Archive: HTML/(X)HTML
Semantic Header Markup Means Search Engines Will Understand Too
Posted on Tuesday, May 1st, 2007
I was going to write a post on how using semantically correct markup for your post titles would improve the accessibility of your page, impress the meaning of your content to both readers and search engines and generally add to the level of well-being in the world. Sadly for me, Chris Pearson got there first with his post, The Definitive Guide to Semantic Web Markup for Blogs. The other unfortunate thing is that he probably did it better than I would have done!
Flattery aside, the article really does hit the spot. Header elements are not to be used for presentation and selecting the size of font you use for a particular word, they convey the hierarchy and meaning behind each heading and subheading and should be used like that. Recently I changed my post titles on their single pages from <h2>s to <h1>s as I realised that the title of my post is the most important part of the page, not the name of my blog. I do have my own tip as well, so I wrote this post instead.
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The Internet’s Upper Class Or Why Your Site Should Be POSH
Posted on Tuesday, April 24th, 2007
HTML is great, anyone can make a website due to the simplicity of marking up a page and the leniency of web browsers. The idea that anyone could be on the lead to the huge growth of the Internet in it’s early days with personal pages and static sites popping up everywhere and again now with blogs and wikis.
As the Internet has grown so has it’s basis. HTML is much more than what IE or Netscape deem it to be, it has it’s own standards, it’s own structure and it’s own meaning. I’m not talking about the intricate complexities of Microformats, just about POSH.
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Stripping Off For Web Standards - It’s Naked Day
Posted on Monday, April 2nd, 2007
April 5th is CSS Naked Day! What does this mean? If you visit Unintentionally Blank, or any other of the sites on the Naked Day List on April 5th you won’t see any of the design that we all put so much effort into. Instead, you will see the bare HTML.
Why Would You Do That?
No CSS? Won’t that make the site unusable, unreadable, unbearable? The simple answer is, “No”. As this site follows web standards and uses semantic markup, you will still be able to use and read this site as intended. It will all be in black and white and standard fonts, sidebar underneath the main content and none of these fancy gradients, but the text will be there, the headings will be obvious and the underlying structure of the site will shine through.
The aim of the exercise is to prove the benefits of separating content from design, the ability of markup to describe a site in a perfectly readable way and being a bit of a geek. I’d have taken part last year, but this blog was merely a twinkle in my eye then. Still, I remember reading about it last year and wishing I had the ability to take part, not just the site, but the markup too. This year both goals have been achieved and I will be proud to be naked.
Join In!
Is your naked <body> good enough to take part too? Are you going to strip off this week? If you are proud of your code and want to support web standards, join in. If you’re using WordPress, there’s even a Naked Day plugin available.
Come on, let’s get naked!
How Many Web Designers Does It Take To Change A Lightbulb?
Posted on Thursday, September 21st, 2006
Web standards are the backbone of the internet these days. Well built, good looking sites with semantic, valid mark up for the content and CSS controlling the design mean that pages render as they should for all users. Thanks to the W3C the web is a better place for all of us. Or is it?
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IF Internet Explorer THEN Do Something Else (A How To…)
Posted on Tuesday, September 19th, 2006
Thanks to the magic of Google Analytics I have discovered that a good number of this blog’s visitors reach here with searches to do with Internet Explorer’s conditional comments. This is due to my post, a month back, extolling the use of conditional comments instead of CSS hacks. More recently I considered that if someone was searching for information on conditional comments then they were unlikely to find interest in an article merely telling them they should use them. Then along came the latest ProBlogger Group Writing Project - How To… and it all made sense. So here is how you can improve your code and drop those worthless CSS hacks; How to use conditional comments - the practical version.
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