A Note to Web Designers

For all of you HTMLers out there, I have included this note. Feel free to check the source on any of my pages, as that is one of the best ways to learn. If you have any questions to ask, feel free to e-mail me using the form here.

A few notes: #1: I do all of my tags in lower case like <this>, rather than in upper case. While this way, it is harder to spot where the tags are, I find it easier to type them in lowercase, so you'll just have to live with it.

#2: I am deeply opposed to pages that are browser specific. You will not find any pages that are "Netscape Enhanced" until the tags have been included into the finalized HTML specifications. Also, I am opposed to the extensive use of images. I figure, the more time I spend creating large images, the less time I have for creating worthwhile pages.

#3: JavaScript, frames, animated gifs, imagemaps, and extensive images can all be used effectively. 99% of the time they're not. If you put something on your page just because it's neat, take it off. Now. I don't care how many hits you get. I would MUCH rather see what link I'm pointing to than a flashing banner at the bottom of my screen. I'd rather read something interesting than wait for a big honking image to load. And if you must use large images, use the height= and width= tags. Oh, and if you think animated gifs are cool, they're not. For more information about what sucks, see some web pages that suck. </rant>

#4: Test your page on lots of different browsers. I love iCab's error checker. If your page conforms to specifications and looks crappy and annoying on a particular browser, that's officially a problem with that browser. If it's some hack you worked out, it's a problem with your page.

#5: Try to separate content and form. Cascading Style Sheets make this pretty easy to do, and are decently supported by most browsers, and will hopefully be perfectly supported within a few years. The content-free appearance of my pages (colors, etc.) is controlled by style sheets, which also make changing a whole site's appearance a rather trivial operation.

#6: The last-mod dates and quotes at the bottom of all of my pages are generated server-side by PHP. They're a neat and fun feature that doesn't annoy anyone and that works with any browser.

If you want to see what lynx users are frequently confronted with, check out this frames page.

If you find that anything on my pages is not complient with your browser (I used a few Netscape tags that should look okay without Netscape), let me know, and I will deal with it.

Back in the day, I suggested the following HTML tutor: A Beginner's Guide to HTML, produced by NCSA. It is where I learned HTML and it is quite extensive. These days, I can't recommend enough the Web Design Group.