Posted by JDS on 04/21/06 20:14

On Fri, 21 Apr 2006 11:11:54 -0400, Bill wrote:

> My main goal is to get a technically correct site that will allow
> most browsers to view it in an acceptable way, including voice browsers for
> the blind(it is a church site after all shouldn't it be accessible to
> everyone who wants to 'view' it) and one that is not completely ugly ;) I'm
> not looking for extreme or fancy just down to earth, I'm not good enough to
> do a 'Heavenly' site :)

HTML at its core is VERY easy to learn. There really is no reason why
one needs to use any sort of WYSIWYG HTML editor like FrontPage or
Dreamweaver, as long as one learns a couple of basic things:

1) Learn hoe to find answers to your questions when you get stuck.
Posting here is good, but there are better ways. w3schools.com, w3c.org,
and other websites have a lot of helpful information. Google is your
friend. Use it.

2) Understand that HTML is *NOT* about presentation. HTML does not
inherently suggest how a site should "look" -- and it NEVER HAS. HTML was
designed to identify what parts of a document are -- e.g. "this is a
header" or "this is a list". HTML was never intended to be used to
force an actual look and layout.

3) Target the "standard" as defined by the W3C. Do NOT target one
particular browser.

4) Use CSS to create your look.

Now, using CSS is probably harder to learn than using HTML. HTML is
really very simple. If something is a paragraph, you just mark it as
such. There are additional details, but HTML is really very easy to start
learning.

Once you have a page that is correctly marked up with HTML, *then* you can
worry about determining a look for the page (or site). Post back again
when you have questions about CSS. Having semantically correct HTML will
automatically do things like improve accessibility, improve SEO, and allow
for cross-browser (and cross-platform) viewing.

Oh, and when designing a look/layout, try using a piece of paper first.
You'll find that most professional designers do not even use a computer at
all for their initial drafts.

later...

--
JDS | jeffrey@example.invalid
| http://www.newtnotes.com
DJMBS | http://newtnotes.com/doctor-jeff-master-brainsurgeon/

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