Please help a newbie

andy johnson wrote:

The validator helped me tremendously. You have to remember it is a
tool, my peace with it is "use it, benefit by it, don't be mastered by
it". I have been doing CSS for exactly 8 days now, and while my pages
do not completely validate, they do so in all the right areas. I do
not intend to add alt tags to spacers etc

Why not? What looks better[1]?

[spacer.gif] [spacer.gif] [spacer.gif] [spacer.gif] [spacer.gif] Wibble
[spacer.gif] [spacer.gif] [spacer.gif] [spacer.gif]

or

Wibble

?

All images must have alt text, if the image is entirely decorative that alt
text should be blank. <img src="spacer.gif" alt="">

.... of course now we have margin and padding nobody should need spacer
images any more.

[1] This is a literal representation. Some browsers render images as their
alt text, and use the file name if there is no specified alt text.

--
David Dorward http://dorward.me.uk/

All images must have alt text, if the image is entirely decorative that alt
text should be blank. <img src="spacer.gif" alt=""

... of course now we have margin and padding nobody should need spacer
images any more.

[1] This is a literal representation. Some browsers render images as their
alt text, and use the file name if there is no specified alt text.

You of course are right as rain, and I have not used any spacers since
"learning" CSS. (I say that loosely!) I was just using that as an
example. My recollection is however that IE X.x? does not implement
alt correctly in some way, so maybe that is why I had been doing that.
Learning CSS correctly as in how browsers interpret the spec has been
a real pleasure, after learning then solving each problem, there is a
real sense of pride. Kind of like actually remembering to bottom post!

Andy

"There would be a lot more civility in this world if people
didn't take that as an invitation to walk all over you"
- (Calvin and Hobbes)

andy johnson <andrew.johnson (AT) chicagonet (DOT) net> exclaimed in <ss4tjvk40c8r85qtnu5eaqcqfmob12mdq0 (AT) 4ax (DOT) com>:

example. My recollection is however that IE X.x? does not implement
alt correctly in some way, so maybe that is why I had been doing that.

IE, several versions including 6.*, is known to use the alt-attribute
for tooltips, a practice that is frowned upon by quite a few people.

Mentioning it usually leads to a rather vicious debate. I'm sure we'll
not be disappointed this time around either.

--
- Tina Holmboe Greytower Technologies
tina (AT) greytower (DOT) net http://www.greytower.net/
[+46] 0708 557 905

Mentioning it usually leads to a rather vicious debate. I'm sure we'll
not be disappointed this time around either.

Well, this makes it the third time I've stepped in it today!

Andy


"There would be a lot more civility in this world if people
didn't take that as an invitation to walk all over you"
- (Calvin and Hobbes)

andy johnson wrote:

The validator helped me tremendously. You have to remember it is a
tool, my peace with it is "use it, benefit by it, don't be mastered by
it". I have been doing CSS for exactly 8 days now, and while my pages
do not completely validate, they do so in all the right areas. I do
not intend to add alt tags to spacers etc.

They are called alt attributes, not tags, and there are damn good reasons
why this attribute is no longer optional. It really should have been made a
requirement in HTML 3.2 if you ask me; after all, alt was required on
<area>.

nor will I immediately update my old pages that are table oriented.

I don't know of many sites that rushed to update, but table-free layout is
the future. Tables never were intended for use as layout boxes, and their
misuse for such purposes has set the Web back at least a couple of years
(IMO).

The "where the rubber meets the road" point has to be controlled by you,
not some program on a w3c server.

I have to disagree here. There is a reason we have openly accessible
standards, and it's not so they can be freely ignored.

Do what is right for you, and listen to these guys who really do know
this, they are right, and really helping you more than you know!

Too many people do just what is right for them. Too few do what is right for
the future of the Web. The question to ask is not "can I get away with it?"
but "if everyone who published on the Web did this, what would be the end
result?"

--
Shawn K. Quinn