XML Tips

Extensible Markup Language, or XML, is currently the most promising language for storing and exchanging information on the World Wide Web. Although Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is presently the most common language used to create Web pages, HTML has a limited capacity for storing information. In contrast, because XML allows you to create your own elements, attributes, and document structure, you can use it to describe virtually any kind of information—from a simple recipe to a complex database. And an XML document—in conjunction with a style sheet or a conventional HTML page—can be easily displayed in a Web browser.

Young, Michael J. mjy Online. Design>Web Design>Standards>XML

Year Zero

I am as frustrated as any other web developer at the glacial pace of the CSS Working Group and the lack of progress with CSS3. I just don't think we need to dump the baby out with the bathwater. Change is needed. It looks like change is coming. It may even be a regime change. But let's not start drawing up new calendar systems just yet. The clock of CSS is running slow. We need to wind it up. That doesn't mean we need to smash it.

Keith, Jeremy. Adactio (2007). Design>Web Design>Standards>CSS

Yellow Screen of Death

In Mozilla-based applications, the yellow screen of death is the screen displayed when they encounter an XML parsing error. This typically happens when the XML document that the browser is trying to access is not well-formed, for example when it does not nest tags properly.

Wikipedia. Design>Web Design>XML>Standards

Checkpoints for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0

This document is an appendix to the W3C "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0". It provides a list of all checkpoints from the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0, organized by concept, as a checklist for Web content developers.

W3C (2005). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Standards

Introduction to The Web Standards Curriculum

An introduction to a course designed to give anyone a solid grounding in web design/development, no matter who they are—it is completely free to use, accessible, and assumes no previous knowledge.

Mills, Chris. Opera (2008). Articles>Web Design>Standards

The History of the Internet and the Web, and the Evolution of Web Standards

a brief overview of the creation of the Internet, the World Wide Web, and the "web standards" that this entire series focuses upon. I think it is useful and interesting to understand how we got to where we are, but it will be short enough so you don’t get overwhelmed, and can get into the details nice and quickly.

Francis, Mark Norman. Opera (2008). Articles>Web Design>Standards>History

The Web Standards Model: HTML, CSS and JavaScript

You can accomplish content, styling and layout just using HTML—font elements for style and HTML tables for layout, so why should I bother with this XHTML/CSS stuff? Here are the most compelling reasons for using CSS and HTML over outdated methods.

Lane, Jonathan. Opera (2008). Articles>Web Design>Standards

Web Standards – A Beautiful Dream, But What's the Reality?

Web standards allow for interoperability between all web browsers, on every operating system, and even on every electronic device available. But is that really reality? The really simple answer is no; while that’s an ideal situation, that is far from reality.

Lane, Jonathan. Opera (2008). Articles>Web Design>Standards

Acid Redux

I fully acknowledge that a whole lot of very clever thinking went into the construction of Acid3 (as was true of Acid2), and that a lot of very smart people have worked very hard to pass it. Congratulations all around, really. I just can’t help feeling like some broader and more important point has been missed.

Meyer, Eric. MeyerWeb (2008). Articles>Web Design>Standards>Assessment

Helping Others Understand Web Accessibility

When I hold workshops for people who want to learn more about web standards and accessibility, I often notice that the attendants really have tried to improve their accessibility knowledge. But they get overwhelmed when they go to the official documentation from the W3C and try to understand it.

Johansson, Roger. 456 Berea Street (2008). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Standards

Beyond DOCTYPE: Web Standards, Forward Compatibility, and IE8

Progress always comes at a cost. In the case of web browsers, users bear the cost when developers take the rendering of certain authoring tools and browsers (especially Internet Explorer) as gospel. We could spend hours explaining why our sites broke, but wouldn’t it be better if they didn’t break in the first place?

Gustafson, Aaron. List Apart, A (2008). Articles>Web Design>Standards

From Switches to Targets: A Standardista's Journey

Version targeting allows browsers to much more easily develop new features and fix bugs and shortcomings in existing features, which has the potential to speed up the evolution of web design and development. That alone is reason enough to give it a chance.

Meyer, Eric. List Apart, A (2008). Articles>Web Design>Standards>Personalization

Accessibility is Part of Your Job

Accessibility is one of the fundamentals of the Web, so how people who claim to be passionate about the Web and say that they deliver high quality can choose to ignore it is beyond me.

Johansson, Roger. 456 Berea Street (2007). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Standards

Keep Browser Lock-Out a Thing of the Past

Browser sniffing and deliberately preventing people using a so-called unsupported browser from entering a site is a thing from the past that we do not need these days.

Johansson, Roger. 456 Berea Street (2007). Articles>Web Design>Standards>Personalization

The W3C Process May Be Slow, But Browser Vendors are Slower

Don’t blame the W3C for being slow when the real problem is browser vendors not implementing existing specifications fully and properly.

Johansson, Roger. 456 Berea Street (2007). Articles>Web Design>Standards>Web Browsers

POSH: Plain Old Semantic HTML

POSH, in case you haven’t heard of it already, is short for “Plain Old Semantic HTML”, and is obviously much quicker and easier to say than “valid, semantic, accessible, well-structured HTML”. Unfortunately POSH - semantic markup - is also something most people building websites or creating content for the Web have yet to discover.

Johansson, Roger. 456 Berea Street (2008). Articles>Web Design>Standards>HTML

Helping Your Client Maintain Markup Quality

One thing that is particularly frustrating with caring about Web standards and accessibility is what often happens after your work is done and a site is handed over to the client.

Johansson, Roger. 456 Berea Street (2007). Articles>Web Design>Consulting>Standards

Avoid the Void

There are plenty of occasions when coding JavaScript events where you simply need to call a function, for which an entire event registration model is too lengthy. The most commonly used method is to bind your event to an anchor link. The user clicks and the onclick event is fired, calling a reference to a function. Because the user isn’t actually visiting a URL, something has to be done with the href attribute.

Reindel, Brian. d'bug (2008). Articles>Web Design>Standards>JavaScript

The Two Fundamental and Opposing Views of the Web

Conventional wisdom states that a standardized set of computer communication languages, which every device understands, is a necessary component of interoperability. The most popular of these languages being Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). However, in order for this idea to come to fruition, all hardware and software vendors must come to a consensus on implementation techniques, as well as features and functionality. As the Web continues to grow, and the cost of developing new technology decreases, this becomes increasingly difficult to manage.

Reindel, Brian. d'bug (2008). Articles>Web Design>Standards

The Business Case for Web Standards

A wiki to facilitate the collation of arguments and counterarguments in favor of web standards, and to sort them into the different categories of who we want to persuade.

Heilmann, Christian. Business Case for Web Standards, The (2007). Resources>Web Design>Standards>Business Case

CSS 2.2

There are various reasons why CSS 3 is taking so long. Many of the issues are technical and can’t be avoided; problems when testing, issues with backwards compatibility and bugs with browser implementation. However there also seems to be a lot of politics involved.

Budd, Andy. Andy Budd (2007). Articles>Web Design>Standards>CSS

Use Only Block-Level Elements in Blockquotes

The blockquote element is not allowed to have text or inline elements as direct descendants. Only block-level (and in HTML 4.01 Strict, script) elements are allowed unless you use a Transitional Doctype, in which case both block-level and inline elements are allowed. But there are plenty of sites that use a Strict Doctype and still have blockquote elements that contain inline elements.

Johansson, Roger. 456 Berea Street (2007). Articles>Web Design>Standards>XHTML

Another Look at HTML 5

It has become evident to me that some of my previous comments about HTML 5 and what is going on in the HTML Working Group are the result of misunderstanding and overreacting on my part. I no longer think things are quite as bad.

Johansson, Roger. 456 Berea Street (2007). Articles>Web Design>Standards>HTML5

Is HTML 5 a Slippery Slope?

Tommy Olsson comments on the possibility of backwards compatibility and standardised error handling being bad for overall code quality.

Olsson, Tommy. 456 Berea Street (2007). Articles>Web Design>Standards>HTML5

Help Keep Accessibility and Semantics in HTML

If you think accessibility and semantics are important and should be improved in the next version of HTML, you need to act.

Johansson, Roger. 456 Berea Street (2007). Articles>Web Design>Standards>HTML