A website’s “favorites icon” or “bookmark icon” is an often-overlooked element on a web page. Web designers and developers implement this simple image in different ways. In this article, I will explain the differences and the solid way to use your favicon. Let’s talk icons.

Web development covers a lot of material, and even someone like myself who has done it for years can forget stuff many times before it sets in. We all have those *facepalm* moments. In this article, I will discuss what can and can’t be done with the id and name attributes, and why. (more…)

Welcome to another article on Building Better Web Pages. This article series comprehensively covers building an HTML document: easily learned, but rarely perfected.

This article is dedicated solely to the <table> tag. Tables are everywhere, and almost every single one is improperly implemented. This article will show the proper syntax for your tables. See the code.

Welcome to the Solidly Stated article series, “Building Better Web Pages”. This series comprehensively covers building an HTML document: easily learned, but rarely perfected.

The purpose of this series is to help designers build better web pages. I have been an artist since childhood, so perhaps that is why I see writing HTML as an art form. However, today’s development tools and content management systems make knowing whats under the hood all but obsolete. Understanding the foundations of HTML is what separates the wheat from the chaff, as far as designers go. See the Table of Contents.

Welcome to another article on Building Better Web Pages. This article series comprehensively covers building an HTML document: easily learned, but rarely perfected.

Today’s article covers Doctype declarations in regards to XHTML and HTML.This is one of the most intriguing markup debates out there. I personally waffled back and forth between the two.

Solid Statement: Don’t be a whiny prima donna about this issue. The XHTML Doctype helps you develop good coding habits. While HTML 4.01 has its set of standards, it allows for ‘sloppy’ code that doesn’t fly in any other language or platform.

See the pitfalls to both.

Welcome to another article on Building Better Web Pages. This article series comprehensively covers building an HTML document: easily learned, but rarely perfected.

Today’s article covers Strict versus Transitional Doctype declarations. This is an extended discussion regarding the article about Doctype declarations. I always suggest XHTML Doctypes. There is some interesting debate over the HTML vs XHTML, but it is becoming less relevant as the web continues to mature. How Does Strict Benefit Me?

Welcome to another article on Building Better Web Pages. This article series comprehensively covers building an HTML document: easily learned, but rarely perfected.

Today’s article covers Doctype declarations. While there is a wealth of information on the internet already about Doctypes, I have always clicked away without really understanding what was really going on. Besides, we can’t completely cover “Building Better Web Pages” without it. The most basic questions are “Why do I need a Doctype?” or “Which Doctype should I use?” You might figure this would be easy to explain. I think can be, but I just never see it solidly stated.

Welcome to another article on Building Better Web Pages. This article series comprehensively covers building an HTML document: easily learned, but rarely perfected.

Today’s article covers CSS Sprites. This also means that it covers Javascript preload images, rollover images, hover images, and the old rookie question of, “why do my images blink when I hover over them?” The goal of this article, other than helping you build better web pages, is to catch search engine queries in the preceding sentence and help steer those people in the correct direction.

Welcome to another article on Building Better Web Pages. This article series comprehensively covers building an HTML document: easily learned, but rarely perfected.

Today’s article covers Unobtrusive JavaScript . While we await the day that content is properly separated from presentation and behavior, we will still no doubt come across many remnants of the old way of working with markup. One of these remnants is JavaScript events inline with HTML markup. This includes onsubmit, onclick, onmouseover, etc. The purpose of this article is to show you that, while technically allowed by the current HTML spec, inline JavaScript is a bad idea.

Welcome to another article on Building Better Web Pages. This article series comprehensively covers building an HTML document: easily learned, but rarely perfected.

Today’s article covers Separation of Presentation and Content. It is a sister article to Unobtrusive Javascript, which covers separation of behaviors and content. I recommend reading both to get the whole picture. (more…)