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Recommendations

This guide is part of the Code Style Anchor Points section, a collection of external links from across this site, split by subject.

Please bookmark the Code Style home page before you go.

See also, Anchor Points: Site Manager.

HTML newsgroups

The main newsgroup for HTML for the World Wide Web is comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html (CIWAH). Read the FAQ and lurk a while before posting. Regulars worth reading include original author of the FAQ, Stan Brown, Jan Roland Eriksson, Alan J. Flavell, Rijk van Geijtenbeek, Nick Kew, Jukka K. Korpela, Ian Graham, Darin McGrew, Arjun Ray and Etan Wexler.

The alternative newsgroup for HTML is alt.html, which is a little more loose than CIWAH in its charter and its collective outlook, and tends to tolerate newbie questions more readily. Still, it's worth reading the FAQ before posting.

For Opera-specific HTML discussion, see opera.page-authoring and for Netscape, netscape.public.dev.html.

W3C recommendations

Markup validators

As a safeguard against human (and software) fallibility, and for optimal CSS rendering, it is essential to ensure that your markup conforms to a specific DTD. The closer your chosen DTD is aligned to those recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the more likely your documents will work on any Web browser and help you isolate possible browser-specific problems.

Beware that validation errors near the top of a document may create a cascade of spurious errors further down, so correct each in turn and re-validate as you go.

Favelets by Tantek  Çelik is a set of Javascript event handlers that can be saved as browser bookmarks to pass any current page to the W3C markup validator or CSS checker. A Real Validator by Liam Quinn is an offline version of the WDG validator that uses the same set of user-friendly help references to untangle your messed-up markup.

Finally, James Clarke's NSGMLS is the software that sits behind both the W3C and WDG validators. NSGMLS is part of the SP package of command line applications; it takes some learning to configure initially but is well worth the effort once you appreciate that no output means no errors! The installation archive includes all the W3C HTML DTDs and relevant SGML declarations.

See Validate your markup with SGMLS for a detailed guide to using this tool on Windows systems.

DOCTYPE interpretation

Browser vendors have chosen to fight the current round of the browser wars over W3C standards conformance. Both the big two have adopted a similar twisted logic to accommodate legacy Web documents that may not have valid markup. Internet Explorer 5 for Mac, Netscape 6, Mozilla and Internet Explorer 6 for Windows apply stricter standards-based markup and CSS rendering if specific Document Type Declarations are used. Any document that doesn't match their criteria is assumed to be legacy "tag soup" and is rendered in quirks mode, but the interpretation of types varies between browsers.

Browsers and cross-compatibility

All the markup validation in the world can't beat actually testing draft designs in real Web browsers and authors should aim to establish their own test suite of software to preview their work before it is unleashed on the World Wide Web. Where you draw the line is a matter of personal judgment in an environment where every platform and release version can have it's own idiosyncrasies, but having access to the software itself is the first step.

HTML and XHTML markup references

The link element

Style sheets and HTML

HTML & XHTML books

HTML & XHTML, The Definitive Guide

Cover illustration of HTML And XHTML By Chuck Musciano and Bill Kennedy

Another of those key reference works from O'Reilly, "the Koala book" is the foundation of countless Web developers' careers and an invaluable guide to the usage of all the HTML elements. Once read, the reference section comes into its own and though the book sometimes wanders off the W3C standards track, it will find a permanent place on your bookshelf.

Order this book online at Amazon UK

Markup editors

TextPad

Helios Software Solutions

A text editor that is optimised for HTML editing and Java coding, with configurable javac and java commands and a view "In Web Browser" option that works with static files or a local HTTP host. TextPad has pre-configured syntax highlighting for many languages, multi-file search and replace facilities with regular expressions, macros and many other convenience features.

  • TextPad (evaluation version available)
UltraEdit

IDM Computer Solutions, Inc.

A text editor with a similar feature set to TextPad, including syntax highlighting, external command configuration, macros and templates. It also features disc-based editing and fast search and replace operations with regular expressions and minimal RAM requirements.

Dreamweaver 4.0

Package illustration for Dreamweaver 4.0 Macromedia

The visual editor of choice for the majority of the world's Web developers is sufficiently versatile to be a very powerful tool for building modular, component based sites in responsible hands. However, this application will create a nested table layout at the drop of a hat and insert cargo cult markup "tricks" without hesitation, so it pays to have clear design parameters and check the source code.

Dreamweaver integrates closely with sister products, Macromedia Fireworks and Flash and is supported by many third party plug-ins for accessibility checking and short-hand coding.

Homesite 5.0

Package illustration for Homesite 5.0 Macromedia (formerly Allaire)

Similar in many ways to Dreamweaver, with re-usable code libraries, Homesite is the preferred tool for those who like to work directly with the source code and has a built-in markup validation tool. Homesite has colour coded syntax highlighting for all common markup languages, CSS and server side scripting including JSP and ASP, and will spider hyperlinks.

Article-specific anchors

The following links are also referenced from specific articles on the Code Style site.

object markup

Anchor Points categories

See Anchor Points: Code Style for a digest of links from the site log.

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