/
Hi Dave, From my experience Flash v's this/that arguments have been dragged up the hill and down again so many times that most participants could recite them backwards, plus they are likely to send people to their unsubscribe button. The point of my posting this site was not to suggest "who needs Flash", nor to suggest that this kind of experimental work should be used by everyone. It was simply as reference to the possibilities of the simple tools that are discussed everyday on this list. As pointed out by the developer in... http://www.schillmania.com/content/opinion/2004/06/27/ the_obligatory_standards_rant ...there is sadly still the misconception that standards = dull. I linked to the site just possibly as a little inspiration to those on the list. Anyway, I have admiration for the time spent pushing this and some of the other projects. I'd be struggling to find the time never mind the creativity involved, so when work like this pops up and there is some deeper thought behind it ...great, it's all useful!! Besides, it's his own little playground and it's experimental, his professional section clearly indicates he knows how to play with the grown-ups. Nick [quote]But will it be as annoying as Flash? [/quote] well if u count not working in your browser as annoying then yes when flash is used correctly its not annoying at all ** 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] Web Standards Eye Candy: http://www.scottschiller.com/
I'm a Mac/Linux-on-occasion/PC-only-when-I-have-to user so I could be wrong but: Indicates Win32 which I thought referred to earlier versions of the Windows platform and therefore includes browsers less and less in the majority? Nick yes, true... but i was thinking in terms of browser share, for the developer says in his code-comments that his site crashes IE-based browsers. not something that would appeal to the most of the wider market, eh. s. ** 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] Web Standards Eye Candy: http://www.scottschiller.com/
Smells like Flash but isn't: http://www.scottschiller.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 **
Re: [WSG] Target Attributes
I had the same question with the same use in mind: web applications. What you're presumably driving at is that pages look to need be either XHTML 1.0 Transitional or Frameset in order to allow the target attribute. The question that follows from that, albeit somewhat academic at this stage, is where does that leave frames in the future specs? I'm working on an application that uses iframes in it's admin section so I'm also curious about this, yet haven't been able to find a definitive answer. Nick Isn't that what XHTML-1.0-Frameset is for?? http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#a_dtd_XHTML-1.0-Frameset Well no, the FRAMESET document is the one which defines the frames, i.e. it would say that "left.html" occupies 25% of the window and "right.html" occupies the remaining 75%, but I'm talking about the code in "left.html" and "right.html" themselves. Those documents cannot be valid strict HTML if they have target attributes in the links. ** 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] dublin core and search engines
Correction: Before: The Australian Government has incorporated Dublin Core into it's AGLS Metadata Standard... http://www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/gov_online/agls/summary.html ...and I'd be surprised if there is no-one on this list that has had no dealings there. If there are perhaps they'd have some info. After: ...and I'd be surprised if no-one on this list has had dealings there. If so perhaps they'd have some info. Need another cup of tea! 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] dublin core and search engines
I've partly incorporated Dublin Core into an NGO site I'm working on so I'm very interested to hear how you go with this Ted. I'd say even though this is not the right place for an SEO discussion, if the discussion is in regards to being penalised for implementing what is the main metadata standard then it surely is on topic. The Australian Government has incorporated Dublin Core into it's AGLS Metadata Standard... http://www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/gov_online/agls/summary.html ...and I'd be surprised if there is no-one on this list that has had no dealings there. If there are perhaps they'd have some info. Nick Here is not the platform for in-depth SEO discussion but I'd suggest you get it from the horse's mouth; drop Google a line directly at mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] and explain exactly your concerns about use of duplicate metas (and why you are using them validly) and/or failing that (as it may take a while for them to return your mail) you could try http://groups.google.com/groups?q=google.public.support.general, Google's group list, where you may get a more immediate response. ** 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] as form label
Hi Lea, have you looked a the fieldset tag? Its useful for grouping fields together. Yes, in fact that example is an excerpt from a larger form that is enclosed in a fieldset with a legend. Though what my example highlighted was the finer points of accessibility I wasn't capturing. Thanks, 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] Solutions for testing in speech/text readers
Hello again, Wow, I have to say I expected a short list but not as few as that. I know of course about JAWS but the pricing is quite prohibitive. It really is an area crying out for some open source input as in: http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/AT/Gnopernicus/ Sad, as although there are checklists like... http://webstandardsgroup.org/go/resource168.cfm ...there is nothing better than to be able to test for yourself. Anyway this is clearly an area I need to look into a lot more. Nick Nick You can download a trial (30 days) copy of IBM homepage reader (web browser): [windows only] http://www-3.ibm.com/able/solution_offerings/hpr.html this is a good tool for getting a feel for how your pages are "heard" as it is simpler/easier to use than full blown screen readers such as JAWS. there is also a screen reader [outSPOKEN] for the mac which you can download a demo of, but i think it may have stopped being produced. http://www.synapseadaptive.com/alva/outspoken/outspoken_for_mac.htm ** 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] as form label
Hi Steven, Yes that's a solution I'd considered and on thinking about it/reading that article I realised yet another point: I use the label class to indicate required elements. So if this part of the form was submitted but not filled in: Phone Type The user would be returned to the form with that element set as so: Phone Type Therefore the label would be styled with the "error" ruleset which could e.g. be red and bold. However, what I'm now realising is that that's of no use to a text reader so clearly I need to rethink that approach. In fact I need to rethink MANY of my approaches really, hence my other question on testing solutions ...mmm that I note you've just responded to. Thanks again, Nick i think your second solution is on the money. you wrote: "However notice how the first is actually less laborious visually in terms of how we use desktop applications." You can hide the visual display of text labels if you want see: Invisible Form Prompts - http://www.juicystudio.com/invisible-form-prompts.asp for a discussion on methods. ** 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] Solutions for testing in speech/text readers
Steven Faulkner just made me realise I've not yet seen or asked about set-ups for actually testing sites using speech/text readers. There are plenty of articles on browser testing but how would you go about setting up an environment for testing via speech/text readers. I use a Mac for development (OS X) but do have an old PC for browser testing. What are the solutions available? Thanks, 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] as form label
Wow, so many responses... must type fast...just knocked up what must be a better solution: http://www.trikeinteractive.com/form_example.html However notice how the first is actually less laborious visually in terms of how we use desktop applications. I'm thinking of for example OS X Address Book where you select the type of label for items then enter the data for the item. Of course it's really a balance of accessibility which is what I was trying to achieve. Steven your point... (Start of select menu with 6 items.) work[Selected.] (End of select menu.) [Text.] doesn't appear very informative? ...was actually partly because my example had a preselected element. However I'm glad now I accidentally left that in as you demonstrated exactly the reason for having the double label as used in my second solution, so very much appreciated. Darren: I like the idea...but have a look at it in firefox 1.0 and you'll see why it probably isn't a good idea. each time I click on the dropdown the input box gets the focus, thus proving v.difficult to actually select something from the dropdown. Hey, whaddya think I'm testing in? IE!! ;-) But yes that was another issue and funnily enough I have another problem that cropped up on that note: The CMS auto-generates forms for the users address(es). So in the users info you could have: General User Info Address 1 Address 2 etc... So if the user has 3 different addresses then it just replicates an address form 3 times and fills in each with the differing data. The problem is however that means there could be 3 lots of for example. Now with regards to the functionality of each separate form that makes no difference but it does however completely mess up the accessibility of the form as now that label refers to a field in 3 separate forms. Plenty to think about with all this! Thanks, 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] as form label
Thanks Nick, Well, no... but it needs to be used correctly. The element allows the text label for a form input to become 'live' (ie clickable) to enlarge the target for, say, a radio button - but it needs to wrap around the element it refers to. You have the label for id="input_phone_1" wrapped around id="input_phone_1_type" - so it's neither effective nor semantically correct where you have it. (I'm sure Patrick can give you a clearer answer...) Yeah I pretty well knew it's not really correct but is there a way to do it better? I've put an example of the form up at... http://www.trikeinteractive.com/form_example.html ...to make it clearer. As you can see the "label" for the form is variable but therefore itself needs to be a form element. Perhaps this is a case where it needs a nested label like... Phone type Please Select work home fax mobile other ...kind of gets fussy there but that's probably the answer. Also, you have - your option 'Please Select' won't be visible until the user opens the dropdown... Yeah ignore that, in this case I'd copied and pasted it from a dynamically generated form in the CMS so it had the preselected option. Thanks again, 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] as form label
Hi Patrick, Thanks for your response, unfortunately that wasn't my question though I realise at a glance it's how my question read. It was specifically referring to this type of instance... Please Select work home fax mobile other As I've just put at... http://www.trikeinteractive.com/form_example.html ...as an example. Note there is no actual text as would normally be within the label tags but instead another form element. Thanks, Nick Nick Lo wrote: So my question is really; is the label around a element essentially pointless? Labels are a good thing, both from an accessibility and usability point of view. So no, not pointless at all. Read http://www.webaim.org/techniques/forms/2#labels for a soft introduction on this. ...if that was your question. Patrick H. Lauke ** 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] as form label
Hello, This example below... Please Select work home fax mobile other ...is currently in the admin section of a CMS I'm putting together. The point is to allow the admin user to specify what the type of phone is as well as input the number itself. In the admin section the accessibility issues are obviously less crucial as I generally know who is using it, etc. However, this feature is useful for forms on the front-end of the site where issues of semantic correctness, accessibility are important. So my question is really; is the label around a element essentially pointless? Thanks, 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] Zeroing default padding/margin
Hi Andrew, Thanks for posting the article in the first place, I should've known the writer would've been on this list! Anyway, I like the idea and I have a suspicion it'll work pretty well for my needs. I just tried it in a site I'm working on and it actually didn't break much and in fact I can immediately think of several places I can go to clear margin:0;padding:0; settings, so in that respect it may actually reduce verbosity. I can also think of a particular debugging issue (IE of course) that it would have helped with. Anyway, as Russ said "Like anything, I guess it comes down the the needs of the site and the developer". I'm just keen to see how it goes for my needs now! Nick RE: Verbosity; probably, but not necessarily. I've most recently used this technique with a 5 page brochure-ware site to accompany my band's upcoming ep and I honestly don't think it added a noticable amount of weight. The benefits were immedietly noticable -- this site's design (url not avail. yet) took a 3 lazy hours to code and wasn't checked once in IE during the coding. Guess what? IE6 was identical in every way to Moz/FF+Op the very first time! ** 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] Zeroing default padding/margin
Thanks for the reply Russ, I agree that it's really down to the situation. Some further thoughts from your points: Smaller sites would presumably have less people working on them and therefore the issue of confusion is possibly less relevant, though the problem of verbosity may be. On the other hand presumably in most cases you'd be starting from a "base" stylesheet anyway so verbosity with regards to maintenance may not be an issue either. That really leaves potentially heavy stylesheets and hence file sizes. On larger sites I wonder if the verbosity issue balances out ...e.g. you don't specifically need to set margins:0; padding: 0; on numerous elements just as you do need to set them otherwise on other elements. However, the introduction of new, and therefore "zero'd" elements (e.g. an in an article added by a CMS) is a good point. So to narrow down my original question: How do those who use it find the balance between file size/verbosity and the debugging benefits/time saving? Thanks, Nick 1. Once you have removed all margin and padding, this method relies on you specifically styling the margins and padding of each HTML element that you intend to use. On smaller sites where you may only need to style specific containers and elements this method is very verbose and wasteful. 2. If you were to pass your site on to others who were less aware of CSS, this method could cause great confusion. The method relies on an understanding that any used HTML elements will have to be specifically styled. You may have styled all elements you needed at the time, but what if a new element was added by someone else at a later date? They may have no idea why the element does not operate like it should. ** 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] Zeroing default padding/margin
I was just reading the article excerpted below and was curious as to
how many on the list have used this technique of initially setting all
padding and margins to 0 and if so how successful was it?
"A big part of dealing with cross-browser differences is accounting for
the default property values of elements in each browser; namely padding
and margin. I use the following declaration in every new site I design;
it has saved me many hours of nitpicking.
* {
padding:0;
margin:0;
}
It doesn’t seem like much at first, but wait till you look at your
mildly styled form in 11 browsers to find the positioning identical in
all of them; or your button-style lists are perfect the first time,
every time."
http://leftjustified.net/journal/2004/10/07/css-negotiation/
Thanks,
Nick
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[WSG] Accessibility : Turing/CAPTCHA test
A while ago I brought up the topic of the Turing/CAPTCHA test on forms and whether it restricted accessibility on forms. The general opinion was of course that it does. I just found this article: "My article about Turing Protection generated lots of comments about how using image CAPTCHAs restricts access to the visually impaired. So, I’ve played around a bit, and added an audio component. If you can’t read the CAPTCHA image, you can listen to a .WAV file of our lovely server, spelling out the characters to you." http://viebrock.ca/code/16/turing-with-audio Clearly as the author says it has it's limitations but in spite of that I thought it may be interesting or useful to some. 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] Another proper use of 's question
Thanks all for the replies. A thought that also occurred to me whilst working on it was if you lay out a bunch of links in this style... http://www.google.com"; title="Google, a big and useful search engine">Google A big and useful search engine ...,as you might on a "resources" page, is the link title made redundant by the ? It looks like the essentially does the job of the title attribute but I'm wondering how the various screen/text readers/etc might interpret this. Nick The W3 says that s "generally consist of a series of term/definition pairs (although definition lists may have other applications)." As an example, "another application of ... is for marking up dialogues, with each naming a speaker, and each containing his or her words." (http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/lists.html) Based on this, I personally think that s can be used for nearly any situation where you need to show a sort of parent/child relationship within a list of items, while still being semantically sound. It's also a lot quicker than doing something like: Cow jumps over moon An unnamed cow has been seen jumping over the moon say residents... Dish runs away with spoon The mystery continues as crockery takes to the streets... And also quite a bit more elegant, IMO. Cheers, Cam Nick Lo wrote: Pondering over this one: I'm presuming a list of links with their short intros like e.g. news articles: Cow jumps over moon An unnamed cow has been seen jumping over the moon say residents... Dish runs away with spoon The mystery continues as crockery takes to the streets... Works as a definition list in a semantically comforting way? Am I wrong? ** 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] Another proper use of 's question
Pondering over this one: I'm presuming a list of links with their short intros like e.g. news articles: Cow jumps over moon An unnamed cow has been seen jumping over the moon say residents... Dish runs away with spoon The mystery continues as crockery takes to the streets... Works as a definition list in a semantically comforting way? Am I wrong? Thanks, 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] Yahoo CSS'ing
I agree it appears that way now but I think it's a little too easy/early to suggest it is and will end up that way. In that respect it'll be interesting to watch it develop. On a site of this massive scale I'd be very surprised if there are not a bunch of pretty screwed on heads knocking together. Also the transition must involve some messy intermediate stages as in "break it before you can fix it". On the other hand sometimes it is surprising how even biggies seem to make odd decisions. Nick http://9rules.com/whitespace/css_redesigns/yahoo_css_redesign.php Good writeup- but I must say yahoo has done a horid job so far. HTML Errors: 223 The css validates, but it is horrid. in 2 days, how could one ever remember what #v or where#v #v4.h appears in the document? IMO, they need to get some developers in there who actually know what they're doing. ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ Proud presenters of Web Essentials 04 http://we04.com/ Web standards, accessibility, inspiration, knowledge To be held in Sydney, September 30 and October 1, 2004 See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help **
[WSG] Yahoo CSS'ing
http://9rules.com/whitespace/css_redesigns/yahoo_css_redesign.php ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ Proud presenters of Web Essentials 04 http://we04.com/ Web standards, accessibility, inspiration, knowledge To be held in Sydney, September 30 and October 1, 2004 See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help **
Re: [WSG] Mac site check please...
Hi Francesco, It has some issues in earlier versions of IE PC You might want to check out (Just got my multiple versions of IE installed ( http://www.skyzyx.com/archives/94.php ) so it's nice to be able to say that! ). I had a quick look in IE Mac and it does have a few things needing sorting. I started giving it a crack but then thought: You seem to have a lot of s and a fairly complicated HTML structure for a relatively simple page. Perhaps the best place to start would be to simplify as much as possible. e.g. just from a glance: ...looks like it could easily become... ...and looks like it could potentially still be reduced. The simplified HTML would allow simpler CSS and therefore make debugging a lot easier as well. S'what I think anyway, Nick From: "Francesco" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 8:47:38 AM Australia/Sydney To: "wsg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [WSG] Mac site check please... Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] It looks perfect to me on: Win IE 6, Win FF 0.9, and Win Opera 7. Francesco ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ Proud presenters of Web Essentials 04 http://we04.com/ Web standards, accessibility, inspiration, knowledge To be held in Sydney, September 30 and October 1, 2004 See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help **
Re: [WSG] start attribute deprecated in XHTML 1.0 Strict and up.
Thanks for taking the time to do that but since I'm not using xhtml 1.0
strict I actually wasn't having a problem. I was merely noting, for the
sake of those looking at strict, the depreciation of an ol attribute
"start" that seemed to have as much to do with document structure as
presentation.
Nick
Nick Lo wrote:
COASTAL DEVELOPMENT
4. Mayor Casts Doubt Over Magnetic Is Report (Great
Barrier Reef)
5. Hope for Maldives Rises from the Sea (Maldives)
...and looking at the how of doing that;
I came up with something. While it's not perfect, it works.
li{
margin : 1em 0 0 2em;
padding : 0;
}
li.header {
position : relative;
margin-top : 2em;
}
li h3 {
font-size : 100%;
position : absolute;
top : -1.5em;
left : -2em;
margin : 0;
}
onea
b
c
d
e
sixf
g
h
ninei
Of course, a could be used instead of the .
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Re: [WSG] A Church Website
If you mean his personal site at... http://www.olajideolaolorun.com/ ...you may have missed down the bottom... "Olajide Olaolorun is proudly powered by WordPress 1.2" ...which indicates it actually probably isn't his code anyway. Nick h. what can i say? is this a joke? because i compared this site to your personal site... and your site has: - doc type - clean code - 5 validation errors this site has - blink tags - an obscure, half-functional menu - spacer gifs - 80+ validation errors (starting, of course, with validation errors) and then, of course, there's the design differences, but as far as i know, this mailing list is not for design critiquing, so i'll hold back there. ok, that's it for now, i eagerly await an explanation! --a-- ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ Proud presenters of Web Essentials 04 http://we04.com/ Web standards, accessibility, inspiration, knowledge To be held in Sydney, September 30 and October 1, 2004 See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help **
Re: [WSG] My Favorite XHTML/CSS/JavaScript/PHP Editor - NO WYSIWYG
jEdit: http://www.jedit.org/ ...and be sure to check out the recommended plugins in the jEdit Wiki: http://community.jedit.org/cgi-bin/TWiki/view/Main/PluginsOverview Nick Greetings Every One! After "1st Page 2000", I'm using "AceHTML 5 Pro" to build websites (info: http://www.visicommedia.com/). It is great for HTML and CSS developer, but not for a programmer who uses JavaScript and PHP. ... I'm getting tired of it :-( What is your favorite XHTML Editor? (Please note that I'm not looking for WYSIWYG Editors) -- Thanks in advance, Behzad P.S. If you have no time, just mention the program's name :-) ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ Proud presenters of Web Essentials 04 http://we04.com/ Web standards, accessibility, inspiration, knowledge To be held in Sydney, September 30 and October 1, 2004 See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help **
Re: [WSG] start attribute deprecated in XHTML 1.0 Strict and up.
Hi Cameron, I just tried that link I posted and it goes to all the threads so you would've had a hard job getting to it. The "answer" is further in that post: - 3. The CSS way to accomplish the same things as the old `start` and `value` tag attributes is to use the CSS properties `counter-reset` and `counter-increment`. 4. But `counter-reset` and `counter-increment` aren't supported by any browsers other than Opera. I mean, jesus, it's one thing if IE doesn't support something, but when neither [Mozilla] [2] nor [Safari] [3] support it either, it's pretty much unusable. - The relevant discusssion in... http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/markdown-discuss/2004-March/ ... is "Starting ordered lists at numbers other than 1" by the "Daring Fireball" John Gruber. Nick I ran into this same problem the other, but forgot to research it. How, then, are we meant to start an ordered list at a number other than 1? -- Cameron Adams W: www.themaninblue.com ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ Proud presenters of Web Essentials 04 http://we04.com/ Web standards, accessibility, inspiration, knowledge To be held in Sydney, September 30 and October 1, 2004 See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help **
[WSG] start attribute deprecated in XHTML 1.0 Strict and up.
I was looking at some data of the form: AQUACULTURE 1. Scientists: Salmon Hatchery Policy Flawed (USA) 2. Fish Farms Seen Harming Dive Tourism (Malta) 3. Escaped Farmed Salmon Find Home (Alaska) COASTAL DEVELOPMENT 4. Mayor Casts Doubt Over Magnetic Is Report (Great Barrier Reef) 5. Hope for Maldives Rises from the Sea (Maldives) ...and looking at the how of doing that; type stuff and thought I'd check the specs as to how valid this is going forward. As usual the W3C docs were of little immediate help so a Google search turned up this: http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/markdown-discuss/2004-March/ 000255.html 1. The Transitional doctypes for HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0 support the `start` attribute for ``, and a `value` attribute for ``. You can use them like this: Ten Eleven Twenty which renders like this: 10. Ten 11. Eleven 20. Twenty 2. The W3C deprecated both of these attributes; thus they're invalid in the Strict doctypes for HTML 4.01 or XHTML 1.0. A lot of experts consider this deprecation, especially the `value` attribute, a very bad decision on the part of the W3C. For example, [Tantek Çelik] [1]. [1]: http://tantek.com/log/2003/01.html#L20030102t0602 The basic idea behind attribute deprecation is that *presentational* attributes have been deprecated, because one should use CSS for presentation styling. But the `value` attribute for list items is not presentational, it specifies important information about the meaning of the list. Now I'm not using XHTML higher than 1.0 Transitional but I thought this was noteworthy ...if it is correct. For any of you using XHTML 1.0 Strict and up, it is possibly something that may influence your decision making. Nick ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ Proud presenters of Web Essentials 04 http://we04.com/ Web standards, accessibility, inspiration, knowledge To be held in Sydney, September 30 and October 1, 2004 See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help **
[WSG] Full-length web page screenshots on OS X
Since screenshots from Safari on Mac OS X are occasionally asked for, this little utility pointed from O'Reilly ( http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/5576 ) is very useful. It takes full length web page screenshots via Webkit: http://0x.se/paparazzi/ Anyone know of similar tools for Windows use? Thanks, Nick ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ Proud presenters of Web Essentials 04 http://we04.com/ Web standards, accessibility, inspiration, knowledge To be held in Sydney, September 30 and October 1, 2004 See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help **
Re: [WSG] Standards-based PHP tutorials for beginners...
Hi Joshua, Why did you choose to go the XML route and in what way? I went down a similar path with earlier versions of systems I'd built, however, I didn't use XSLT which I'm guessing is how you're doing it. To keep this on topic I'm asking because clean XHTML used with CSS allows data that is already marked up with a fairly basic XML flavour. Isn't it simply faster to go straight from PHP to XHTML or XML (e.g. RDF, RSS), etc., templates as needed. A site I'm currently building a content management system for has some templates that are RDF for a newsfeed and others that are XHTML. I suppose what I'm curious about is why go from PHP to XML then on to e.g XHTML (a form of XML), RDF (a form of XML), etc. If you're storing data as XML it isn't intrinsically better than storing it in a database it's just one way of doing it. In somewhat the same way semantically marked up XHTML pages are in a sense XML stored data. CSS itself can then be used to repurpose those pages to some degree. I'm not by the way disputing your suggestion as each situation has different needs and we all make our own judgement. With regards to Michael's original question I would be cautious with being as specific as saying XML at this stage. I'd err on the simpler suggestion to keep the data-source, functionality/logic and presentation separate. Nick Couldn't agree more. One other suggestion, though, is to extend that separation a little further by generating XML with PHP, and then parsing that XML into whatever templating engine you end up using. This just provides another degree of separation, and reduces the temptation to hard-code ANY HTML into your back-end... something which I wish I'd been aware of 6 months ago! Having your content available in XML will also simplify the presentation of content in other formats in the future, if you choose to do so -- thinking of syndication (RSS) amongst other things. From a standards perspective, this separation just reduces the chance of making some early mistakes which will take ages to correct six months down the track. Joshua Street ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ Proud presenters of Web Essentials 04 http://we04.com/ Web standards, accessibility, inspiration, knowledge To be held in Sydney, September 30 and October 1, 2004 See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help **
Re: [WSG] Standards-based PHP tutorials for beginners...
Hi Michael, One thing I'd suggest if you're learning PHP is to from the very start try as much as possible to avoid having PHP generate your HTML (as in your example). I started coding PHP over 4 years ago using an e-commerce system that generated large amounts of the HTML and I still now have to occasionally work on it. I can tell you that debugging HTML is a scary task when it is being generated all over the place. It's a frequent complaint that database-driven/content-managed/whatever sites produce horrible HTML because of their "engines". This is not really the right list for too much discussion on PHP itself but I'd suggest you separate out your HTML into "templates" which can be done using template engines as tricky (and some say overkill) as Smarty or as simple as using in your HTML. The important thing being to only allow php code in your HTML that is responsible for actually generating the HTML. e.g. not database queries. In fact I was recently doing a quick update on the above system and realised the one improvement I'd do first would be to separate out the HTML as much as possible. A great place to get some idea of the approaches is sitepoint.com PHP forums; search for "php template" or similar. I'll not go too far into the nitty-gritties as it could drift off-topic. I do however think that the way a lot of systems are built does make building valid standards compliant sites very difficult if not done carefully. Nick ... a bit much to ask? Just wondering if anyone knew of any such tutorials. Those on php.net seem as if they were written by C programmers wanting to learn php. Yet those on webmonkey are so old that they still use things like: echo "Hi there"; Makes it very hard to help HTML newbies (who've learned standards-based html from the start) learn PHP! The best I could find was: http://www.free2code.net/tutorials/programming/php/4/ Introduction_to_PHP.php Any suggestions welcome! -Michael ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ Proud presenters of Web Essentials 04 http://we04.com/ Web standards, accessibility, inspiration, knowledge To be held in Sydney, September 30 and October 1, 2004 See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help **
[WSG] Article: Ten CSS tricks you may not know
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Re: [WSG] list of well constructed websites
http://www.stylegala.com motivated by the recent email about http://www.chevrolet.com is there an up to date list of well constructed websites that use CSS. - Roly ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ Proud presenters of Web Essentials 04 http://we04.com/ Web standards, accessibility, inspiration, knowledge To be held in Sydney, September 30 and October 1, 2004 See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help **
Re: [WSG] Word documents saved as html and "cleaned".
Hi Neerav, In fact much like my last reply to Jonothan I'd also considered doing that, with PHP 5 having the Tidy extension, as a future thing. Thanks, Nick Ive never tried it but AFAIK Tidy http://tidy.sourceforge.net/ can be used server side to clean up code on POST eg: http://infohound.net/tidy/ ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ Proud presenters of Web Essentials 04 http://we04.com/ Web standards, accessibility, inspiration, knowledge To be held in Sydney, September 30 and October 1, 2004 See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help **
Re: [WSG] Word documents saved as html and "cleaned".
Hi Jonothan, Yeah, I'd considered that for the future however right now as far as I know Word 2004 on the Mac does not have the ability to save as XML. Since one of the users is a Mac user (so am i in fact) that solution will have to wait. Thanks, Nick My recommendation would be to create an XML schema and then use a product like infopath to export the xml (xhtml) to your CMS. jonothan ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ Proud presenters of Web Essentials 04 http://we04.com/ Web standards, accessibility, inspiration, knowledge To be held in Sydney, September 30 and October 1, 2004 See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help **
[WSG] Word documents saved as html and "cleaned".
Hello, I'm currently re-reviewing means to allow my client (a non-profit org) to add formatted articles to a content management system. I've spent a good while reviewing the alternatives from in-browser wysiwyg's/ javascript driven tag generator/html editors to something external like Mozilla Composer. What I need is a means to edit e.g. an article that will ultimately end up within a specific . The requirements were to at least have options for different platforms, e.g. fckeditor runs in gecko browsers as well as IE. Also, that it would, of course, produce decent HTML to be used in a CSS/XHTML website. A solution that I've found may be the simplest is to work with the organisation's current workflow is simply to have them save Word docs as HTML, add that and then "clean" it up server side where needed. My questions are: Have any of you used this method? If so to what success with regards to having almost decent HTML? Any other warnings/tips/ideas? Thanks, Nick ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ Proud presenters of Web Essentials 04 http://we04.com/ Web standards, accessibility, inspiration, knowledge To be held in Sydney, September 30 and October 1, 2004 See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help **
Re: [WSG] Sportwear/fashion sites using web standards
Via http://www.webstandardsawards.com : http://www.esfootwear.com Nick Hi Folks, I was just wondering if anybody can point me in the direction of a sportswear or fashion site using web standards? Andy Budd http://www.message.uk.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 * * 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] Does anybody know an expandable vertical css/js menu based on uls?
Hi Gerd, You mean a bit like one I have at: http://www.amcs.org.au Which is based on... http://www.gazingus.org/html/Using_Lists_for_DHTML_Menus.html Nick Hi Folks! Could one of you please point me to a vertical menu solution based on css/js and semantically structured by ul/li's? I'd love to have a solution that opens a sublevel-ul when clicked on a toplevel navigation item. It would need 4-5 sublevels... I know this is a lot to ask for, but maybe somebody knows a webstandard - konform solution to that bugger ;) Thanks alot in advance! Best regards, Gerd Schoder * 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] Essential CSS hacks
Following on from the discussion on this list a little while ago about a list of hacks is this "Essential CSS hacks" blog entry on sitepoint: http://www.sitepoint.com/blog-post-view.php?id=179726 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 *
[WSG] Order of a state (link, visited, etc) styles in a stylesheet
This question is not really very easily Googlable so I'm posting it here. I vaguely remember reading that the order in which a state styles appeared in a stylesheet was important. I made a rough memory recall thingy: LoVe HAte (not an acronym but must have some official name) to stand for: a:link a:visited a:hover a:active So my questions are; Does the order matter? If so why and is my order above correct? Do we need to have all states styled? By the way if anyone's interested TRouBLe is a good memory recall thingy for the Top, Right, Bottom, Left, order of padding, margin, etc, attributes. Thanks, 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 *
[WSG] Article: "The real reason you should care about web standards"
http://www.designbyfire.com/99.html * 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] Standard Hacks?
I just think it is a little simplistic and idealistic to tell newcomers to css that all hacks are bad. Good post Scott...It's a relief seeing real world scenarios used to backup reasons and choices. I'm often surprised at the number of "educate your clients to understand why they cannot have their design looking the way they want it when the other design company down the road CAN do it (even though their source is frightening!)" etc... type arguments raised. I don't now about everyone else but I already spent huge amounts of time educating clients about everything from content classification to signatures in emails to what a web browser is. When I get them to follow the need for standards then that in itself is a good enough step for me. Honestly how many clients have the time to be constantly educated on the ins and outs of web site development? As I see it for most clients before the web there was print (mmm still is...but get the idea) and how often did they need to learn about the ins and outs of how their brochure was put together and why this may not line up exactly with that, etc... Anyway, to re-emphasise John's question: "Would it be beneficial to come up with a list of "Standard Hacks" :-)" He merely asked if a list of standard/stroke common hacks would be useful, not whether hacks are good/bad or should/shouldn't be used. Personally, I'd say it would be useful for the reason I cited in an earlier post and whether you use them or not is dependant on your real world situation. 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] Standard Hacks?
I think that's a great idea actually. In theory yes we should all avoid hacks but there are a few reasons where a big fat list of the "standard" hacks, reasons for use and pros and cons would be useful... 1. If a deadline is looming and a hack will temporarily get you through it without resorting to the old demons of HTML. 2. To help understand the source/css of sites that have used a hack to implement something. 3. To get an idea of the kind of bugs/issues that have required a hack to get over. Nick Would it be beneficial to come up with a list of "Standard Hacks" :-) * 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] Action to force browser developers to clean up their act
The first step should be a clear and unequivocal statement that we will not write fixes for new non-compliant browsers. Design a new Browser by all means, but make it compliant. By "non-compliant" you mean that they do not adhere to the standards put down by the W3C whose role is the development of "interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines, software, and tools) to lead the Web to its full potential.". The W3C puts out guidelines and specs very much like this standards list has guidelines for posting. However, funnily enough the guidelines (aka standards) for this list are probably more often ignored than the W3C guidelines. Now that's not a dig, just an observation that there are many reasons that browsers may not adhere fully, just as there are reasons people don't adhere to this list's guidelines. Web browsers (or at least the underlying technology of a web browser ...thinking webkit on OS X or gecko, khtml, etc) are not just built by "some spotty youths in a garage in St Kilda". On the contrary those spotty youths are more likely to be developing web sites! To encourage better standards we need to do just that...encourage. For example; introducing everyone you know to, e.g., Firefox, would probably do a great deal more for standards than spending time ranting on this list (although that might sooth an instant irritation). As is often pointed out, many people don't even know what a "web browser" is. I just had to explain to a client, I'm developing a content management system for, what a browser was after I encouraged them to adopt Firefox to use for accessing the admin section (whilst adopting standards for the main site of course). Ironically, in the process of focussing on using non-standard browser, I had to introduce them to the concept of a world outside the Internet Explorer version (aka "the internet" ) that came with their operating system. Then of course your next step is getting all the web designers/developers you know to develop with web standards, etc...then a loong way down the bottom of that list would be "Force Microsoft to adopt W3C standards"... 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] New suckerfish menus
Ah...sorry to be more specific the squashed text in Safari refers to the prettier one: http://www.htmldog.com/articles/suckerfish/dropdowns/example/ the other one level, two level and three level bare-bones examples do not have the issue. --- To add to that, for reference: In Safari 1.0 the horizontal drop down text is squashed together (no line-height/leading/whatever media you think in) and in the vertical second level menus do not align with their parent. In Mac IE 5.2 the menus simply don't function. They are lovely in Firefox 0.8+ though. Nick Some brief tests of http://www.htmldog.com/articles/suckerfish/dropdowns/example/ vertical.html Win IE 4 - only the 1st level menu items display and theyre very widely spaced Win IE 5.01 - on mouseover the menu jumps all over the place Win IE 5.5 - Works fine Win IE 6 - works fine Still a laudable piece of work but the individual decision to not have a working menu for IE 4/5 and design for the future must be made. * 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] New suckerfish menus
To add to that, for reference: In Safari 1.0 the horizontal drop down text is squashed together (no line-height/leading/whatever media you think in) and in the vertical second level menus do not align with their parent. In Mac IE 5.2 the menus simply don't function. They are lovely in Firefox 0.8+ though. Nick Some brief tests of http://www.htmldog.com/articles/suckerfish/dropdowns/example/ vertical.html Win IE 4 - only the 1st level menu items display and theyre very widely spaced Win IE 5.01 - on mouseover the menu jumps all over the place Win IE 5.5 - Works fine Win IE 6 - works fine Still a laudable piece of work but the individual decision to not have a working menu for IE 4/5 and design for the future must be made. * 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] digital web magazine redesign
Ha funny, I've been pointing to... http://www.mezzoblue.com/archives/2004/05/13/gasp_tables/index.php ...which was pointing to your weblog and here you are on the list anyway! Next time I should just check the roster and leave you to respond to the "Tables are bad because..." posts! Nick Slick! Hill, Tim wrote: New redesign for digital web, looks cool. www.digital-web.com Andy Budd * 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] Tables are bad because...
Although as I'd already posted today... http://www.mezzoblue.com/archives/2004/05/13/gasp_tables/index.php ...has an objective look at it. How about this article, helpfully titled "Why tables for layout is stupid". http://www.hotdesign.com/seybold/ Also, I highly recommend Jeffrey Zeldman's book "Designing for Web Standards". It's a great read, for zealots and non-zealots alike :) * 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] digital web magazine redesign
Well to bring it tenuously back on topic... Take a look at some of the features on that page then take a trip to alistapart.com with a checklist: Mountaintop Corners Sliding Doors etc... ...and I forget where I've seen that background quotes idea before. What I'm driving at is not that the designer there has ripped anything off, more that you do build a mental or bookmarked scrapbook of ideas. In the digital web site they COULD have been influenced as much by discovering what can be done safely in CSS as much as what looks good. Design is as much about method as some ethereal gift which is often how it is treated. As Universal Head Peter points out it's often still an agonising process for 'designer people'. I moved into programming web apps as I'd been designing for over 10 years previously and needed a break from other people's opinions and all the back seat designing that you have to deal with (designer as scribe?!). I'm now getting back into it and what's interesting is all the methodology of creative thinking that I'm needing to get back into. As an example with regards to those alistapart things cited above I put them in a mental bookmark filed under...that would be good for the upcoming project X. This same process is done in programming where you build a library (mental or digital) of useful stuff. That said it still takes a certain other thing to get all things looking pretty and ahem... working in CSS (grasping at straws!). Nick We're in danger of getting smacked on the keyboard hands by the List Mum, but I'll quickly say: * 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] Objective look at tables for layout
Via Mezzoblue: http://www.mezzoblue.com/archives/2004/05/13/gasp_tables/index.php * 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] Making Dreamweaver's Rollover JS accessible
What is ecma? Standards organisation: http://www.ecma-international.org/ of which... http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-262.htm ...is the standard for ECMAScript scripting language which is essentially javascript standardised. Flash's actionscript is also based on it. 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] Form submission: CAPTCHA test and accessibility
What annoys me is that with the proliferation of this sort of thing, people will get used to it, accept it, then not really notice that they have to do it all the time, and then no one will realise that we've just condemned visually impaired users (and anyone else who can't load images for whatever reason!) back to the dark-ages of not being able to access anything. Yeah that's what I was thinking. In fact I hadn't intended on using them for anything, my concern was more that it needs to be made clear whether they do potentially keep out valid users. Even though they may become a sad necessity for someone trying to stop an assault on say a their weblog, I can see their adoption in other areas having being taken up by developers thinking "ah that's a good idea" without considering (or being aware of) the full implications. In other words a "use with caution and only as a last resort" ...etc, 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 *
[WSG] Form submission: CAPTCHA test and accessibility
I was wondering if any of you had opinions/thoughts on the use of CAPTCHA tests (or whatever proper name is given to the little numbered images used to verify a form submitting user is human and not a spamming machine). They are obviously a reaction to the ever increasing amounts of spam being imposed on, e.g. comments systems, however I wondered how much their uptake could end up excluding certain users, e.g. vision impaired. 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] Trimming the fat from CSS
Hi Brian, You seem to be getting jumped on a bit for this and I'd say it's largely a matter of preference so a little pointless to go on at length about. However, you are inviting comment by saying "bloat and that is all the stuff that makes code pretty and "easily readable" by inexperienced programmers does." since Python itself is based on indentation (formatting) and can hardly be called a bloated language nor one for inexperienced programmers. Also the other big point is a stylesheet file is cached on the first page load whereas individual pages and images are often reloaded so arguing about the 7k saved in the CSS file while leaving 1k on every image (I certainly see far more sites with poorly optimised images that could speed things up no end) would be getting "one's" priorities wrong (not saying you do that just a general point). So in summary it depends where you need to trim. In your workflow you have things narrowed to the degree that you can afford to go to this length but for others this may actually "bloat" their workflow. Part of standards development I'm sure we all love is the improvement in workflow. Nick I happen to be one of "those people" and I can say that the practice is under utilized by the programming industry as a whole. And I am neither anal nor ANAL, it is simply the method of coding I like to use once I have a page developed to a point I no I will only be touching it up here and there. As I stated previously, I look at it as building a rocket to go to the moon - you want light but solid and reliable. I HATE bloat and that is all the stuff that makes code pretty and "easily readable" by inexperienced programmers does. * 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] Constructive Criticism please
Hi Brian, I moved this onto a "trimming the fat" thread as I felt it was moving off topic from Jackie's post. Out of interest how much are you working with/sharing these files in a team environment? With the generally varying levels of skills (especially with CSS) in most teams I'd say that "real world" is not just about lean mean formatting. In fact the opposite is more likely, I know that if I received CSS stripped to that degree to work with, it would probably slow me down. Of course formatting preferences are a discussion of their own and in this case this is yours. I simply ask to get an idea of your workflow and how others should consider it's application in their own situation. Nick What is good coding practice about wasting a byte? You may say its only a byte, but multiply that one byte by 25 on a style sheet and multiply that by a few thousand hits and you are talking bandwidth! Good coding practice is for classroom, real world you want lean with as little waste as possible. I look at it like a space mission to the moon and every byte is weight - the less weight I have for the structure of the rocket (framework for the site)and still have a solid site, the more room I have for cargo and mission materials (content). I always use instead of , instead of , red or #F00 instead of #FF and so on. Every byte I can save makes for a faster and leaner site, especially when building a dynamic site. It also leaves me more room to add more descriptive alt and title tags to my images and links. However, just like in eating, there are those of us who chew their food 21 times for each bite and there are those of us who chomp and chew enough to swallow without choking. In otherwords, some want pretty code, others want the maximum in efficient code. I happen to be in the latter and have learned to read sites made with one long line of code as easily as the pretty stuff with new indents for every sub piece and a reduced indent for the way out. It all works in the end I guess. * 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] Trimming the fat from CSS
Yeah pretty well what I was thinking I mean in practice CSS files are often shared and the very process of using CSS based layouts v's tables already trims a huge load off the page size anyway. It just seemed almost scarily ...thorough... to be trimming the stylesheet in this way as well. Though as I said if you have an auto trimmer/de-trimmer then fair enough. Nick Any web server worth it's salt will gzip compress static files, which makes trimming all the whitespace a bit pointless. Ditto with any crazy-assed class naming scheme you come up with to make things smaller. I learnt most of what I know about HTML, CSS & JS from viewing the source of pages that had something I thought was cool, so I think it's kinda nice to make my stuff as readable as possible for anyone doing the same these days. Also helps when I come back to make changes 6 months later & wonder WTF things do :) * 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] Trimming the fat from CSS
Does everyone else on the list do this? For the sake of 11k that is cached on the first page load it seems a little drastic. I do programming work as well as markup and the indentation/formatting of the code is very important in producing readable code. If it was only me looking at the CSS then fine, but in a team situation producing CSS formatted like this could make human reading a lot harder and thus slow production time. I can understand if you use TopStyle to do this automatically but I just thought a note of caution/consideration to others reading this that may feel it's a thing all good CSS developers must do. Personally I'd prefer to leave my CSS formatted as is and shave the k's off images used, etc. Then if I need to hand the stylesheets over to someone they are more usable. Nick Anyway as for your CSS, you have a lot of fat that can be trimmed from that as well (no need to repeat the font families if ya put them in the body style) You do not need the “;” after the last attribute in each style (You can remove the returns and have your list go horizontal instead of vertical) Once all done remove all spaces between the commas and the semi-colons and remove the rest of the returns and have one LONG line – all of these together will trim A LOT off the size of the stylesheet – mine by itself in a editing state with comments is over 18k but the version I put on line is under 7k. It don’t look as pretty when it is opened and is harder to read by a human, but it is a smaller file and reads faster by a machine. * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help *
