../ -- html.html
updated 2007-02-19.
"Everything I know about HTML and CGI" . .
Contents:
See also
[FIXME: since Quality Tips for Webmasters http://www.w3.org/2001/06tips/ is asking people to submit tips, perhaps I should move my tips from here to there ... ]
[FIXME: consider moving most of this information from here to http://massmind.org/techref/language/html/ ]
My goal is to make stuff on my web site maximally visible. (If this isn't your goal, why bother to put anything up ?)
My major goals for this site are
Why ? ``Buy the truth, and sell it not: also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.'' -- Proverbs 23:23.
I wanted to
To do this, I
[um, actually, I have a few other directories, but I *intend* to move everything to these directories]
Since all my pages (except "index.html") are in my "html/" subdirectory, it's easy for most browsers to get a exhaustive list of *all* my documents by viewing http://www.rdrop.com/~cary/html/ . (And a exhaustive list of all my images by looking in my "image/" directory).
With a book, it's obvious how large it is and how much left there is to view. With a web page, I'm often left wondering, "OK, I've seen 3 interesting pages. Is that it ? Is there just one more page ? Or does this site go on and on for a few thousand more pages ?"
I know I find it frustrating when I'm wandering around some interesting site, getting that deja-vu feeling from seeing the same documents over and over, wondering if I missed some fascinating page somewhere. I try to mention every sub-folder in index.html, letting users know they exist and letting them get there with a simple click rather than manually editing a URL.
While I really like the "previous", "up", "next" concepts recommended in the Style Guide for Online Hypertext and will put them on my pages Real Soon Now, I'm not exactly sure what to do on the last page. I could
( Joshua Kaufman http://unraveled.com/joshua/ has some rants on good and bad "prev" and "next" links )
I'm thinking that, since it's that annoying "index.html" file that is getting in the way of maximum visibility, that I should eliminate it entirely -- or perhaps segregate it as "index/index.html".
For stuff specific to my own site, I start at the root URL http://rdrop.com/ and select "Documentation" | "Authoring web pages on Agora".
Everything I know about HTML (including advice on how to write "good" HTML) comes from these sources:
Tutorials and information on the HTML standard (You may not need this if you use a WYSIWYG web page editor like "GNN Press" or "Microsoft Front Page Express", or "export HTML" from Microsoft Word ), but you definitely need to know this if you're going to look at the raw code in a text editor:
The default background on many popular web browsers is a ugly grey. There are 2 ways to fix this:
<html> ... <STYLE type="text/css"> BODY { background: black; color: white} A:link { color: yellow } <!-- unvisited --> A:visited { color: fuchsia } A:active { color: white } </STYLE> </head>(setting *only* the background color is a bad idea according to http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/types.html#h-6.5.1 ). You must do this if you set a background image.
I recommend option 1 for all but the most ultra-graphics-intensive "eye candy" pages. Some people like black on yellow, other like bright green on black. I personally prefer black text on a white background. Wouldn't you rather read text on your own favorite background and foreground colors ? I still don't understand why some authors believe that every reader has exactly the same favorite colors. Some people *like* lots and lots of tiny little letters filling the screen. Other people *like* using very large fonts. Why not give people what they want ?
Every time I move to a new machine, I set up my favorite colors.
In FireFox, I choose
[T]ools | [O]ptions... | Content | [C]olors...
then set the colors, then
OK
.
In Microsoft IE 4.0, I choose
[V]iew | Internet [O]ptions... | General | C[o]lors
then set the colors, then
OK | OK
Q: Why would anyone put time and effort into a FAQ, then give it away for free ? Or put anything else on the web, for that matter ?
"Fluff and other whistle and bells never impressed Abigail. She wants the web to be a library, a meeting place, a communication channel. All the content free blitz only distracts, it does not contribute. Join her in her crusade! Help her to make the Web a better place." -- Abigail
Abigail says it better than DAV's original attempt an an explanation:
Game Theory shows that "write up an answer and send it to the FAQ Maintainer" is a better strategy than "hoard this knowledge to myself".
The proof is outside the scope of this FAQ. (It saves an "expert" time by allowing him to answer common questions once and for all by giving a newbie a copy of the appropriate FAQ, rather than patiently explain, for the umpteenth time, "What is PCMCIA ?" or "How can I tell if my Pentium has the FDIV bug?" or "Can I fake a keyboard so my computer will boot without it?" or "How do I rotate a 3D point?".)
A2: Metaphysical explanation:
I know of no religious/theological/ethical literature that mentions PC Cards specifically. The FAQ-making process, however, has roots in the 2nd command (Lev.19:18), knowledge (Prov.23:23), apathy (James.4:17), and the "answer a fool" paradox of Prov. 26:4,5.
Or perhaps I have no free will, I am doomed to produce this thing -- see the Minkowski block-universe explanation in _Time Machines_ by Paul J. Nahin.
A3: Psychological explanation:
David's ego is stroked by responses that say "thanks", "well done".
David's ego believes he's the only entity in the universe intelligent enough to write a FAQ on PC Cards.
A4: Psychotic explanation:
tHe vOiCeS iN mY hEaD tOlD mE tO dO iT. yOu mUsT oPeN yOUr mInd tO uS. rEsIsTanCe iS fUtIlE. hUmOr iS pOwEr.
Q: Why do I get the impression you're not taking me seriously ?
Exhaustive references to the HTML standard. These are useful as a reference after you've read one of the above tutorials. All the picky little details. ( "character entity references" si_metric_faq.html#iso8859 , how to display greek and other symbols ...) These generally have pointers to validation tools and other related links.
I need to occasionally check my web site for problems. These tools make it easy to find the most common problems with my web page:
You can skip this section if you never make mistakes.
W3C CSS Validation Service http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
DAV: I encourage you to take all the useful information you know and stick it on the web first, before you even *think* about making it look "pretty".
Don't get so caught up in making it look pretty that you forget why you make web pages .
Then make it easy for people to comment on your page by putting your email address on that page (if you're worried about spam, put your email address in a .png picture so it can only be read by actual humans), and by properly linking your page to backlinks #backlinks , and perhaps a guest log, a relevant wiki, and/or a feedback form feedback.html .
Also make it easy for yourself or future maintainers to remember information about your page: Embed metadata #metadata into the page (perhaps in comments).
Once you put your own information up, you should provide links to other related information -- such as people with the same name as your own name #same_name
Only after that information is online should you even think about the following design advice.
It seems that most sites have these pages:
... will not send spam ... will not give or sell the addresses I collect to anyone who may send spam ... ... will use any collected email addresses a maximum of X times before deleting them, so if you simply do not respond to any email from us, you will receive a maximum of X messages from us ...
... opt-in ... I get far too much spam myself. I refuse to support any more spam. ...
The following links have some really good ideas (design principles)(style)(advice): for "giving your readers a pleasant viewing experience".
see also computer_graphics_tools.html#web for tools to help you make images, icons, buttons, etc. suitable for the Web.
Let people use their favorite browser.
Let people use whatever width window they like.
-- Tim Berners-Lee in Technology Review, July 1996"Anyone who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with Browser X' label on a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the Web, when you had very little chance of reading a document written on another computer, another word processor, or another network."
"liquid design", "flowed"
Rather than force things to be a specific size and arrangement, some people prefer it when things automatically reflow to fit their screen.
instead of leaving users at low resolutions with a scroll bar at the bottom of their screen (requiring them to constantly scroll left-to-right-to-left to read content or see ads), or leaving users at high resolutions with large amounts of white space outside of your content, consider building pages that scale to fit the user. There are many advantages to this(some browser-version-specific table information ... obsolete ?)liquiddesign approach.
[FIXME: don't I have more stuff scattered elsewhere to put here ?]
Here I list user-interface ideas specific to web pages.
See also user_interface.html has general user-interface tips for all software (including web browsing).
[FIXME: lots of articles here; read a few more.]Bruce Tognazzini ... a recognized leader in human/computer interaction design. ... at Sun where he led the Starfire Project ... he founded the Apple Human Interface Group and acted as Apple's Human Interface Evangelist.
-- Jef Raskin http://mxmora.best.vwh.net/JefRaskin.htmlMy thesis in Computer Science, published in 1967, argued that computers should be all-graphic, that we should eliminate character generators and create characters graphically and in various fonts, that what you see on the screen should be what you get, and that the human interface was more important than mere considerations of algorithmic efficiency and compactness.
...
Before creating the Mac project, I was Manager of Publications at Apple, and so for the Mac I was careful to insist that the excellence of the product extend, to use Horn's words, to "the unpacking instructions, the profusely-illustrated and beautifully-written manuals, ... tastefully packaged." Packaging was another major concern of mine ... ...
... Of course, he might well be correct when speaking from a programmer's point of view. However, I've always been more concerned with users. Programmers do their work but once, while users are saddled with it ever thereafter.
...
With regard to my thesis, its formal title was, "A Hardware-Independent Computer Drawing System Using List-Structured Modeling: The Quick-Draw Graphics System" Pennsylvania State University, 1967. ...
... Weinberg's ground-breaking "The Psychology of Computer Programming" was published in 1971. ...
...
A number of people asked for permission to redistribute my notes on the history of the Mac. Yes, so long as you are a not-for-profit organization or club and say "Copyright 1996 by Jef Raskin. Used by permission." If you make money from my writing, I should, too.
Copyright (c) 1996 by Jef Raskin. Used by permission.
Every document has metadata associated with it. I suppose you could just memorize it -- but then, I suppose you could just memorize the contents of the entire file. Given that you're going to write it down somewhere, it's generally a very good idea (especially with program source code) to embed this metadata into the document itself, making a "self-describing file".
David Cary plans to put *most* of these items of metadata into every document he creates.
``The system can learn a lot about each document just by keeping its eyes and ears open. If the associative retrieval system remembered some of this information, much of the setup burden on the user would be made unnecessary. The program could, for example, easily remember such things as
- The program that created the document
- The type of document: words, numbers, tables, graphics
- The program that last opened the document
- If the document is exceptionally large or small
- If the document has been untouched for a long time
- The length of time the document was last open
- The amount of information that was added or deleted during the last edit
- Whether the document has been edited by more than one type of program
- Whether the document contains embedded objects from other programs
- Whether the document was created from scratch or cloned from another
- If the document is frequently edited
- If the document is frequently viewed but rarely edited
- Whether the document has been printed/faxed/emailed and where/to whom.
- How often the document has been printed, and whether changes were made to it each time immediately before printing The retrieval system could find documents for the user based on these facts without the user ever having to explicitly record anything in advance. Can you think of other useful attributes the system could remember ?
''
-- p.106 _About Face_ (1995) book by Alan Cooper
"A full understanding of a program ... code ... [and] numerous idems of metadata describing the context in which a program was created and is used. Unlike comments, which usually describe a piece of a program, these metadata refer to the entire program. A partial list of program metadata:
Related to but distinct from the metadata are longer texts that describe the program, such as an abstract, statement of purpose, and history." -- p. 121, _Human Factors and Typography for More Readable Programs_ (1990) by Baecker and Marcus.
For documents that list addresses, each individual address should be dated as to when it was last confirmed. -- DAV
[FIXME: add information about file format header considerations computer_graphics_tools.html#file_formats here -- or link to discussion elsewhere] start compressed file with name, date, compression program, etc.
More about metadata:
> -- Tim Berners-Lee 1998 http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI.htmlmake sure you capture with every document
- its acceptable distribution, [is it confidential ?]
- its creation date and ideally
- its expiry date.
Keep this metadata.
Includes information like the type of file, the file size, number of hard links to the file, inode number, timestamps (time of last access, time of last modification, and time of last attribute modification), mode flags, file ownership user and group Ids, and file permissions. When performing backups, it is often as critical to preserve metadata as it is to preserve file contents.
Source: Linuxcare reader Rob Hartly
http://wwhttp://www.linuxcare.com/news_columns/w.linuxcare.com/news_columns/ | mirror http://www.linuxcare.com/news_columns/lingo/archive_99december.epl
<meta name="zipcode" content="87112,87113,87114"> <meta name="city" content="albuquerque, abq, rio rancho"> <meta name="state" content="new mexico"> <meta name="country" content="usa, united states of america"> <meta name="classification" content="products,product">
However, the "author" and the "language" tag seem redundant --
what does
<meta name="language" content="english">
give me that
<html lang="en-US">
does not ?
What does
<meta name="author" content="matt wells">
give me that
backlinks are a nifty tool that you might consider adding to your web pages.
Using "view source", you can copy and paste these "forms" into your own pages.
The tip "Don't forget to add a doctype" http://www.w3.org/2001/06tips/Doctype points to
All the following are listed on the 2nd reference ...
Currently I use something like
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd" >
I'm thinking about switching to
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1 plus MathML 2.0 plus SVG 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/2002/04/xhtml-math-svg/xhtml-math-svg.dtd"> to give me XHTML + MathML + SVG.
But it's so annoying to have to add all those </p> paragraph-end tags that http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-xhtml1-20000126/ says is required under XML.
[FIXME: ]
Also points to CSS tutorials, CSS validators, CSS reference pages, CSS web tips.
10 Tips on Writing the Living Web http://www.alistapart.com/stories/writeliving/ inspirational
``From Web Hacks to Web Standards: A Designer's Journey: a CSS redesign in five easy pages'' by Jeffrey Zeldman http://www.alistapart.com/stories/journey/
``To Hell With Bad Browsers'' by Jeffrey Zeldman http://www.alistapart.com/stories/tohell/ an explaination of why writing to standards (so your writing looks good on future browsers) is better than writing to the quirks of past browswers.
"forms" are sections of HTML files that let users send information back to the server.
A "CGI" script accepts that information and does something with it.
There are already many public machines with CGI scripts you can use, just by putting the appropriate form in your HTML files. ("remotely hosted CGI")
Please check with your own ISP and see what other local CGI scripts you have available to you. Nearly all of them have a CGI script you can use for feedback forms, usually called something like "mailform" or "mailto". ("mailto.pl" is a Perl script written and freely distributed by Doug Stevenson http://www-bprc.mps.ohio-state.edu/mailto/mailto_info.html ). On my system, documentation is at http://rdrop.com/tools/www/mailform/
More on writing your own forms:
Perhaps these CGI scripts don't do exactly what you want. Then you might be able to write your own CGI script to handle the information returned by forms. This section talks about writing server-side programming. Most ISPs do not allow you to write server-side programs -- so this section will be utterly useless to most people.
I far prefer <form method=GET action="..."> over the <form method=POST action="..."> as a form submission method http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/interact/forms.html#submit-format , because it's so much easier to debug. Also, GET allows you to easily do clever things like make some links that have common selections pre-filled.
( "The use of POST rather than GET is a ... obstacle ... If you're starting from scratch and want to use SOAP, make sure your SOAP toolkit supports the HTTP GET mode of access." -- The Beauty of REST by Jon Udell March 17, 2004 http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2004/03/17/udell.html )
To understand how CGI works, it helps to know a little about the standard HTTP protocol. Normally, to fetch a standard HTML page (for example, http://www2.okstate.edu/ ) your local web browser opens a connection with the remote server on port 80. This indistinguishable (at the server end) from you typing
telnet www2.okstate.edu 80
from your command prompt. Then the browser requests the specific page (in this case, "/") exactly like you typing
GET / HTTP/1.0
(note that you *must* type 2 return characters, "\n\n" after the GET command) and then your web browser waits for the response. By now, if you've been following along, the remote server has replied with something like
HTTP/1.0 200 OK MIME-Version: 1.0 Server: WebSTAR/2.1 ID/32004 Message-ID: <b1190587.43075@www2.okstate.edu> Date: Sun, 01 Mar 1998 20:05:53 GMT Last-Modified: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 22:10:34 GMT Content-type: text/html Content-length: 3375 <P><B><FONT SIZE="+1">
[rest of file snipped to save space] .
Note the blank line ( 2 return characters, "\n\n") between the end of the "headers" the server sent you, and the start of the actual text in the file (the first character in this file is "<").
Then the remote server breaks the connection. (With HTTP/1.1, the connection remains open, so you can request and receive multiple files over the same connection).
When you write your own CGI script, it's often a good idea to run it from the command prompt to make sure it is printing the right things to STDOUT -- minimally, it needs to duplicate the "Content-type" line and the 2 returns after it; my code looks something like gather.cpp.
If your CGI returns a image file, the sequence looks more like this:
You, the browser, do
telnet thomppj.student.okstate.edu 80
and you get the response
Trying... Connected to thomppj.student.okstate.edu. Escape character is '^]'.
Then you type
GET /~thomppj/images/plant.gif HTTP/1.0
(note that you *must* type 2 return characters, "\n\n" after the GET command), and the web server responds
HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Sat, 29 Nov 1997 05:07:23 GMT Server: Apache/1.3b2 Debian/GNU Last-Modified: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 20:22:30 GMT ETag: "5768-6a12-347c8506" Content-Length: 27154 Accept-Ranges: bytes Connection: close Content-Type: image/gif GIF89a.....}
[rest of file snipped to save space] .
Note the blank line ( 2 return characters, "\n\n") between the end of the "headers" the server sent you, and the start of the actual text in the file (the first character in the file is "G").
More about CGI:
DAV: I think the "proper" method of decoding is: 1. Break apart into items (each attribute ... [FIXME] How the characters will be escaped when received by the CGI program: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/interact/forms.html#h-17.13.4
Here are some CGI programs that you might want on your server:
A common error in CGI scrips and links that refer to them:
Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 18:32:22 -0500 (EST) From: Gerald Oskoboiny <gerald@w3.org> To: www-html@w3.org Subject: Re: Validation difficulties Sender: www-html-request@w3.org On Sat, 21 Feb 1998, Rob wrote: > I've got a dilemma with the following > > <A HREF="page.cgi?arg1=val1&arg2=val2">link</A> > > NSGMLS sys (rightly I assume) that &arg2 is not a valid entity and > returns an error. Yes, this has been a known problem for some time. I've been meaning to write it up in detail sometime, but haven't yet. In the meantime, see: http://www.cs.duke.edu/~dsb/kgv-faq/errors.html#bad-entity and http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html-spec/html-spec_foot.html#FOOT26 > So how can one get around this problem? Or should I just ignore it. You can replace the '&'s in the href with '&', or try using ';' as separators instead of '&' (a well-written CGI script will allow you to use ';' instead of '&' between parameters; if this CGI script doesn't, send e-mail to the authors, or if you are the author, change it yourself.) ... Hope this helps, Gerald -- Gerald Oskoboiny <gerald@w3.org> +1 617 253 2920 System Administrator, W3C http://www.w3.org/People/Gerald/ World Wide Web Consortium, MIT Laboratory for Computer Science 545 Technology Square, Room NE43-353 Cambridge MA 02139 USA
Think you are unique ? Think again -- do a web seach on your name. Click on "people finder" http://webcrawler.com/ [FIXME:] and type in your name -- I think you'll be surprised at how many of you there are.
I think it is a good idea to provide links to other people with the same name -- I am really impressed with these pages:
Here is my attempt to follow my own advice: david_cary.html .
Once you have some content up, you might think about ways to let someone comment on your work. Of course you *will* put your email address at the bottom of every page, so people can directly respond to you with ideas for improvement and answers to the questions you raise. You can also create a feedback form which is easier for some people to use.
Even cooler than the feedback form is a "guest book", a page that automatically takes comments and puts them on your web site. This is done via "CGI", but if you have one of those annoying sysadmins who don't have a guestbook CGI already set up and who refuse to allow you to set one up, you can still use
Other ways to create CritSuite annotations http://discuss.foresight.org/~pcm/other_writers.html /* was http://crit.org/~pcm/other_writers.html */
The "www" in a URL:
[FIXME: todo: consider adding this "no-www" icon to http://david.carybros.com/ ... i.e., index.html]
GNN press makes shareware WYSIWYG HTML editor for Mac, PC, Unix platforms. HTML put "I have, I want" into my Web page; perhaps even into my .signature. Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 00:00:08 -0400 (EDT) From: transhuman at umich.edu Subject: >H Digest ... From: "Stephen de Vries" <PHEN at wwg3.uovs.ac.za> Subject: >H 3D Text. Transhuman Mailing List .... Stephen de Vries < Information state > I have : Memory techniques, beginner Delphi, C++, evolution, memes. I want : Practical Chinese, evolution, artificial life.
consider making links to "I wish I had time to create a page on this topic -- would you like to help ?" pages.
"No dead pages"
The Instant Home Page site http://banjo.Cise.nsf.gov/ihp/ihp.html lets the casual user type in the info needed to create a home page ... and the completed form is then saved to your computer.
Tulsa Computer Society: Internet SIG. http://tcs.org/internet.htm Lots of web site tutorials and development links !
Free demo version of Dreamweaver http://www.macromedia.com/software/dreamweaver/productinfo/roundtrip/ OSU College of Arts & Sciences' Web Team. http://wrigley.okstate.edu/
Html Writers Guild http://www.hwg.org/ has help lists for different skill levels.
http://www.creativegood.com/help/ ???
Usable Web: Guide to Web usability resources http://usableweb.com/ human factors, user interface issues, and usable design specific to the World Wide Web.
"ONLY FREEWARE" http://www.cias.net/sawicki/ Includes a long list of HTML tools -- HTML editors, link checkers, books on Java, Java development tools, etc.
Why server side processing is evil http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/no-ssi.html /* was http://www.phone.net/home/mwm/no-ssi.html */
useit.com: Jakob Nielsen http://www.useit.com/ has good information including "The Alertbox: Current Issues in Web Usability", "the Death of File Systems", "The Anti-Mac Interface", "how people read on the Web". In particular, http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000416.html makes the interesting statement that
The extra choice requires extra thinking, and the time saved by using an optimal interaction technique is often smaller than the time wasted on having to think instead of just moving ahead with a single interaction technique that is always used. It takes at least one second and often two seconds to decide between two possible interaction techniques which is why it is usually better not to offer users a choice.
possibly related humor: "Care and Feeding of Web Pages" http://homes.jcu.edu.au/~imla/web.html "How to Report Software Bugs (Programmer's version)" http://homes.jcu.edu.au/~imla/drivelbug.html "Please Don't Feed the Engineers" http://homes.jcu.edu.au/~imla/eng.html /* was http://www.jcu.edu.au/~imla/web.html , http://www.jcu.edu.au/~imla/drivelbug.html , http://www.jcu.edu.au/~imla/eng.html */.
http://www.aesthetic-images.com/ebuie/ "Software Usability" "photography"
The HTML Terrorist's Handbook : Composing Evil HTML http://www.zikzak.net/~acb/hacks/htmlth.html being a Guide on the usage of HTML as an offensive weapon. [FIXME: Has this gone offline ?]
The HTML Hell Page http://earthspace.net/~esr/html-hell.html
Fred Langa's HotSpots and BrowserTune, "browser test and tuneup site". http://www.winmag.com/flanga/ mirror http://www.browsertune.com/flanga/
[html.html] Useful WWW sites regarding hypertext, hypermedia, and world wide web. http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/hypertext.places.htm includes: "What is hypertext and hypermedia ?" "Hyperfiction" "Bartlett's Quotations" " Strunk's Elements of Style " "Creating High Impact Documents: A guide to visually sophisticated documents from Netscape." [html.html] Guides to Writing HTML http://union.ncsa.uiuc.edu:80/HyperNews/get/www/html/guides.html Pointers to lots of guides on HTML.
A Style Guide for online hypertext http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/Overview.html has very persuasive arguments for the "Why ?" button.
The proper way credit graphics you use. http://www.ttlhost.com/tananda/setoftheweek.html The proper way to add graphics to your web pages. http://www.widowsweb.com/widows/plea.html
A Webmasters Smorgasbord of Free Resources http://smorgasbord.freeservers.com/
tidy.c - HTML parser and pretty printer http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett/tidy/ Actually *fixes* some of the most common errors, and tells you about errors it finds that it doesn't know how to fix. (free source code from this web page, as well as binary executables for a variety of platforms). Looks pretty useful, for both
. (other source code here for related parsing tools). [FIXME: don't I have other ``pretty printer'' info I could collect in one section ?] [FIXME: do I have more pretty printer links ? idea_space.html#translation ]
WWW and HTML Documentation http://oneworld.wa.com/htmldev/devpage/dev-page.html yet another tutorial / reference page. long list of links to HTML converters and HTML editors.
HTMLGoodies.com http://www.mcp.com/publishers/que/authors/joe_burns/ and http://www.htmlgoodies.com/ ???
Why web usage statistics are (worse than) meaningless http://www.cranfield.ac.uk/docs/stats/
Har's Quick-n-Dirty JavaScript Center http://sklarnet.com/js/jsc.htm "real-world JavaScript ideas and examples with the emphasis on useful and functional instead of cute-but-ultimately-useless."
web design Tips and Tricks http://sklarnet.com/LN/webtips.htm
Jeffrey M. Glover http://jeffglover.com/ wrote "Top Ten Ways To Tell If You Have A Sucky Home Page" http://jeffglover.com/sucky.html "Don't have a hissy-fit if something from your web site is on the list. I encourage you to create your web site however you want, regardless of what some doofus says is "sucky" or "a don't"!"
I used to subscribe to
W3C World Wide Web Mailing Lists
http://www.w3.org/Mail/Lists.html
David Cary subscribed to the "www-html"
www-html@w3.org
To subscribe, please email www-html-request@w3.org with subscribe as the subject.
http://search.w3.org/Public
is a dedicated search engine for the w3.org mailing lists.
Vijay Mukhi's technology cornucopia http://www.vijaymukhi.com/ lots of tutorials and information and source code: Java, socket programming, ActiveX, JavaScript, Netscape Plug-ins, TClets (TCL/TK programs which can be used on the internet via Sun's Netscape plug-in) "I want to spread this program globally, so that the whole world can marvel at my genius."
tools to help optimize a graphic so it downloads very fast from your web page yet still looks reasonably good.
The Web Standards Project: Fighting for Standards in our Browsers http://webstandards.org/
ECMAScript Language Specification http://www.el-mundo.es/internet/ecmascript.html
Standard ECMA-262 ECMAScript Language Specification http://www.ecma.ch/stand/ecma-262.htm
ECMA: Standardizing Information and Communication Systems http://www.ecma.ch/
AOLpress http://www.aolpress.com/ seems like a pretty nice WYSIWYG HTML editor (I really like the "check links" feature). Macintosh and Windows versions available. Note that you do *not* need a AOL subscription to get this free software.
http://www.cnet.com/Content/Reviews/Compare/Browsers4/ss01a.html latest web browser comparisons (Microsoft Internet Explorer v. Netscape Communicator)
DAV: I often use the term "URI" ( http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/types.html#type-uri ). "URI" is not a typo.
WTS - Web Tree Scanner is a program to visualize the tree of a WWW server and check the links. http://www.fsai.fh-trier.de/~schmitzj/Xclasses/programs.php?prg=wts published under the GPL. /* was http://www.fsai.fh-trier.de/~schmitzj/Xclasses/programs.html */
Open Group http://www.opengroup.org/ ???
Web Page Evaluators http://www.cgu.edu/degrade/evaluators.html
http://cgi-lib.standford.edu/cgi-lib/ "is the home page for the cgi-lib.pl library which is ... the de facto standard library for creating cgi scripts in the Perl language. It also contains good descriptive information, examples"
"The Language of the Internet" article By Eddie Rabinovitch http://www.comsoc.org/ci/public/1998/feb/internet_column.html /* was http://pubs.comsoc.org/ci1/public/1998/feb/internet_column.html */
"Improving Your Web Site: Tools, Ideas, and Gizmos" article by Eddie Rabinovitch http://pubs.comsoc.org/ci1/public/1999/aug/
Date: Sun, 24 May 1998 06:49:38 -0500 To: christlib@swcp.com From: Dave Babbitt Subject: Re: Christlib: Entries in market of Christlib pages Reply-To: christlib@swcp.com [snip] >Under Construction: http://www.swcp.com/dsc/ [snip] You aught to check out UserLand Frontier: What Is Frontier? (http://www.scripting.com/frontier5/whatIsFrontier.html) Web Tutorial (http://www.scripting.com/frontier5/tutorials/web/default.html) HALO Renderer (http://www.techsoln.com/frontier/HALO/) Siteliner (http://www.macrobyteresources.com/scripting/frontier/html/siteliner.html) It would automate the management and production of that site beautifully! Dave Babbitt Check out http://www.babbitt.org/
[FIXME: is this the same as Bandwidth Conservation Society http://paxar.bc.ca/bpc/Bandwidth_Stuff/ ? ]
Comments near the end includethe real problem with designing outside of the 640x480 box isn't really the 480 height, since most users are accustomed to scrolling down, but the width. Many people never notice the scrollbar on the bottom and those that do resent having to scroll left to right to left to right, etc, just to read your content or navigate your site.
... Keeping lines of text around 30-70 characters offers the best readability for the widest variety of users. This holds true on the web as well as in print, where hundreds of years of printed text has taught professionals that very same lesson.
I have to surf at 800x600 and really hate to scroll horizontally
...
Video display technology has come a long way ... the web cannot be held back by these stragglers. ... I hate coming across these obsolete, narrow, "childrens storybook" websites! Even with a trackball, navigating through their wasted space is annoying.
...
if you check any of my sites, you would see that they all work in pretty much every size. ... for me, part of the fun and challenge of designing for the web is writing code that scales with the page. the same for the window.
...
the idea of 'fluid' design, a design that resizes to fit any resolution.
...
use liquid layouts so the user can choose the width.
``Design Your Pages For a 640 x 480 Resolution Screen ... If You Design For a Higher Resolution Screen, Visitors May Have to Scroll Right and Left to See The Entire Page. This is Very Irritating. Even visitors with higher resolution screens often browse with a smaller browser window''
...
The Internet is more than the Web -- It's E-Mail, Auto-responders, Interactive Mailing Lists, Discussion Groups, Collaborative Computing and more.
-- Bill Beaty3. Make your website be your filing cabinet. If you have little projects underway, put them on your website while working on them. Reject the paper-publishing traditions of polishing an article to perfection before publication. Instead, type things directly into your site in rough draft form (lable them UNDER CONSTRUCTION).
Expunge the fear of embarassment from your life, and instead practice making foolish mistakes in front of thousands of strangers. Stop using your PC to store files, instead use your website as your main storage. Let people poke through your filing cabinet. It will contain far more than a perfectly polished website does.
...
7. Always add a link to the top of all of your pages which links back to your main site.
[FIXME: also has many other useful ideas ... perhaps I should implement them on my web site.]
IEEE standard updates practices for building and managing web sites: standard can help raise productivity and lower costs for site operations, while making sites easier to use and more crediblehttp://standards.ieee.org/announcements/2001rev.html
The standard, IEEE 2001(TM), "Recommended Practice for the Internet - Web Site Engineering, Web Site Management and Web Site Life Cycle," defines guidelines for intranet and extranet pages that improve productivity, reduce costs, and make sites easier to use and more credible.
The standard offers a variety of best practices and can help reduce liability associated with web site development and operation. One part of the standard recommends disclosure information to be used on all sites, such as who created the site, its legal address, and the date of its last substantive update. ... developed in collaboration with Consumers Union
...
It is also unfortunate that, for example, headings in HTML documents are not addressable unless they are marked up as anchors explicitly.''
...
The requirement to have all resources in a hypermedia system addressable was identified long ago in Douglas Engelbart's seminal paper (see also, An Evaluation of the World Wide Web with respect to Engelbart's Requirements). The ability to make a reference to a resource with a URL enables linking, searching, and a variety of navigation and access techniques.
Some services make information available via the web, but not addressable. For example, results of database queries using POST (rather than GET) are not addressable. A items in a catalog put on the web this way can't be linked to, and cannot participate in third-party search services. This unfortunate choice by some information providers reduces automation and scalability in the web.
Disable Auto-load Images
Disable JavaScript
Always Choose the Text-only Page When Offered
Always Choose the Non-frame Page When Offered: In most cases frames take more time ... and are harder to navigate than non-frame pages.
Save Frequently-used Pages to Your Own Hard Disk
Disable Plugins
Web page authors: if someone actually takes this advice, how will your pages look ? Are they usable ?
-- http://fawny.org/rhcp.html
There's a simple explanation here, but it's impossible to make one group understand the other. You've got your pre-Internet people and your post-Internet. Pre-Internet types have an unreconstructed 1950s conception ofprivacyin which only facts everyone would talk about can ever be discussed by anyone. Whereas post-Internet types put their entire lives online. There is nothing really not worth talking about, or indeed anything one should not talk about (pace Jaron Lanier http://www.extremetech.com/print_article/0,3998,a=22576,00.asp ).
To this end, Minimal HTML throws away the parts of the HTML 3.2 specification that deal with presentation, focusing instead on document structure and content. By paying more attention to content, your pages will be more useful to your visitors. Always keep this in mind: search engines index content, not design. By improving content, you increase the chance that people will find and benefit from your creations.
What is the point of the <address></address> tag ? Do I need one ?
Standard footer for all pages DAV writes:
[FIXME: consider adding a Bobby link http://bobby.cast.org/bobby/bobbyServlet?URL=http%3A%2F%2Frdrop.com%2F%7Ecary%2Fhtml%2Fhtml.html&output=Submit&gl=wcag1-aaa to the footer ?]
[FIXME: Does this look like a good thing to put in the footer of every page ?
]
This page started 1998-01-15 (but some information much older, going back to 1996 Nov 12) by David Cary and has backlinks
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Alas, CritSuit is offline. Is there any replacement for it?
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