HTML and CSS Reference
In-Depth Information
Put on your thinking cap again because it's time for another review. These questions,
quizzes, and exercises will remind you about the items that you should (or should not)
include on your pages.
Q&A
Q I've been creating pages and they work when I test them in the browser. Is it
really important to validate them?
A
The number of browser is increasing, not decreasing. Popular desktop browsers
include Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, and Apple Safari.
Mobile devices with real web browsers are becoming increasingly popular. It's
difficult to test your web pages in all the browsers people are using, and making
sure that they validate provides a baseline level of assurance that your pages are
built correctly and that they'll work in browsers that you haven't personally tested
them with.
Q I'm converting existing documents into web pages. These documents are text
heavy and are intended to be read from start to finish instead of being
scanned quickly. I can't restructure or redesign the content to better follow
the guidelines you've suggested—that's not my job. What can I do?
A
All is not lost. You can still improve the overall presentation of these documents by
providing reasonable indexes to the content (summaries, tables of contents pages,
subject indexes, and so on) and including standard navigation links. In other words,
you can create an easily navigable framework around the documents themselves.
This can go a long way toward improving content that's otherwise difficult to read
online.
Q I have a standard signature block that contains my name and email address,
revision information for the page, and a couple of lines of copyright informa-
tion that my company's lawyers insisted on. It's a little imposing, particularly
on small pages. Sometimes the signature is bigger than the page itself! How do
I integrate it into my site so that it isn't so obtrusive?
A
If your company's lawyers agree, consider putting all your contact and copyright
information on a separate page and then linking to it on every page rather than
duplicating it every time. This way, your pages won't be overwhelmed by the legal
stuff. Also, if the signature changes, you won't have to change it on every single
page. Failing that, you can always just reduce the font size for that block and per-
haps change the font color to something with less contrast to the background of the
page. This indicates to users that they're looking at fine print.
