[Opera-users] OT: Initiate Seeks Guidance (was Java Script)

[Dave Anderson]

On Wed, 27 Jun 2001 11:28:37 -0400,
  CallingCrow <callingcrow at crosswinds.net> wrote:

>Am working on setting up a website & discussion group for a local
>event that I'm the "official" coordinator of.  This stuff's still quite new
>to me and I'm finding it challenging (and frustrating).
>
>I'm wondering if it's possible for a beginner to skip html and start the
>learning process with xhtml AND where the definitive (OK, at least
>reasonably authoritative, reliable & useful) online guide to coding in
>xhtml (and/or html) is.  If it's not possible to start w/ xhtml, what's the
>recommended path to get, as quickly as possible, from beginning
>html to xhtml?  (Granted, I've not spent time yet in W3C's tutorials,
>just quickly reviewed & bookmarked them.)  Further note:  After two
>years unsuccessful job seeking, I'm now doing a great deal of
>community volunteer work.  This means I am both busy and broke.
>Buying books and shareware is beyond my means (unless I close
>my ISP account ;^).

I'm not an expert on this but from listening to people who are the 
impression I get is that XHMTL isn't really worth bothering with--it 
doesn't give you anything meaningful beyond what HTML does (except for
problems).  There is a lot of hype about it, but it's generally from the 
"flash and glitter" crowd.

The best HTML resource I've found on the web is www.htmlhelp.org--it not 
only has a lot of good content itself but also links to pretty much every 
other good HTML resource.  Unlike far too many other "all about HTML" sites
(and books) they concentrate on standards and wide accessibility rather 
than flash and glitter.

>I believe that what I need to do is start fresh & develop a site from
>scratch as I learn the code - once I've got the current site
>reasonably updated and running.  I *want* to learn good habits, so
>to speak, from the start so that I won't have to unlearn bad habits
>(life is short, time precious).

See www.htmlhelp.org--there's good information about this there.  The 
ultra-condensed version: check your site using
- an HTML validator (checks that your HTML syntax follows the standard)
- one or more "linters" (checks for constructs which are known to cause 
    problems with some browsers or to cause accessibility problems)
- a CSS-checker (if you're using CSS, which you should be these days)
and for every problem found either change your site to eliminate it or
understand what its effects are likely to be (for all browsers) and decide
that its benefits outweigh its costs.  Also check how your site works in 
the current versions of the "big two" and in a few other browsers--I'd 
recommend including Lynx, not because a huge number of people use it but 
because what it shows you will be similar to what the scanners for the 
search engine sites (Google, Altavista, etc) will "see".  [You'd be amazed 
at how many sites are indexed under, for example, "Your browser doesn't 
support frames."]  Remember to test with both large and small windows, with
cookies/javascript/Java both turned on and turned off, etc.  Start testing 
as soon as you've written one small page--you'll soon learn what's needed 
to write clean HTML, and the number of problems found in testing will drop 
to a manageable value (they're likely to seem overwhelming at first).

>                                 How can I be sure what I've created
>works everywhere without having a copy of every browser available
>on the market?

Unfortunately you can never be sure; someone (usually Microsoft or 
Netscape) will always release a new browser which totally screws up 
perfectly correct HTML in a way that no browser has ever done before.  
"Having a copy of every browser" doesn't work, pretty much by 
definition--you'll never have a copy of a browser that's going to be 
released tomorrow.  

Good luck,

        Dave

-- 
Dave Anderson
<dave at daveanderson.com>