Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with XHTML

Which NYC area colleges and Universities are teaching valid hand marked-up xhtml and css in their web design courses?

stagewhisper — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:21:11 -0800

Which (if any) NYC area colleges and Universities are teaching valid hand marked-up xhtml and css in their web design courses? I am trying to find a freelancer or small firm to take over a dating website redesign for a client in the NYC/NJ area. The back-end is/will be Cold Fusion (this is the only option as far as the client is concerned) and the front end styles and all formatting will be implemented using style sheets and fully accessible xhtml. I am having trouble finding an entry level designer who not only has the proper skill set, but who also understands why it is important that their code validates.
The best option seems to be to advertise this job on various area school's alumni and/or student job boards, but if the state university that I am currently a grad student at is any indication, not all web design courses and digital design concentrations teach much beyond WYSIWYG dreamweaver classes, and the computer science classes don't address user interface design and css much, if at all.
Is anyone here familiar enough with the design programs at other schools (Pratt, Parsons, SVA, Rutgers, etc.) that they might suggest the best programs and career services offices for me to contact?

Story problems.

SinisterPurpose — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 10:08:33 -0800

Web Designers! Tell Me Of The Dragons You Hath Slain! We all remember the fun we had with this question. As was suggested to me in that thread, I have been spending as much of my time as possible learning on my own. (Concentration has been mostly on Web Design) Unfortunately, the countless books, articles, and blogs I've read are not completely complimentary to my learning style.

Of course I'm gaining knowledge and skills with these, but I'm looking to sharpen this particular sword as quickly as humanly possible. And for me, that mean hearing anecdotes, stories, and real world challenges from people who live within this realm every day. I understand and process information most effectively when it is wrapped in a pretty little narrative. (Probably why I majored in English in the first go round.)

I'm looking for descriptions of problems you've encountered working in web design. If you found a solution, you can feel free to share it. Or not. Be as detailed as you like.

Also, I'd like to hear about your Eureka! moments as you were learning. What made a particular concept sink into that soft, mushy melon of yours? What was that first baffling problem you had that first day? What issue just keeps coming up and won't go away? Just vent if you like; I guarantee I will mine something out of it.

Inevitably, someone will ask for a clarification on what I mean by "web design". I understand that it is a broad and multi-faceted discipline. If you think you have what I'm looking for here, then you do. I am deferring to your experience here. Let's feel free to err on the side of this-is-probably-what-he-wants-even-if-he-doesn't-know-it.

CertificationFilter: Help our web/graphic design team find appropriate certification's for our field.

pghjezebel — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 06:10:37 -0800

CertificationFilter: Help our web/graphic design team find appropriate certification's for our field. Where I work a lot of importance is put on getting certifications. Our boss would like to find a standard certification that everyone in our graphic design department can receive.

Some of us are strong programmers, while others are heavily into the design end of things. We all deal with .NET and 508/accessibility on a daily basis.

Finding something that fits for all of us across the board as well as meets the approval of our boss has been a little tough.

What would you recommend?

How do I strip .docx of its styling but retain semantic markup?

Fluffy654 — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 08:25:13 -0800

How can I automatically strip a .doc and .docx files of their styling but retain any semantic markup with the aim of putting them online? I'm creating a wiki like app to allow the members of an organization update some help files stored online. I've found that what they will typically try to do is copy text directly from a word document straight in to the text area which strips it of all of its styling and semantic markup.

Therefore, I tried using tinyMCE which changes the textarea into a rich text editor. Unfortunately, this results in the word styling overwriting the site styling.

I think what I need can best be illustrated by an example: If a word document contains a paragraph, I need that paragraph wrapped in tags and stripped of any styling so that I can then style that paragraph as I like using css. I then need this for headings, lists, images, tables e.t.c.

Good, reputable PSD to CSS/XHTML/HTML service.

pakoothefakoo — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:41:15 -0800

Good, reputable PSD to CSS/HTML/XHTML service? I'm looking for an online PSD to CSS/HTML/XHTML conversion service. I've googled around, but I want to see if anybody could recommend a good service based on personal experience.

Also how much did it cost and what was the turnaround time?

Sites that have reduced their use of Flash?

jragon — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 09:46:07 -0800

What are some well-known sites who have scaled back their Flash use? I can think of flickr and mint.com, both of which started with much more of a reliance on Flash and then scaled back to having some Flash components on an otherwise XHTML-driven site.

How do I convince my company to utilize Web standards?

relucent — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 10:17:39 -0800

Help me make a business case for HTML/CSS standards in my company's web-based software. I work at a software company. One of our flagship products is a web-based content management system, and there are many parts of the program where you can create documents in a WYSIWIG format, and later export this content as an HTML file. This is a huge selling point for our product.

I've been coding HTML since I was 12, and have been very much into standards-compliant XHTML and CSS for the past five years. So it greatly pains me to see that our application generates HTML like it's 1996. Visually, it looks terrible, and programmatically, it uses no style sheets and it is an absolute nightmare to look at the source when it's exported. We have had a number of issues reported by our clients with this, but our development department patches them up on a case-by-case basis instead of fixing the root problem, which is the horribly-formed code. Every time, it's the code.

I am not a developer, otherwise I would have fixed it myself over the course of a few weekends. But I want to make a case to our development VP that we need to utilize standards-compliant HTML and CSS whenever we deal with the WYSIWIG documents. It will take a lot of work because we've built up this Jenga tower pretty high, but if we do it right then life will be much easier in the future. This would be overdelivering on our big promises, as Seth Godin recommends, and it would show that we care about the customer even when it doesn't put dollars directly into our pockets.

The problem is, I can't think of a concrete case from a business perspective. It just feels wrong to me for our software to be writing HTML this badly. But it's hard to evangelize the good news of HTML standards when you can't think of any solid reasons. They think it's better to just band-aid the issues one at a time as they arise.

BTW, we develop software for a very specific industry, and it is not available to the public, so accessibility is not an issue. I know that's one of the main benefits for Web standards, but it's of very low consequence for us.

Also, I would still be pacified if our HTML and CSS didn't pass the validator 100%, but right now I have a feeling that if we ran it through the validator we'd take down W3C's servers. Really what I care about is that it is easy to work with, works cross-platform, and looks nice for our clients, and so I figure we might as well follow a few standards while we're at it.

Am I way too hung up on this, and I just need to get over it and let them do their thing their way? Or do I have a good reason to push for us using Web standards in our development?

PNG to XHTML in One Hour or Your Money Back

DarlingBri — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 08:59:38 -0800

Has anyone used any of the many PSD to XTML and CSS services out there? Were you happy? Were you sad? Did you employ child labour? I accidentally dropped a project and the MeFite I work with for CSS and XHTML is all booked up on another gig. I urgently need someone to dish out XHTML and CSS from a page mock-up because I am up to my ears at the moment.

I am considering using one of the many sites offering this service on a price-per-page basis. If you've ever used any of these services, can you tell me which one, what you paid, and how happy you were with the output? Similarly if you have a horror story, I'm equally interested in cautionary tales.

(And yes, this is a one-off, and no, I'm not going to drop the lovely mefi I work with in favour of a nameless faceless offshore monolith. I'm just in a jam.)

What should I learn in order to do web development?

giggleknickers — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 03:09:46 -0800

What should I learn in order to do web development? I would like to create some feature-rich websites with some Web 2.0 aspects to them. I'm trying to figure out what I need to learn.

At present, I know XHTML, CSS, and javascript. There is so much else out there - php, perl, xml, ajax, ruby, sql, c#, java applets, and on and on and on.

This has been asked before, but not recently, and I know how fast the web changes.

Wordpress theme editable region help

joelf — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:21:39 -0800

Wordpress Theme help. I need to stick an editable region in the header of my theme so a user can edit a little blurb about themselves. How do I put a Text Widget or something similar up there? I'm banging my head against a wall here. Ideally I'd want something that can be edited from the WP admin screen. Any help would be great. no worries about code fog. I'm pretty good with the stuff, I just can't find the answer on Google. so sad.

Are there any other coding nerds out there?

[insert clever name here] — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:27:26 -0800

Are there any good html and css forums that focus on writing semantic markup? Specifically, I'm looking for places to bounce ideas off of when I'm trying to write code to come up with the best ways of doing it. Sometimes things aren't as straight forward as "this is a paragraph, here goes the p tag!" A place where people live, eat and breath html and css! There are lot of forums out there for web design and coding, but I don't seem to be finding any that fit into this specific area. Kind of like if a list apart had its own forum/discussion area beyond comments.

web design term project ideas?

tamarack — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 23:09:35 -0800

Idea Filter: I need to create a six-page website for a term project in web design at uni (intro level). What to do it on? I have been given the go-ahead to choose a topic of my liking for my term project in web design. I find I just keep making the same site layout time and time again and I am in need of some new ideas, vague or specific suggestions, or links to other people's favourite small websites. Any creative inspiration is much appreciated :)

Renaissance Communications Man Seeks Advice.

producerpod — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 20:24:44 -0800

Am I a marketer? Am I a flack? Am I lost? Yep. I'm currently the marcomm director at a non-profit agency - the only person in my department. I am a true renaissance man, handling marketing, PR, internal communications, the website (I've hand-coded an entire site), all our graphic design and some video production.

I do it all, and that's kind of the problem. I'm looking to leave for the for-profit world, and I don't know which way to go. Marketing seems to be the best solid profession to get into (I am a family man as well, so pay is a big consideration) but I'm not sure I know what a for-profit marketer would do. Most marketing positions I see seem to be industry-specific as well. The more job descriptions I read, and the more resumes I read of people who are in marketing, the more I realize I may not have any idea how to do that at all - and it's rather depressing.

In my former life, I was a TV news producer in a top ten market, which gives me a lot of solid, basic skills that translate into any industry: team leading, writing, ability to grasp complex topics quickly and translate them into common language, working under HIGH PRESSURE under daily deadlines. When I do the PR part of my current job, it's this background I use, and I have a very easy time dealing with the media. I have no problem speaking on camera, or to large groups of people. I see people making PR mistakes ALL THE TIME. Sometimes I think I should go into for-profit PR based on my journalism background, but I dread working for an agency, calling reporters and producers with forced story ideas from a lame client.

My true passions, though, are graphic design and web design. I love CSS, Flash, XHTML, all things Adobe. I'm told I have a talent for it, but referencing a previous point (I'm a family man, entering my mid-thirties) I'm not sure I can create a new career from it.

Bottom line: How do I leave the non-profit world, and which path do I pursue?

Semantic markup and the world wide web: non-noob needs an explanation.

josh.ev9 — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 08:29:04 -0800

Semantic markup and the world wide web: non-noob needs an explanation. What is all this semantic markup talk about, and where can I learn more? I've been creating web tools/apps/etc. for years with well-written (as far as I can tell) and valid XHTML & CSS code. But over the last few years I've heard lots of people talk about "Semantic Markup."

What is this, and how can I tell if I'm already doing it? Why is it so good, and are there any problems with it? Finally, what are your favorite web and non-web resources for learning more?

How can I strip out extraneous CSS rules from my stylesheets?

jeremias — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 09:54:49 -0800

How can I strip out extraneous CSS rules from my stylesheets? I've got an external css file that I've modified quite extensively and it's also quite long. I would like to compare the rules in the css file with the div and class tags that I've added in my html and then discard all the css rules that don't apply. So this isn't CSS optimizing like CSS Tidy . . .

Is there anything either on or offline that will allow me to do this?

SVG task - is it the right tool for the job?

dance — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 11:14:19 -0800

Resources/information on layering with SVG I'm interested in working with SVG. I have some fairly intricate but simple vector (AI format) digitizations of some drawings I made. I'd like to display these on a webpage with a raster image of the original context 'beneath' the SVG image (does SVG do transparency?).

What is key is that the layers within the SVG (which I create as layers in Illustrator CS2 presumably) are clickable on/off and the raster itself is clickable on/off also - presumably using JavaScript.

Is this possible? Does anyone have any resources or information on how this could be accomplished? I can't find a great deal on the www about this aspect of SVG although similar projects have clearly been done - although that example doesn't have the raster background I am looking to achieve.

In addition it would be great if the layers could be searchable, perhaps through an XML sort/filter...

Any thoughts?

Problems with XHTML content type.

The Confessor — Wed, 30 May 2007 14:04:08 -0800

I seem to have hit a bit of a brick wall in approximating W3C XHTML standards compliance on my website. From what I've read, XHTML should be served with content type application/xhtml+xml, rather than text/html, and recent versions of Microsoft and Mozilla browsers should support serving them as such. Well, they aren't. I set the content type and character set for all of my pages using the header statement in my primary include file, as shown here.

When I try to switch the content type (currently by commenting one line and uncommenting the other), however, the following happens:

Firefox 2.0.0.3 complains that this XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it, and displays a bare document trees.

Internet Explorer 7.0.5450.4 opens an Open/Save/Cancel for a file of type php_auto_file.

Opera for Wii shows the bare interface, stripped of all styling.

Can anybody help me figure out what's going wrong?

object for iframe

juiceCake — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 08:31:30 -0800

Using Object instead of iframe for Google Calendar embeds? A client wants to play with the idea of embedding a particular Google Calendar. Google does this via iframe like so:

Since I prefer to use XHTML 1.0 Strict, iframe, being deprecated, doesn't validate. So I use the object tag like so:

Works fine in Firefox. Effectively crashes IE 6.

My Google Fu is at yellow belt and though I can find that people are having similar problems, I haven't found the exact one, nor if there is a solution that doesn't include ie conditional hacks. Any suggestions would be welcome.

Advanced CSS: can I float right with cropping on the left?

jragon — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 23:02:55 -0800

I want to float a css element to the right and have the left side get cropped when I shrink the window size. (Self link example) View that link in Firefox and you'll see the left side of the page disappear as you make the window smaller, with no scrollbars.

View it in Safari or IE6 (though IE6 has other more serious problems too) and the left side of the element fixes against the side of the browser, causing horizontal scrolls to appear.

Any thoughts? I also wrote this code example to simplify the issue, and I see the same problem:

Help with CSS, please?

dance — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 02:50:55 -0800

Posting on behalf of a friend: CSS Absolute / relative positioning problem. In designing a course website which has to validate as XHTML (Strict or Transitional), I've come up against a problem with an image. I want the image to remain in the right hand div but resize gracefully. My problem is that the trowel image either interferes with the header (is too high) but IS able to move with the page or doesn't interfere with anything but won't resize with the page! Two examples

here
and
here .

Thanks!

Arbitrary [x]html DOM Containers

lodurr — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 10:57:36 -0800

Is it "standard" for a browser to parse an arbitrary tag as part of the DOM? I don't know why it never occurred to me before to do this, but for some reason today I was inspired to see whether a browser would apply style rules to a block defined by an arbitrary tag. I created a block that looks like this:

<melvin>This is Melvin</melvin>

...then I added a style container and applied a style rule to the entity "melvin" (e.g., melvin { background-color: #000000;}). And it worked, in both Safari and Firefox. Seems to work for doctypes all the way from html 4.01 transitional all the way through xhtml 1.1 strict.

Should it? Why? And if so, would it be a reliable technique? I've never heard of this before.

Bonus question: Am I a sad, sad geek for thinking this is cool?

Most useful CSS related resources?

volandmast — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 07:02:09 -0800

I'd like to learn more about Cascading Stylesheets, but there are so many resources related to CSS - so I simply do not know where to begin. Sometimes there is too much, sometimes there isn't enough. Therefore I'd like to ask, which resources would you recommend as the most useful and ultimate web-sites related to CSS? Please don't post hundreds of links, instead please describe, why the resource is useful and why you keep using it every day, while developing web-sites.

What's wrong with my XML?

miniape — Thu, 25 May 2006 12:13:51 -0800

XML Character Woes: I'm getting the error Reference to undefined entity 'ldquo' (and 'rdquo, etc) when I try to open my XML files with IE or Firefox. Can you help me fix it? I know the parser is seeing it as an entity and looking for a definition, but I can't define them in the DTD because I don't know what entities might be coming in.

I've set the elements to CDATA hoping the parser would ignore it, but that doesn't change anything. I've also tried changing the entities to the various numerical entities.

My goal is just to have valid XHTML entities in the text. These files are certainly going to be converted to HTML at some point but who knows where else they'll go. They might go back into InDesign, etc.

In case it matters: I'm getting the content from InDesign and running it against some scripts to fix them up. InDesign is giving me Unicode, and I'm converting the Unicode special characters to the 'rdquo' style html entities

How to produce a Gmail-style checkbox selection interface?

tommorris — Sat, 20 May 2006 02:07:31 -0800

Does anyone know how it's possible to produce an interface for checkbox selection like the one in Gmail? Namely, where you can hold down shift and click the first and last items in a list, and it'll automatically select all the ones in between. Is it possible with simple JavaScript without having to use AJAX or other fancy-pants technology...

A Grave Problem with HTML Entities.

Charlie Bucket — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 18:40:32 -0800

Is there a Unix/Mac OS X utility that can will batch fix badly-coded HTML entities? So I'm trying to convert 7 years of HTML files from hand-coded and hand-managed on Pagemill 3.0 for Windows. They're a mess, but that's okay for the most part. I'm converting them from HTML-esque to XHTML 4.0. They will eventually get redone in a custom XML schema.

HTML Tidy is generally doing a bang-up job, but I'm having trouble with a bunch of files that have poorly implemented HTML entities.

The problem is that Pagemill took the Windows character set and created numeric entities out of them.

HTML Tidy will convert them to Unicode equivalents. Problem was, it doesn't do it correctly, or I should say doesn't recognize the problem. It will turn & ;#148; into & #igrave; instead of & ldquo; (put spaces in there to stop the posting process from converting them..)

These improperly coded entities tend to choke or confuse every other utility I've tried to throw at 'em (recode, html2text.py) Any ideas how to fix these things short of learning Perl overnight?