Validity and visual presentation

[Haruki Hanai]

I rated 4 sites for valid HTML and valid CSS. You can see my ratings at Website Showcase, or look at these four:
http://pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=43131
http://pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=43190
http://pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=43418
http://pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=42190

2 sites had valid CSS. 1 of them had a warning
3 sites had no doctypes. 2 of those sites had no character encoding.
All 4 sites had invalid HTML. 1 produced the most errors.
All 4 sites are good in their layouts, but the way some of them were presented were ineffective.
1 site didn't seem right in my browser. To follow standards and specifications, they must look not very different from what they do on the web.

But I was really disappointed when I heard someone say this:
"Thanks for the suggestions but I doubt I will change anything."

Why are some webmasters not appealed to correct their HTML?

By the way, a few browsers I used (Lynx, a text based browser, Safari, for Mac OS X, and Firefox) each yielded their own problems with some sites I viewed.

A clear winner in the threads and sites I listed is JA's site, which only had 13 errors, a few problems in the visual presentation, and valid CSS with no errors or warnings. An honourable mention goes to Abhishek's site, with around 20 problems in the HTMl but no problems with the CSS (except for a few warnings).

Sites that have good presentation and validity:
http://pokefor.greenchu.de/ (Simple is good. The site loads on my mobile, too.)
http://www.finalstar.net/ (Which unfortunately appears to be down.)
SMF forum software (The main layout of any SMF forum should validate in HTML 4.01)

[Chrono Cr@cker]

Validity is very good for websites. However, some browsers which do not run on a Gecko Engine (IE, Avant). This is mostly due to the webmasters's ignorance and also due to their laziness.

When I tried my site (http://pokedrome.com) on both the HTML and CSS validator, I was shocked to find a lot of unneccessary errors about codes which I thought were pure HTMl.

Please check http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fpokedrome.com and tell me why half of the codes like <div align=center> and <a target="_blank"> are not valid.

~ CC

[Kipkip]

http://www.finalstar.net/[/url] (Which unfortunately appears to be down.)

EDIT: Never mine. Stupid permissons.
I put it back up. I'll have a new and awsome version coming up in the next week or so.
Anyway, I do believe that webmasters should validate their HTML and make it look good in all browsers. This way, it shows that the webmaster took the time to make it professinal.

Please check http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fpokedrome.com and tell me why half of the codes like <div align=center> and <a target="_blank"> are not valid.

~ CC
Because you're using attirbutes, like div align, target, border, not were approved by the W3C, the makers of HTML and XHTML.

[Haruki Hanai]

It's mostly the proprietary coding (even marquee is considered proprietary) that usually doesn't get validated.

Chrono Cr@cker: Don't forget - if you select the HTML 4.01 Transitional parser (and set the page HTML to go to the Transitional parser) you'll be confronted with less strict errors - Transitional was designed to "transition" with some of the coding that hasn't been fully approved.

I'm surprised big sites don't seem to like following valid HTML. Serebii.net doesn't provide a correct DOCTYPE that links it to the HTML 3.2 parser (which the source code claims to use), nor does it provide a character encoding. Because it didn't provide the correct stuff, I used guesswork to figure the encoding (ISO-8859-1) as the page would not validate without me overriding it. But when you let it parse it through HTML 3.2, there's 392 errors. And if you want something really strange, Pokémon Palace Network (Pokemonpalace.net) has a correct DOCTYPE and character encoding, but with the DOCTYPE declaration (XHTML 1.0 Transitional) why do I see more than a thousand errors (Steve claimed his news system was the cause, but from this I think otherwise).

[Kipkip]

Wow. That is SO incredibly selfish. Dissappointed? Ok... great ^^ Made you can close my near 200 + img tages and OVER 1000 FRICK'N <BR> TAGS TO GET IT VALID! Gosh. Do you expect us to take a week and recode our whole site?

Until you have a fansite on par with mine, I don't ever want ANYONE complaining about what webmasters are doing. Do you realize how much work we go through to get our sites nice...full of content...and whatever else we think will make fans happy and attract them to our site? Apparently not. Because you think we can snap our fingers and recode our websites JUST TO MAKE IT COMPLIENT FOR YOU.

You know what...who cares? I can't even test my layout in IE, so I'm not sure how that went. [My IE is broken x.x''] Sometime I'll have to ask someone to do that for me.

You know what? Go build your own frick'n complient website for us all to see your PERFECTNESS! That's better than ripping on our sites that work well for the purpose they serve. -.-;
I can make one HTML page valid within 5 seconds in HTML-Kit and Dreamweaver. In those two programs, there's a function that automatically validates your code without messing it up, or at least not so much depending on how good or bad you are as a coder. I've found HTML-Kit's automatic validator better than Dreamweaver's. With Dreamweaver, you still might get a few validation errors.

[Chaos]

Made you can close my near 200 + img tages and OVER 1000 FRICK'N <BR> TAGS TO GET IT VALID!
Set the doctype to HTML 4.01 Transitional. That way you don't have to. Most people don't care which standard you validate as, as long as it's a standard.

Gosh. Do you expect us to take a week and recode our whole site?
If that's what's necessary, you may wish to consider using a different website design - if you use a database, most of the hard work can be done by a few SQL queries, leaving only the basic layout to replace.

Until you have a fansite on par with mine, I don't ever want ANYONE complaining about what webmasters are doing.
There actually doesn't seem to be an incredible amount of content. It seems like there are a few walkthroughs others have provided, some random snips of information, and about 20 episode guides. And forums with less than 300 posts...

You know what...who cares? I can't even test my layout in IE, so I'm not sure how that went. [My IE is broken x.x''] Sometime I'll have to ask someone to do that for me.
http://www.mozilla.org/product/firefox Use Firefox. If you're using IE and you're a web developer, that's not exactly a vote of confidence for any code you do.

You know what? Go build your own frick'n complient website for us all to see your PERFECTNESS!
I have. Not a Pokemon website, but everything I do is XHTML 1.0 Transitional and CSS 2.0 valid (unless it's something I'm part-way through building). Any software I use (like phpBB, MediaWiki, etc.), I always re-code any parts of it that aren't valid to make it valid. No exceptions.


On standards in general, I agree that they're important. Maybe if more websites use them, some idiot companies with webbrowsers that suck (do I even have to say who?) would be motivated to improve them. And if something supports standards, there's a better chance it'll render well on any browser. Currently, if your website supports standards, it'll almost certainly render well on any modern GUI browser, minus Internet Explorer.

Also, I wonder why so many people find the need to use massively image-intensive and complex layouts? Just to pick on Pokejungle, since he's the active one around here in respect to "the other side", PokeJungle Network's main page doesn't finish loading. Before you go off on a "slow internet" tangent, I'm using cable. Rather fast. Up to 500kb/s down. It seems the precise problem is some of the image links and includes from other websites. This is an unnecessary complexity, which can be avoided by storing needed images on the local server, or being sure they're reliable servers.

And just so you know, having a massive sidebar full of affiliates and links seems a little tacky... Same thing with a shoutbox, which seems to be causing some of the aforementioned speed problems. And a fixed width layout isn't the best choice either. It's better to use flexible layouts for people with high resolution screens, so it utilizes the full screen.

Also, second line of HTML... <!-- saved from url=(0054)http://www.pokemonsky.kyletech.us/layout/pc/index.html --> <-- I believe this line means it was saved with Internet Explorer, which has a penchant for messing up anything it saves. You'll want to download things like this in the future with a grabber program like wget.

The source code is visibly messy. A mix of capitals and lowercase tags (lowercase is better - eases the transition to XHTML, if it's ever done), massive use of the <font> tag, which is a bad way to do formatting. Especially considering you're already using some CSS - just extend the CSS instead of using several hundred font tags.

[Yameneko549]

Sorry to interrupt, but:

http://www.mozilla.org/product/firefox Use Firefox. If you're using IE and you're a web developer, that's not exactly a vote of confidence for any code you do.

Don't add extra comentary that isn't needed. A lot of people use IE because it's at least decent enough for what they need, regardless of how much better FF is.

I use both IE and FF via Netscape 8, personally, and I don't really see why so many people compain about IE. It may not be as "secure" as FF, but at least it does it's job.

[pokejungle]

Sorry to interrupt, but:



Don't add extra comentary that isn't needed. A lot of people use IE because it's at least decent enough for what they need, regardless of how much better FF is.

I use both IE and FF via Netscape 8, personally, and I don't really see why so many people compain about IE. It may not be as "secure" as FF, but at least it does it's job.

Yame is right @_@ I only use FF, but that doesn't mean others need to be flamed because they use IE.

[Chaos]

I'm using 4.01 currently >>;
Then why were you complaining about having to change <br> to <br />? If you're going to stick with 4.01, you don't have to change that.

Why would I want to waste a DB? PHP works just fine for me -.-;
Easier to maintain. Much easier. Just run a few SQL commands and you can, for example, change every <br> to <br />. Or just not use <br>s in the db, and use PHP's nl2br().

Compared to other sites, I have a lot -.-; I was just forced to take down my whole movie coverage due to a staff member, and I have other stuff too. Regardless of your opinion of content, I get a good number of visitors per day.
It's quite sad the lack of content these days on the web. Far too many people putting up websites with nothing on them. Out of curiosity, how many is a "good number"? And how many are repeat visitors?

Forum~ XD I just started that! What the hell were you expecting? If you want to check out the forum I created then left, search "Indigo Plateau forums". They've been up for about 5 months and have a lot of members/posts/threads.
I didn't check the start date. Looking at "IPHQ UBB", which I believe is what you referenced, not bad. About 5000 posts.

Did you NOT read when I said I can't test in IE because it was broken?! How do you think I'm posting this?! Of course I use FireFox. But even I didn't, it's none of your business about my browser preferences...
I obviously misinterperted what you said. I assumed you meant 'partly broken' not 'entirely broken'. And what browser a webmaster codes for affects everyone if it's coded to work with IE. Often it renders badly on other browsers/platforms.

Ok Mr. Perfect -.-; But you didn't code your site back when HTML 4 was released, or maybe you only had part of it
I originally coded it in HTML 4.01, but you're right in assuming that I didn't do the current parts. But that wasn't the point - the point was that it validates as a standard. Like I said originally, the point to many is that it validates as a standard, not which standard it validates as. I couldn't care less if it's valid HTML 3.2, as long as it is valid.

v.v;; Not quite suer what you're talking about. My layout is stored completely in my site. Only SOME buttons were on my photobucket acount. If you want slow layouts, go to PPN. -.-;
The affiliate buttons and the shoutbox seem to be included from other webpages, meaning if they're slow, you're slow to finish loading.

Do you even REALIZE how bad flex layouts are?! the banner takes up about half the page, while the navbars are at the ends of the monitor o.o; It literally screams 'FUGLY!' How much layouting experience have you had...?
First, a well designed flexible layout looks nice. You don't have to use just one image to create a banner if that's what you want. Use a couple, and have them spaced out. Use a table to allow them to flexibly re-arrange themselves. Or do what's done here for PokeCommunity - a tiling background image with a couple images.

I've had a fair bit of experience creating simple, effective layouts. One doesn't need massive amounts of graphics to look good. It fact, it's the opposite in my mind. The simpler the better.

What's worse than a flexible layout is an entirely static one, if the viewer is using a high-resolution screen. Imagine having less than half the screen being used for a website on a 2048x1536 screen. And yes, there are monitors that handle that high resolution, and more. Not the most common ever, but 1600x1200 isn't that uncommon, which would be exactly half the screen being used.

*sigh* Saul made this layout, so don't even look at me...
If you didn't even make it, then don't criticize me. And it's not like you can't modify it either.

0-0 LOOK AT YOUR LAYOUT! Or lack of one! No wonder your site loads! It's stuck in the world of black and white, figuratively. -.-;
As I said, I prefer simpler layouts that are effective and get the job done well, with a minimum of things that can go wrong on different browsers, and for different people (visual impairment, for example). A light, off-white background with black text is very easy to read, and easy to look at. The point of a website is, to me, to provide information, not to distract from the information by many graphics.

Your Wiki has a KARIBOH for DUELMASTERS?! WTF?! If you're going to make it all Anime, don't name it the DuelMaster's Wiki >>;
You have neither read it correctly, nor understood the purpose. Duel Monsters, not Duel Masters, and my website, although not Pokemon, is not a general anime website. It is specifically Duel Monsters/Yu-Gi-Oh.

My site is 10x better than yours even if it doesn't have valid HTML/xHTML.
I refrained from making such rash accusations against your website, as one who creates something cannot impartially judge it against something else. Please restrain yourself in the future. If anyone else feels like making a comment comparing the two, an impartial person, I would take their comments or criticism to heart and attempt to improve my website without detracting from the information by overloading the visitor with images and colours.

BTW- phpBB sucks.
Actually, it works quite well and is easy to modify. I find it about on par with vBulliten, but a cut above such things as YaBB SE, and especially cgi-based forum systems, which often have incredible speed issues. And it's many times better than those free forum hosting systems like proboards or ezboard.


Addition:
Don't add extra comentary that isn't needed. A lot of people use IE because it's at least decent enough for what they need, regardless of how much better FF is.
I was simply trying to refer, although I didn't do it in the best way, to IE's bad track record at being able to render pages correctly. Often you have to break perfectly good code to make it render the way you want it to in IE.

[Kipkip]

If that's what's necessary, you may wish to consider using a different website design - if you use a database, most of the hard work can be done by a few SQL queries, leaving only the basic layout to replace.

For a small site with static content, it's really not necessary to use a database. It would probally be better for a site of that nature to use files. If it was larger and/or has dynamic content, then the database would be the better choice.
Also, stop with the flaming, please. It's not necessary to do so. The thread is for commenting on the issue of webmasters not validating their site.

[pokejungle]

I'll stop flaming, but we were discussing that topic o.o; We just expanded upon it a bit.

[Yameneko549]

For a small site with static content, it's really not necessary to use a database. It would probally be better for a site of that nature to use files. If it was larger and/or has dynamic content, then the database would be the better choice.
Also, stop with the flaming, please. It's not necessary to do so. The thread is for commenting on the issue of webmasters not validating their site.

I see as more of a heated debate than a flame war, but whatever.

I will add to the "webmasters not validating their site" discussion. Some new webmasters won't start validating their site until they get used to actually using HTML\XHTML\CSS.

Take my good friend Discord Man. Not sure if I can post a link to his site here or not, if I can I will. Anyway, he's a complete newbie at HTML, and he still uses HTML 3.0, as that what he was first taught. Note, I am trying to teach him HTML 4\XHTML 1.1, but it's progressing slowly. As he is new, though, he doesn't want to validate his site. This leads to MANY problems with his code. Now he's asking me to go through and fix it up. O_o;

Edit: Nice location listing, Kip-Kip. Reminds me of a hacker joke.

[Chaos]

Great. But your site is so small I'm surprised you'd need that. Your wiki/forum is the only thing thats big enough to be worth the effort of that. And I don't like modifying scripting, so I wouldn't even use that for a script.
I use a database for the wiki, the forums, and the news area. Because it's easier to manage. I don't have to touch an FTP client for any of that unless I want to modify it and add features - it's all web forms. If you don't like modifying scripts, then why do you call "<?php?>" your friend? :/

I'm getting an average of 134 unique visitors according to my topsite check recently. 234 counting repeat visitors.
Not quite the stats I meant for the repeat visitors, I don't think. But close enough. Unless that's 234 repeat visitors this month?

For comparison, I'm getting an average of 333 visits per day this month, so far. Around 200/day average the past few months. 1700 visits, total this month. That's according to Webalizer.

Awstats puts some of those numbers differently... 529 unique visitors this month. Around 2000 the past few months, with around 3000 the max. Awstats also puts my visit rate around 250-300 per day though. 142 today, so far. Not bad. 1600 visits total, this month.

That's not my layout per se... Which you particularly pointed out/
I assume the affiliate choices and shoutbox didn't come with the layout though. Meaning it's not really the fault of the original coder.

I don't like using tiles. Doesn't always turn out very well.
It depends on how you do them. If you make sure they tile in the correct way (i.e. the edges line up properly), tiling can be a very good way to use background images, for such things as a variable header.

I'm not a big fan of your layout. I'd say it's lacking a lot of stuff. More images aren't necessarily better, but your layout looks pretty bare x.x;
Like I said, I prefer it being easy to read and use. I suppose wanting a complex layout is just your preference then.

Rich people with a wall full of monitor can take their needs elsewhere.
Monitors that can handle that kind of resolution have been around for years - they aren't that expensive. Well, 1600x1200-capable isn't too expensive. Something that handle >2500 width is pretty expensive though.

Tiling would look absolutely ugly on that much space anyways.
It depends on how it's used. Like, if I said, it's used for a header like PokeCommunity's, it can looks good. If you're tiling the entire background with an image, then it looks bad, mainly because the entire screen is filled with an image - no matter what the size of the screen is.

Ok...you know...you can use a banner and a table to create the layout you have?
Actually, I do. Tables are the best way to handle flexible layouts. I don't use them in the wiki because I'm using a slightly modified version of the default MonoBook skin, because it's simple and visually appealing, to most people.

My layout actually has content written by me. Not a collaberation of fans. That's the difference between a Wiki and a site. Obviously you have your visitors do the work for you.
Actually, just because I use a wiki doesn't mean I don't do anything. Most of the content in it so far (not a huge deal because I've been busy with coding recently) has been done by myself. In my opinion, it can be a good thing to get visitors involved in creating the content instead of just reading it - it makes things more interactive and interesting.

vB is SO much better than phpBB it's not even funny. myBB gold will be a lot better than phpBB too. IceBB is currently some preferred forum... phpBB can't really boast anything except being able to modify.
vB, however, costs a bushel of money. If myBB gold isn't better now, you can't say for certain it will be. Never even heard of IceBB. And modifying a forum is an important piece to many webmasters - being able to personalize it and mould it to something useful for a particular website.

Did you hear that WCC didn't even display in IE? You have to make sure to code so that IE recognizes your site at least -.-;
WCC? Looking at the Google results... (http://www.google.ca/search?q=WCC&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&) World Council of Churches? Wiccan Church of Canada? Wellington City Council? World Computer Conference? Washtenaw Community College? :P

Perhaps you meant the W3C (http://www.w3.org). And why doesn't something render in IE? Because IE is a sad excuse for a browser, which doesn't support standards. Which I already gave a reason, relating to IE, why standards are good.
Maybe if more websites use them, some idiot companies with webbrowsers that suck (do I even have to say who?) would be motivated to improve them.
Improve in more than one way, but at least one of those ways being to support standards.


Also, stop with the flaming, please. It's not necessary to do so. The thread is for commenting on the issue of webmasters not validating their site.
I have to say, I agree with pokejungle and Yame~TD... more of a heated debate than a flamewar. I'm not intending disrespect towards anyone. Well, except Microsoft and their Internet Explorer division.


And to Yame~TD, I'd suggest not trying to teach him XHTML 1.1 immediately. If you do get him to transfer to XHTML, start out with 1.0 Transitional, as it's the most similar of the XHTMLs to HTML. Maybe eventually transfer him to XHTML 1.1 and CSS if he wants.

[Yameneko549]

I think he ment WC Connection. Not sure there, though. It's the only WCC I know of that has to do with Pokemon.

As for teaching Discord Man XHTML 1.0Trans before 1.1, I'll try that. Thanks.

[Chaos]

I think he ment WC Connection. Not sure there, though. It's the only WCC I know of that has to do with Pokemon.
I don't know many Pokemon sites anymore... So it could be. I dunno though. :P

As for teaching Discord Man XHTML 1.0Trans before 1.1, I'll try that. Thanks.
No problem. 1.0 Trans is much easier to learn and translate to from HTML than 1.1. 1.1 is basically a stricter version of 1.0 Strict.

[Yameneko549]

Ya know what, I just thought of something. I haven't given my opinion on web standards. I had it up on my old site until I ticked off several people to the point that they DDoSed my forum and site. Risking another possible DDoS, here it is:

If there is one thing that playing Pokemon has taught me, it's that standards, while helpful, can hinder true progress and innovation. For two examples, I'll use both pokemon and the web, so you can see why I compare them like I do.

Pokemon: Standards help new players use a moveset\team setup that is KNOWN to work. However, when everyone uses them, it makes it hard to create more original sets, and it makes for many boring battles.

It also tends to get the battling community in an uproar when a site or person doesn't promote the standards, such as when Smogon invaded Amazing Ampharos' rating center on GameFAQs after he started not suggesting standards. It took the RBY vets, GSC vets, the Ru\Sa vets, and the FR\LG vets, all called in by myself and the original FR vets, to get rid of them at the time. That's over 100 people reporting more that 600 messages in a small ammount of time. Sadly, it was the Smogon mods that started it.

The same has happened recently on the Emerald boards, where the Smogon and Netbattling community invaded the board, driving out anyone who opposed them including the Emerald vets.

(X)HTML\CSS: The good thing about having standards is that the sites using standards-only code will see their site the same way in any standards-compiant browser. The bad part is that, since the W3C is the ONLY place that sets the standards that everyone will use, it leads to very little or slow innovation.

Not only that, but, as we've seen here, pretty much any community that normally goes with a standards-only approach will get into an uproar when someone doesn't use the standard. You should see the GFAQs web design and programing board at times. If you don't go with standard code, you WILL get flamed off the board in a hurry.

There. My opinion on the matter, with a few updates.

[Dragonfree]

Heh, I used to use horrid HTML and CSS that looked right in Internet Explorer and was satisfied with that... then I got an e-mail from a visitor telling me that my site looked messed up in Firebird (now Firefox). I went and downloaded it, thought "Wow, that is messed up" and fixed that. Then pretty recently I went and validated (http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dragonflycave.com%2Fbutterfree%2Fpokesite.aspx&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=%28detect+automatically%29&verbose=1) my HTML as 4.01 Transitional - I went through all the pages manually but it wasn't that bad since most of them just needed the doctype declaration. (I had over 80 pages of content, though... x_X)

When starting the Complete Unabridged Pokémon Encyclopedia, I used completely valid XHTML 1.1 (http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dragonflycave.com%2Fbutterfree%2Fpokedex%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=%28detect+automatically%29&verbose=1) and it really wasn't that hard to switch. I've been too lazy to do that with my main site but I probably will sometime...

Standards honestly aren't that hard to follow, you know. They're pretty logical overall. Oh, and there is a big difference between web standards and Pokémon moveset standards. Standard Pokémon movesets are decided movesets, not the rules you use to make a moveset. If web standards were like "All layouts should be aligned to the right, and all content should be written in chatspeak", that would be comparable to Pokémon moveset standards. But right now they're more comparable to "Don't use Splash". Stuff that even the most creative movesets can still follow, you know.

[Haruki Hanai]

http://pokemonfanuniverse.com/ is my personal favorite, made by an ex-staff member by the name of Shining Arcanine. The layout validates. The CSS validates. In fact, it's Valid XHTML 1.1. It's also a very clean layout, and doesn't compromise on content (look at the style chooser and select Winter 346 to see what I mean). Regrettably, it also doesn't seem to have been updated in a long time.

Now, here's the difference between my nitpicking and your sentences. This isn't the first time you've done so, and therefore your actions constitute for a BAN, but I'll issue you 2 warnings. 3 strikes, and you're out.

Made you can close my near 200 + img tages and OVER 1000 FRICK'N <BR> TAGS TO GET IT VALID! Gosh. Do you expect us to take a week and recode our whole site?
Yes, I can be very knowledgeable about getting them valid. Edit menu: Find and Replace. Problemo solved.

Until you have a fansite on par with mine, I don't ever want ANYONE complaining about what webmasters are doing. Do you realize how much work we go through to get our sites nice...full of content...and whatever else we think will make fans happy and attract them to our site? Apparently not. Because you think we can snap our fingers and recode our websites JUST TO MAKE IT COMPLIENT FOR YOU.
Direct flaming. I put forth my comments as suggestions to better improve the bandwidth and visit rate. In fact, I'm not the only one who nitpicks HTML. Look at the past. And you, I can easily identify as the first few to flame those people.

Also, here's my favorite paragraph from an old Winter 1996 Apple Australia News:
[b]Treat browser' time with respect.
Keeping people waiting on the Web is no different from anywhere else: they hate it. And on the Web they're just one click away from leaving. A text index will download faster than an image map - and often does the job better. It's not much more work to make a site text-browser-friendly. This makes it much faster for everyone and makes it accessible to blind users, and those with small budgets and slow modems.

You know what? Go build your own frick'n complient website for us all to see your PERFECTNESS! That's better than ripping on our sites that work well for the purpose they serve. -.-;
http://pmtn.kyletech.us/ <-- This is a layout that looks like it was built by tables. I haven't finished it yet, but time it. I clearly am not bashing the content of the site, so I request you re-read through my posts. The layout is, however something that, while it doesn't constitute for all visitors, is an important factor. Slow loading layouts, and very bad coding usually cause problems.

http://www.mozilla.org/product/firefox Use Firefox. If you're using IE and you're a web developer, that's not exactly a vote of confidence for any code you do.
I have strong support for what he said. Internet Explorer is outdated, no denial. He didn't directly aim at you, pokejungle. And we could do with Internet Explorer in one place, the Recycle Bin. Or the Trash. Where ever. if it ever gets updated, then that would be good.

pokejungle: Me? PM the webmasters who should also deal with their own sites? Layouts don't make much to content, you should understand that.

[Chaos]

http://pokemonfanuniverse.com/ is my personal favorite, made by an ex-staff member by the name of Shining Arcanine.
While I respect the validation... That guy rather got on my nerves. :/ I remember the original reason I left PC was because I couldn't stand some of the things he did... But yes, I've seen the place before, and the code. And it's really valid. Creepily so, sometimes. :P

Yes, I can be very knowledgeable about getting them valid. Edit menu: Find and Replace. Problemo solved.
While that does easily solve the <br> problem, the <img> problem is not as easily solved, considering the variables. Unless you're using an advanced way of searching through the document (something like Perl's regexps), matching variables is hard. <img src="*" alt="*"> is hard to search for and replace with the correct values in the correct places. While it shouldn't take too much time, it could still be frustrating for some people. Unless you wrote a Perl script to do it, though. :D

http://pmtn.kyletech.us/ <-- This is a layout that looks like it was built by tables. I haven't finished it yet, but time it.
The layout's nice, but I can't say I love the colours that much. I've never been a fan of those shades of green. :P But it loads wicked fast. ;)

Slow loading layouts, and very bad coding usually cause problems.
I agree completely. I personally get turned off websites if they don't finish loading in a few seconds (I give more time if it's a large, information-ful page).


I have strong support for what he said. Internet Explorer is outdated, no denial. He didn't directly aim at you, pokejungle. And we could do with Internet Explorer in one place, the Recycle Bin. Or the Trash. Where ever. if it ever gets updated, then that would be good.
And as I said, I probably worded that a little badly. :/ Here's the better wording, in case anyone missed it. :P
I was simply trying to refer, although I didn't do it in the best way, to IE's bad track record at being able to render pages correctly. Often you have to break perfectly good code to make it render the way you want it to in IE.

[pokejungle]

This is terribly silly~

I'm removing most of myself from this discussion. Later ^^

BTW- Lucky Mihara didn't give me that stike 10 minutes ago! ^0^ otherwise I'd be banned XD

[Haruki Hanai]

I did italicise them fromt he quote he gave for a reason, you know. XD

[Yameneko549]

I have strong support for what he said. Internet Explorer is outdated, no denial. He didn't directly aim at you, pokejungle. And we could do with Internet Explorer in one place, the Recycle Bin. Or the Trash. Where ever. if it ever gets updated, then that would be good.

With all due respect, the attitude behind the line I put in bold is the very reason I have no respect for the Firefox community or the OSS community. That kind of one-sided thinking is all I ever see from them. Personally, though, I'm tired of seeing it everywhere.

I can't go anywhere these days without seeing some sort post that basicly says "ONLY USE FIREFOX YOU MORONS", or "Firefox is the only thing you should use", or my all time favorite: "If you use IE, you don't deserve respect". I see it at almost every board I've ever been to. It's getting a bit out of hand. I say that people should start seeing both sides of the coin instead of just seeing it from their own perspective.

When I help make a site or create something for one of mine, I make sure it looks good in both, even if it messes something up in validation. When I see someone using IE and people are shoving the "getfirefox.com" url down their throat, I either ask a mod to remove them or, if I'm a mod\admin, remove them myself with the message "Help them with their real problem or don't post. Next time it happens, you get a strike\warning.".

I would continue, but I'm probably getting close to a ban as it is.

[pokejungle]

I did italicise them fromt he quote he gave for a reason, you know. XD

I'm back~

Just because I have no clue what that post was supposed to mean.

[Morkula]

All right, enough is enough. Either the flaming stops or the thread gets locked and somebody might just be next in the banning reports... So if you can't be civilized, don't even take part in the conversation.
Getting back to the topic, yes, validation is important. And no, I can't say that my site is perfect in HTML validity (far from it), and yes, I can say that due to a coding error on my part WCC was unviewable to IE users for almost a year... <.<
I will say this, I plan to work on the validity soon, even though it'll be a slow process. And my CSS was 100% valid. XD

[Haruki Hanai]

Actually, I've had much worse experiences with Internet Explorer and it's security vulnerabilities. Would you believe that a Trojan Horse forced me to erase the computer... 3 times? One that runs undetected even!

It's not that I'm completely against it, either. The Internet Explorer version for Mac has better features that the Windows version fails to see.

I don't use Firefox, however, but it's not a thing webmasters should rely on anymore.

[PichuSecretBase]

Okay... I'm close to being HTML Validated.. in fact it "Tentavily" is it says but it keeps saying " I was not able to extract a character encoding labeling from any of the valid sources for such information. Without encoding information it is impossible to reliably validate the document. I'm falling back to the "UTF-8" encoding and will attempt to perform the validation, but this is likely to fail for all non-trivial documents."

[Chaos]

On the Firefox debate... I personally use Safari on OSX as my main browser. Firefox on my Linux boxes, which don't get much web use (one's a server, the other's mainly for compiling stuff). But I do note on my website that it is not tested under IE and that because it's valid, it may render incorrectly, kindly pointing them to the Firefox page.

Yame~TD, the attitude of the OSS community you noted is unfortunate, but is not the majority. Not that harsh, at least. Unfortunately the most vocal ones are the ones like that. Both sides have annoying zealots you want to shoot.

But when it comes down to it, using IE is a pretty dumb move, often born of ignorance. If you do know about the sheer number of vulnerabilities in IE and still use it, then that's just asking for trouble... Even if you have virus scanners, adware/spyware removers, and firewalls up the yin-yang, things can still go wrong.

Windows (9x/ME) allows all users "administrator" style privileges. NT/2000/XP defaults to the user having admin privileges, and even running as a non-privledged user, not everything is protected from reading/writing. So even if you have all the protection in the world, all it takes is one thing getting through to really screw you up.

Firefox also is not perfect. There, due to it's increased popularity, have been more security flaws exposed recently. There are still not as many as IE, but it's not perfect.

Currently the only truly secure setup is to not use Windows. Windows has a mess of innate security issues not found in OSX, Linux, or *BSD. That's not to say there wouldn't be exploits found if they were more popular, but the exploits would for certain be fewer and less severe.

I'll give two examples of any Unix-like OS vs. Windows in security...

First, executing a program. In Windows, give anything the extension of .exe or .scr and it's executable, automatically. In a Unix-like OS, you have to set the +x permissions bit (chmod +x file, from the command line). It is not done automatically in anyway - although there are graphical tools to do this.

Second, administrative privileges. Windows either has nothing but admin privileges (9x/ME) or defaults to admin privileges (NT/2000/XP). Even without admin privileges, some system folders are still vulnerable. In Linux, the default is to run as a restricted user, entering the root (admin) password, often to install software or change configurations, rarely anything else.

And in Linux, the permissions are set, on most distributions, to allow limited write access to /tmp (temporary files) and their home directory - no write access elsewhere.

On OSX the setup is similar, but not identical. An administrative account on OSX simply has the ability to run the "sudo" command, which allows one command to be executed as if it was run by root. This is how system preferences are accessed - it asks you for your password. And it has to ask you for your password whenever any program wants to use those root privileges. It is slightly less secure than Linux in where you can write to, but most of the System directories are protected.

So basically in Windows, if anything gains access, it has admin or near-admin privileges, in Linux it'll screw you over, but not the system, and in OSX is might mess up a few things, but the basic system will be pretty fine.



Addition:

Okay... I'm close to being HTML Validated.. in fact it "Tentavily" is it says but it keeps saying " I was not able to extract a character encoding labeling from any of the valid sources for such information. Without encoding information it is impossible to reliably validate the document. I'm falling back to the "UTF-8" encoding and will attempt to perform the validation, but this is likely to fail for all non-trivial documents."
Add the following tag in your <head> section if you're using XHTML:
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
or the following for plain HTML:
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">

[scolari]

even though i prefer firefox i make website to work in both. When i owned eon-community i started to get alot of hits and at first i just encoded it for fire fox though when i looked at my statistics i was getting around 75% of my hits where from ie. So i changed my code to work with both which i always do now

[PichuSecretBase]

Thanks. My up coming website is all HTML Transitional 4.0 and my CSS is all good. And it doesn't take that long if you actually know to put alt="" on your images... >>;

I test my layouts and websites in both IE and Firefox. I prefer Firefox over IE, but I always make sure they work in both. They usually do but sometimes they don't.

[Chaos]

And it doesn't take that long if you actually know to put alt="" on your images... >>;
Please, in general, try to put some actual text in the alt tag for important images (banners, images with important text on them, maybe captions for pictures, etc.) in case a visitor comes with a browser set to not download images automatically (a slow dial up user), or with visual impairment (so the computer can read the alt text - this is actually a feature on some browsers made for the visually impaired).

Of course I haven't seen this site/layout so I can't actually check if you have already - maybe you already have some alt tags.

And, of course, you don't really need anything in the alt tag for images that are, for example, a piece of the layout. :)

[Haruki Hanai]

The big reason validity comes in handy for me is that pages that validate as well as are small can load (quite fast) on 28.8 K connections and work on GPRS (Mobile Internet).

[Chrono Cr@cker]

Well, I am working on my website's HTML and CSS validity. I am proud to say that CSS is 100% valid with no warnings whatsoever. http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fpokedrome.com%2Fpdrome-style.css&usermedium=all

I am also working on my HTML Validity. All the errors have been fixed except the marquee tags. http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fpokedrome.com

Can anybody please tell me what to do end these errors?

Thank you.

~ CC

[PichuSecretBase]

http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-WCAG20-HTML-TECHS-20050630/#marquee

[Chaos]

Basically the problem you're running into is that the <marquee> tag isn't normal HTML. It was something originally created by Microsoft and only supported in IE for a fair while.

Looking over your website, you're using the marquee for affiliates... You might want to consider another display method for those. Scrolling and animation anywhere on a website can annoy some people to no end..

[Chrono Cr@cker]

Basically the problem you're running into is that the <marquee> tag isn't normal HTML. It was something originally created by Microsoft and only supported in IE for a fair while.

Looking over your website, you're using the marquee for affiliates... You might want to consider another display method for those. Scrolling and animation anywhere on a website can annoy some people to no end..
I am using the Marquee tag only for the topsites, not affiliates. Anyway, I would like to know if there is any other alternative for the marquee tag. *Any <script> tag?*

If there is none, I'll probably remove the marquee tag and half the topsite buttons too along with it.

~ CC

[PichuSecretBase]

Why don't you just list them out. Marquee's is kind of cheating them out.. Do like PPN and list them down by the copyright.

[Chaos]

I've never understood the purpose of topsites... To me they just seem annoying. So annoying that I'm considering using some of my CSS magic that I use to block ads to block them too...

[Rukario]

do you not know that topsites help in your page ranking and popularity?

they also can increase the chances of your site being found.

as for the marquee issue, just display them in a different manner as already been suggested.

[Chaos]

do you not know that topsites help in your page ranking and popularity?

they also can increase the chances of your site being found.

I gathered that, but I just don't see the point of the whole thing, personally. I mean, I never use topsites to find any other websites, and I find website with them incredibly slow and annoying to finish loading because the graphics are often on slow remote servers. To me, it just seems more trouble and annoyance than it may be worth.

I dunno, maybe I'm the only person who gets annoyed by that.

[Chrono Cr@cker]

do you not know that topsites help in your page ranking and popularity?
they also can increase the chances of your site being found.
as for the marquee issue, just display them in a different manner as already been suggested.
Thanks a lot for the idea! I will implement it as soon as possible. I have another question. Suppose I display my topsites as PPN displays its affiliates using the onmouseover, will it affect the topsite in anyway? I mean that will the topsite stop showing my site's hits due to that?

~ CC

[Chaos]

Thanks a lot for the idea! I will implement it as soon as possible. I have another question. Suppose I display my topsites as PPN displays its affiliates using the onmouseover, will it affect the topsite in anyway? I mean that will the topsite stop showing my site's hits due to that?
I think they probably won't count... If I remember correctly JavaScript only loads images when the mouse is over them. :\

I think there may be a way to get around this, but I can't remember that well. It's been a long time since I used JS.


And I can't actually see what you mean by the way PPN displays it's affiliates... To me it just looks like they're in the sidebar, mainly with text links...

And four of the topsite banners at the bottom don't load, slowing down the finishing of the loading of the page a great deal. >.< That's what I mean by they're annoying to me..

[Chrono Cr@cker]

I think they probably won't count... If I remember correctly JavaScript only loads images when the mouse is over them. :\

I think there may be a way to get around this, but I can't remember that well. It's been a long time since I used JS.

And I can't actually see what you mean by the way PPN displays it's affiliates... To me it just looks like they're in the sidebar, mainly with text links...

And four of the topsite banners at the bottom don't load, slowing down the finishing of the loading of the page a great deal. >.< That's what I mean by they're annoying to me..
Hmmm....PPN Displays all it's master affiliates with their buttons but if you notice the other affiliates, they are displayed using text links. When you move the mouse over them, their button shows up on the top. A neat and simple use of Javascript.

What I wanted to know is that, if I display the topsites like that, will their registering hits of my site stop. I am not that experienced in PHP to know the exact script Aardvarkind is using. I also want to know this as it is really ugly to display topsites at the bottom of your page.

~ CC

[Chaos]

Cr@cker]Hmmm....PPN[/email] Displays all it's master affiliates with their buttons but if you notice the other affiliates, they are displayed using text links. When you move the mouse over them, their button shows up on the top. A neat and simple use of Javascript.
Interesting. I didn't actually notice that.

What I wanted to know is that, if I display the topsites like that, will their registering hits of my site stop. I am not that experienced in PHP to know the exact script Aardvarkind is using. I also want to know this as it is really ugly to display topsites at the bottom of your page.
Actually, the way PPN does the affiliates, it seems to preload the buttons, so there is no loading delay - meaning it should register the topsites hits. Only one way to find out though. ;)

Also, you'll probably have to dig into the PPN code a bit to find out the exact code used to load them before they display. Or just look elsewhere for code that does the same thing.

[Haruki Hanai]

I effortlessly turned pmtn (http://pmtn.kyletech.us/) into an XHTML 1.1 site. Just a hundred code corrections which were easy becuse of how I organised the code, and it looks really clean!

[PichuSecretBase]

Congratulations! I know I should changes HTML 4.0 to XHTML 1.0 but I don't think I will >.>;

[Geometric-sama]

Yay, I have "valid CSS". XD Well, like I told you over the phone, Anth-kun, I can't be bothered fixing my errors XD. Or maybe I will later, after I've fixed all my *other* websites :P

[Chrono Cr@cker]

PGS is now 100% HTML & CSS VALID. *Proudly links to http://pokedrome.com*

~ CC

[pokejungle]

You forgot to close the URL tag before the asterik =/

PaulHQ is now HTML 4.01 valid ^^ It was pretty simple luckily >>; www.paulhq.com

[MalafeX]

Typhlosion lair is also xhtml valid
http://typhlosion.pokenitro.com/

[pokejungle]

Congrats Kyo! =D

I can never get XHTML >.>;

And PJN has soooooo many DIV errors it's not even funny x.x;

[Morkula]

WCC 5.0 will be 100% valid HTML, once I get it up on Elixant. I've still got about 20 pages or so to fix, but that shouldn't take long.

[pokejungle]

Can't wait Robo ^_~

Maybe IE will like your site now...?

[Geometric-sama]

I have a natural disadvantage. PW, TPP and BBS were started entirely in Frontpage. They're now all Dreamweaver, but it doesn't change the fact that Frontpage's coding is baaaaaaaaad. XD

[pokejungle]

Frontpage sucks :P

Like I've stated before...Notepad >>>>>>>>> everything. Of course, now I use HTML-Kit XD

[Geometric-sama]

HTML-Kit > Notepad for HTML.

Dreamweaver > all for WYSIWYG.

Nvu is decent as free software for WYSIWYG though.

[Chaos]

WYSIWYG in general are a bad way to design a web-page. Find a good text editor, maybe with syntax highlighting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntax_highlighting), and use it, is my opinion.

jEdit (http://www.jedit.org) is a good cross-platform text editor with syntax highlighting. For my Mac I use either Smultron (http://smultron.sourceforge.net) or TextWrangler (http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/index.shtml). I've heard good things about BBedit (http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/index.shtml), but it's a bit out of my price range (costs as much as OSX =O! Only for the hard-core text editing user! Like a professional.).