[PLUG] Web Site Standards

[Richard C. Steffens]

(My reply to you bounced.)

Rich Shepard wrote:
>   While you're starting from scratch, I urge you to use the latest 
> xhtml and
> css versions to build your site. 
That is my plan. I've been practicing with _More Eric Meyer on CSS_ on 
some pages at home. I'm getting used to the way CSS works vs. what I 
used to do. I've also been working with a committee on a web site for my 
church. One of the members is a graphic artist who comes up with 
interesting layouts. My first challenge was to try to figure out a way 
to have different background colors at different levels. Her design 
floats the part with information out in the middle of a grayish 
background. The background of the part with information is white, but 
there are boxes of different sizes. I discovered that I had to include 
all of those inside a container with a height property set larger than 
the total needed in order to have its background white and not parts 
white and the unused part gray!
> Makes it much easier to maintain and having
> the w3c compliance logos on the index page tells those in the know 
> that you
> know what you're doing.
Good point. I'd forgotten about the w3c logo. Now that you mention it, I 
recall that there is some way to point a compliance agent at the site to 
find out what it thinks of it. I'll have to go to the w3c site and poke 
around a bit for it.
>   Also, you can search for css templates that folks make available and 
> use
> one that you like. Modification is easy, too, but this saves a tremendous
> amount of learning and coding time. That's what I did for our site: 
> found a
> couple of templates I really liked and combined the desired features from
> each.
I'll give that a try. At this point I'm still in the very formative 
stages. I have a notion of some of what wants to go on the site, but not 
all of it, yet. When I collect more stuff that "really has to be there" 
I'll start thinking about how to present it. Checking out some templates 
is a good idea.

Thanks!

-- 
Regards,

Dick Steffens