A List Apart: A List Apart

E-books aren’t going to replace books. E-books are books, merely with a different form. More and more often, that form is ePub, a format powered by standard XHTML. As such, ePub can benefit from our nearly ten years’ experience building standards-compliant websites. That's great news for publishers and standards-aware web designers. Great news for readers, too. Our favorite genius, Joe Clark, explains the simple why and how.

Using SVG for Flexible, Scalable, and Fun Backgrounds, Part II

by Shelley Powers

Issue 299January 26, 2010

In Part II, dig deeper into the technology behind using SVG for your site design. Explore how to incorporate SVG in a cross-browser friendly manner, including using SVGWeb to ensure that the SVG shows in Internet Explorer. And discover the unique characteristic that makes SVG ideal for page backgrounds: scalability.

Using SVG For Flexible, Scalable, and Fun Backgrounds, Part I

by Shelley Powers

Issue 299January 26, 2010

Many of us think of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) as an also-ran: fine for charts and tables, but not much else. Yet SVG can actually enhance a site’s overall design, and can be made to work in even the most stubborn browser. In Part I of a two-part series, Shelley Powers covers important basics of working with SVG, including browser support and accessibility.

Get Ready for HTML 5

by J. David Eisenberg

Issue 291September 1, 2009

Ready or not, here it comes. Despite the confusion surrounding its evolution, real-world HTML 5 is right around the corner. Longtime ALA contributor J. David Eisenberg returns to get us all up to speed on the markup we’re about to be writing.

Unwebbable

by Joe Clark

Issue 288July 21, 2009

It’s time we came to grips with the fact that not every “document” can be a semantic “web page.” Some forms of writing just cannot be expressed in HTML—or they need to be bent and distorted to do so. But for once, XML can help. Joe Clark explains.

Introduction to RDFa II

by Mark Birbeck

Issue 287July 7, 2009

In part I of this series, we looked at how semantic features normally confined to the head of an HTML document can be used to add semantic richness to the elements of the body. Along the way, we defined six rules of RDFa. In part II, we’ll learn how to add properties to an image, and how to add metadata to any item—and we’ll add a few more rules to that list.

Introduction to RDFa

by Mark Birbeck

Issue 286June 23, 2009

In part one of a two-part primer on RDFa, learn how semantic features normally confined to the head of an HTML document can be used to add semantic richness to the elements of the body. Mark Birbeck shows us how.

Creating Intrinsic Ratios for Video

by Thierry Koblentz

Issue 284May 26, 2009

Have you ever wanted to resize a video on the fly, scaling it as you would an image? Using intrinsic ratios for video and some padding property magic, you can. Thierry Koblentz shows us how.

Semantics in HTML 5

by John Allsopp

Issue 275January 6, 2009

The BBC's dropping of hCalendar because of accessibility and usability concerns demonstrates that we have pushed the semantic capability of HTML far beyond what it can handle. The need to clearly and unambiguously add rich, meaningful semantics to markup is a driving goal of the HTML 5 project. Yet HTML 5 has two problems: it is not backward compatible because its semantic elements will not work in 75% of our browsers; and it is not forward compatible because its semantics are not extensible. If "making up new elements" isn't the solution, what is?

Return of the Mobile Stylesheet

by Dominique Hazaël-Massieux

Issue 275January 6, 2009

At least 10% of your visitors access your site over a mobile device. They deserve a good experience (and if you provide one, they'll keep coming back). Converting your multi-column layout to a single, linear flow is a good start. But mobile devices are not created equal, and their disparate handling of CSS is like 1998 all over again. Please your users and tame their devices with handheld style sheets, CSS media queries, and (where necessary) JavaScript or server-side techniques.

Fluid Grids

by Ethan Marcotte

Issue 279March 3, 2009

How awesome would it be if you could combine the aesthetic rigor and clarity of fixed-width, grid-based layouts with the device- and screen size independence and user-focused flexibility of fluid layouts? Completely awesome, that's how awesome. And with a little cunning and a tad of easy math, ALA's Ethan Marcotte gets it done. We smell a trend in the offing.

A More Useful 404

by Dean Frickey

Issue 272November 18, 2008

When broken links frustrate your site's visitors, a typical 404 page explains what went wrong and provides links that may relate to the visitor's quest. That's good, but now you can do better. With Dean Frickey's custom 404, when something's amiss, pertinent information is sent not only to the visitor, but to the developer—so that, in many cases, the problem can be fixed! A better 404 means never having to say you're sorry.

Progressive Enhancement with JavaScript

by Aaron Gustafson

Issue 271November 4, 2008

Our introductory series on progressive enhancement and the ways it can be implemented concludes with a look at the mindset needed to implement PE in JavaScript, and a survey of best practices for doing so.

Progressive Enhancement with CSS

by Aaron Gustafson

Issue 270October 21, 2008

Organize multiple style sheets to simplify the creation of environmentally appropriate visual experiences. Support older browsers while keeping your CSS hack-free. Use generated content to provide visual enhancements, and seize the power of advanced selectors to create wondrous (or amusing) effects. Part two of a series.

Understanding Progressive Enhancement

by Aaron Gustafson

Issue 269October 7, 2008

Steven Champeon turned web development upside down, and created an instant best practice of standards-based design, when he introduced the notion of designing for content and experience instead of browsers. In part one of a series, ALA’s Gustafson refreshes us on the principles of progressive enhancement. Upcoming installments will translate the philosophy into sophisticated, future-focused design and code.

CSS Sprites2 - It’s JavaScript Time

by Dave Shea

Issue 266August 26, 2008

In 2004, Dave Shea took the CSS rollover where it had never gone before. Now he takes it further still—with a little help from jQuery. Say hello to hover animations that respond to a user's behavior in ways standards-based sites never could before.

Faux Absolute Positioning

by Eric Sol

Issue 261June 17, 2008

CSS layout is awesome, except when your layout calls for a header, a footer, and columns in between. Use float, and content changes can cause columns to wrap. Use absolute positioning, and your footer can crash into your columns. Add the complexity of drag-and-drop layouts, and a new technique is needed. Enter "faux absolute positioning." Align every item to a predefined position on the grid (as with absolute positioning), but objects will still affect the normal flow (as with float).

They Shoot Browsers, Don’t They?

by Jeremy Keith

Issue 253February 19, 2008

Version targeting will allow Microsoft to reach new heights of standards compliance where CSS and (especially) scripting are concerned. But to benefit from it, developers must explicitly opt in. That’s just not right, says Jeremy Keith. And it’s doomed to fail, because standardistas, by their very nature, will refuse to opt in.

Version Targeting: Threat or Menace?

by Jeffrey Zeldman

Issue 253February 19, 2008

Version targeting shakes our browser-agnostic faith. Its default behavior runs counter to our expectations, and seems wrong. Yet to offer true DOM support without bringing JScript-authored sites to their knees, version targeting must work the way Microsoft proposes, argues Jeffrey Zeldman.

Keeping Your Elements’ Kids in Line with Offspring

by Alex Bischoff

Issue 252February 5, 2008

Alex Bischoff introduces Offspring, a JavaScript library bringing the power of advanced CSS selectors to browsers that can’t quite handle the real thing.

From Switches to Targets: A Standardista’s Journey

by Eric Meyer

Issue 251January 21, 2008

Grab your galoshes and walking stick and follow along with A List Apart's Eric Meyer as he considers the vices and virtues of version targeting as a standards toggle.

Beyond DOCTYPE: Web Standards, Forward Compatibility, and IE8

by Aaron Gustafson

Issue 251January 21, 2008

For seven years, the @DOCTYPE@ switch has stood designers and developers in good stead as a toggle between standards mode and quirks mode. But when IE7, with its greatly improved support for standards, "broke the web," it revealed the flaw in our toggle. The quest was on to find a more reliable ensurer of forward compatibility. Is version targeting the answer?

A Preview of HTML 5

by Lachlan Hunt

Issue 250December 4, 2007

Who's afraid of HTML 5? Not Lachlan Hunt! As both a front-end web developer and a contributor to HTML 5, he tells us what we can expect from the emerging markup specification, whose goals include more flexibility and greater interoperability.

How to Size Text in CSS

by Richard Rutter

Issue 249November 20, 2007

It's a tug-of-war as old as web design. Designers need to control text size and the vertical grid; readers need to be able to resize text. A better best practice for sizing type and controlling line-height is needed; and in this article, Richard Rutter obligingly supplies one.

Put Your Content in My Pocket

by Craig Hockenberry

Issue 244August 28, 2007

In this first of two articles on bringing your content to the iPhone, the Iconfactory's Craig Hockenberry offers detailed guidance on tuning your site for the hot new phone, and making changes that can enhance even non-iPhone-users’ experience. Hotcha!

Conflicting Absolute Positions

by Rob Swan

Issue 241July 13, 2007

All right, class. Using CSS, produce a liquid layout that contains a fixed-width, scrolling side panel and a flexible, scrolling main panel. Okay, now do it without JavaScript. By chucking an assumption about how CSS works in browsers, Rob Swan provides the way and means.

Frameworks for Designers

by Jeff Croft

Issue 239June 12, 2007

Frameworks like Rails, Django, jQuery, and the Yahoo User Interface library have improved web developers' lives by handling routine tasks. The same idea can work for designers. Learn how to harness the power of tools, libraries, conventions, and best practices to focus creative thought and energy on what is unique about each project.

Setting Type on the Web to a Baseline Grid

by Wilson Miner

Issue 235April 9, 2007

As web designers, we sometimes may feel we're on a relentless journey to bridge the gap between digital and traditional processes. Wilson Miner brings us one step closer by offering up a way to work with typographic baselines on the web.

Where Our Standards Went Wrong

by Ethan Marcotte

Issue 233February 26, 2007

To validate or not to validate; that is the question. A List Apart's own Ethan Marcotte helps us to re-examine our approach to standards advocacy and how we can better educate our clients on the benefits of web standards.

Semantic Flash: Slippery When Wet

by Dan Mall

Issue 233February 26, 2007

Love it or hate it, Flash has become a fixture of modern web design. Author Dan Mall cuts through the misconceptions to show us how Flash can be used to enhance our standards-based web designs. ("Shiny floor" standards-friendly Flash project included.)

Multi-Column Layouts Climb Out of the Box

by Alan Pearce

Issue 232February 6, 2007

“Holy Grail,�? “One True Layout,�? “pain in the @$$�?... Alan Pearce presents a cleaner approach to designing multi-column layouts.

Quick CSS Mockups with Photoshop

by Casper Voogt

Issue 231January 23, 2007

It may seem like we're trying to party like it's 1999, but rest assured, we're not. Casper Voogt shows us a way to use Photoshop, ImageReady, and slices to produce mockups that utilize clean XHTML and CSS.

How to Grok Web Standards

by Craig Cook

Issue 230January 9, 2007

For designers who find web standards as easy to grasp as a buttered eel, Craig Cook shows how to stop the hurting and turn on the understanding. Learn how web standards work, and why they are more than simply an alternative means of producing a visual design.

Switchy McLayout: An Adaptive Layout Technique

by Marc van den Dobbelsteen

Issue 229December 19, 2006

The introduction of new mobile and computing devices challenges us to look beyond the liquid layout. Marc van den Dobbelsteen offers a way to bring appropriate layouts to a wider range of screens and devices.

Super-Easy Blendy Backgrounds

by Matthew O'Neill

Issue 227November 13, 2006

Gradients: a nutritious part of your Web 2.0 breakfast. Wouldn't it be swell if you could get all that goodness without opening Photoshop every time you needed a little gradient bliss? Matthew O'Neill explains how you can.

Long Live the Q Tag

by Stacey Cordoni

Issue 224September 26, 2006

IE/Win's lack of support for the Q tag has stymied fans of semantic markup. Stacey Cordoni offers a CSS-based workaround.

Bye Bye Embed

by Elizabeth Castro

Issue 219July 11, 2006

Break the chains of <embed> and live free. Elizabeth Castro explains how to embed movies without using invalid markup.

Automatic Magazine Layout

by Harvey Kane

Issue 219July 11, 2006

You can't always count on having a professional designer around to resize and position your images for you, but you'd rather your page layout didn't look like it was created by orangutans. Harvey Kane builds a script that makes your life easier.

Prettier Accessible Forms

by Nick Rigby

Issue 218June 20, 2006

Forms are a pain. You can make them pretty, make them accessible, or go a little crazy trying to achieve both. Nick Rigby offers a happy solution.

World Grows Small: Open Standards for the Global Web

by Molly E. Holzschlag

Issue 217May 23, 2006

Molly Holzschlag explains how the practices you already use to create standards-based, accessible websites can serve you in the growing field of internationalization.

Community Creators, Secure Your Code! Part II

by Niklas Bivald

Issue 217May 23, 2006

In part two of his two-part series on protecting your community site from malicious cross-site scripting attacks, Niklas Bivald rolls up his trousers and wades into the JavaScript.

A More Accessible Map

by Seth Duffey

Issue 215April 18, 2006

Nifty web maps powered by Google and Yahoo! APIs are all the rage. And rage is what a visually impaired user may feel when trying to use them. Is there a way to make beautiful web maps accessible? In a word, yes.

In Search of the Holy Grail

by Matthew Levine

Issue 211January 30, 2006

Just in case you might want a three-column layout that doesn't require the usual sacrifices, we thought we'd share this technique. Not that you'd want that or anything.

The Accessibility Hat Trick: Getting Abbreviations Right

by Colin Lieberman

Issue 210January 16, 2006

The acronym element is missing in XHTML 2.0. Internet Explorer 6 ignores the abbr element. JAWS doesn't like dfn. AAA-level compliance requires you to find a solution. Make it work.

Sensible Forms: A Form Usability Checklist

by Brian Crescimanno

Issue 209December 19, 2005

Sometimes it's the little things that drive you nuts. As many of us have probably noticed during this season of holiday shopping, usability problems in online forms can be infuriating. Brian Crescimanno helps solve the problem with a checklist of form-usability recommendations.

Printing a Book with CSS: Boom!

by Håkon Wium Lie, Bert Bos

Issue 208November 28, 2005

You like microformats? We'll give you some freakin' microformats. CSS luminaries Håkon Wium Lie and Bert Bos introduce the boom! microformat and show you how to make book the easy way.

CSS Swag: Multi-Column Lists

by Paul Novitski

Issue 204September 26, 2005

Multi-column lists: can't live with ’em, can't achieve perfect bliss without ’em. Paul Novitski offers a staggering six possible methods for accomplishing this commonly requested layout trick. Examine your options and choose wisely.

High-Resolution Image Printing

by Ross Howard

Issue 202September 5, 2005

Your client looks up and says, "Why does our logo look funny when we print the pages?" Do you sigh dramatically, or learn about Ross Howard's technique for printing high-resolution images via CSS? We vote for option B.

High Accessibility Is Effective Search Engine Optimization

by Andy Hagans

Issue 207November 8, 2005

It's no coincidence that search engines love highly accessible websites; in fact, by designing for accessibility, you're already using effective search-engine optimization techniques. Andy Hagans explains yet another reason to pay attention to accessibility.

More About Custom DTDs

by The W3C QA Group

Issue 199May 17, 2005

Your web page uses non-standard elements, so, following the advice of earlier ALA articles, you bang out a custom DTD to make sure your document still validates. Not so fast, says the W3C’s Quality Assurance team, who argue that crafting a custom DTD for the sole purpose of validation is a mistake … and then tell when it is the right thing to do.

Spruced-Up Site Maps

by Kim Siever

Issue 197March 30, 2005

The clean-n-simple site map gets a nice haircut and and a shoe-shine as Kim Siever shows us how to hook custom bullet styles to troublesome nested lists.

Validating a Custom DTD

by J. David Eisenberg

Issue 194February 1, 2005

In his article in this issue, Peter-Paul Koch proposes adding custom attributes to form elements to allow triggers for specialized behaviors. The W3C validator won’t validate a document with these attributes, as they aren’t part of the XHTML specification. Not to worry! This article will show you how to create a custom DTD that will add those custom attributes, and will also show you how to validate documents that use those new attributes.

The Way It’s Supposed to Work

by Erin Kissane

Issue 192January 18, 2005

Groundbreaking accessibility information. Project management and information architecture theory from old-school experts. Plug-and-play solutions to universal design and development problems. Experimental CSS/DOM hacks that use non-semantic elements to do funky design tricks. One of these things is not like the others...which is why we’re introducing a tiny new feature to the magazine.

Invasion of the Body Switchers

by Andy Clarke, James Edwards

Issue 189November 19, 2004

Wouldn’t it be great if we could update the classic ALA style switcher to accommodate multiple users and devices, including some that aren’t even traditional browsers, all from a single JavaScript and CSS file? Well, now we can! Enter the Body Switcher.

Drop-Down Menus, Horizontal Style

by Nick Rigby

Issue 184June 29, 2004

Multi-tiered drop-down menus can be a hassle to build and maintain — especially when they rely on big, honking chunks of JavaScript. Nick Rigby presents a way to handle this common navigation element with a cleanly structured XHTML list, straightforward CSS, and only a few concessions to browser quirks.

Dynamically Conjuring Drop-Down Navigation

by Christian Heilmann

Issue 183June 15, 2004

Got content? Got pages and pages of content? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could offer your readers a drop-down menu providing instant access to any page, without having to sit down and program the darned thing? By marrying a seemingly forgotten XHTML element to simple, drop-in JavaScript, Christian Heilmann shows how to do just that. There’s even a PHP backup for those whose browsers lack access to JavaScript. Turn on, tune in, drop-down.

Dynamic Text Replacement

by Stewart Rosenberger

Issue 183June 15, 2004

Let your server do the walking! Whether you’re replacing one headline or a thousand, Stewart Rosenberger’s Dynamic Text Replacement automatically swaps XHTML text with an image of that text, consistently displayed in any font you own. The markup is clean, semantic, and accessible. No CSS hacks are required, and you needn’t open Photoshop or any other image editor. Read about it today; use it on personal and commercial web projects tomorrow.

Separation: The Web Designer’s Dilemma

by Michael Cohen

Issue 181May 14, 2004

Presentation separated from structure. Structure separated from content. The foot bone connected to the ... what were we talking about? Michael Cohen steps in to examine our assumptions and relieve our separation anxiety.

Power To The People: Relative Font Sizes

by Bojan Mihelac

Issue 176April 9, 2004

Relative font sizes may make websites more accessible — but they’re not much help unless the person using the site can find a way to actually change text size. Return control to your audience using this simple, drop-in solution.

The Table Ruler

by Christian Heilmann

Issue 175March 26, 2004

Make your site easier to use by giving your visitors a virtual “ruler” to guide and track their progress down long data tables. With a pinch of JavaScript and a dash of the DOM, your table rows will light up as your visitors hover over them.

Accessible Pop-up Links

by Caio Chassot

Issue 174March 19, 2004

Sometimes we have to use pop-ups — so we might as well do them right. This article will show you how to make them more accessible and reliable while simplifying their implementation.

Zebra Tables

by David F. Miller

Issue 173March 5, 2004

While misused tables are becoming increasingly rare, the table retains a legitimate role in data formatting. A little CSS and JavaScript magic can make tables better at what they do best: displaying tabular data.

CSS Sprites: Image Slicing’s Kiss of Death

by Dave Shea

Issue 173March 5, 2004

Say goodbye to old-school slicing and dicing when creating image maps, buttons, and navigation menus. Instead, say hello to a deceptively simple yet powerful sprite-based CSS solution.

CSS Sprites

CSS Design: Creating Custom Corners & Borders Part II

by Søren Madsen

Issue 172February 27, 2004

Part I showed how to create fluid, dynamic CSS layouts with customized borders and corners. Part II advances to the next level, extending the technique to work with more complicated backgrounds such as gradients and patterns.

JavaScript Image Gallery

by Jeremy Keith

Issue 170February 6, 2004

Making an online gallery of pictures should be a quick process. The gap between snapping some pictures and publishing them on the web ought to be a short one. Here’s a quick and easy way of making a one-page gallery that uses JavaScript to load images and their captions on the fly.

Exploring Footers

by Bobby van der Sluis

Issue 170February 6, 2004

With old-school table layout methods, vertical positioning is a piece of cake. With CSS layout, it’s a piece of something else. New ALA contributing writer Bobby van der Sluis shows how to regain control of footers and other vertically positioned layout elements via CSS, JavaScript, and the DOM.

CSS Design: Custom Underlines

by Stuart Robertson

Issue 169February 2, 2004

While web designers generally have a great deal of control over how a document should be presented, basic CSS doesn’t provide many options for the style of underlines below the links on a page. But with a few nips and tucks, you can take back creative control of the way your links look. Frequent ALA contributor Stuart Robertson shows how.

Night of the Image Map

by Stuart Robertson

Issue 166December 12, 2003

CSS design from beyond the grave: all the secret ingredients you’ll need to resurrect the image map using CSS and structurally sensible XHTML.

Retooling Slashdot with Web Standards Part II

by Daniel M. Frommelt

Issue 165December 4, 2003

In Part I, we showed how Slashdot could save money and reduce bandwidth requirements by converting to semantic XHTML markup and CSS layout. In Part II, we explore how standards-compliant markup and deft use of CSS could make Slashdot and your sites play nicely in print and on handheld devices.

JavaScript Image Replacement

by Christian Heilmann

Issue 164November 21, 2003

Perhaps it’s time to consider the ups and downs of a JavaScript-based alternative to the Fahrner Image Replacement technique. This version uses plain vanilla XHTML with no special IDs or CSS tricks.

Retooling Slashdot with Web Standards

by Daniel M. Frommelt

Issue 164November 21, 2003

A look at the markup behind Slashdot.org demonstrates how simple and cost-effective the switch to a standards-compliant Slashdot could be. (Part I of a two-part series.)

Suckerfish Dropdowns

by Patrick Griffiths, Dan Webb

Issue 162November 7, 2003

Teach your smart little menus to do the DHTML dropdown dance without sacrificing semantics, accessibility, or standards compliance or writing clunky code.

Keeping Navigation Current With PHP

by Jason Pearce

Issue 162November 7, 2003

Turning unordered lists into elegant navigational menus has become a new favorite pastime for many web designers. A dash of PHP can add intelligence to your CSS-styled menu.

Sliding Doors of CSS, Part II

by Douglas Bowman

Issue 161October 30, 2003

In Sliding Doors of CSS Part I, Douglas Bowman introduced a new technique for creating visually stunning interface elements with simple, text-based, semantic markup. In Part II, he pushes the technique even further with rollovers, a fix for IE/Win’s CSS bugs, and lots more.

Random Image Rotation

by Dan Benjamin

Issue 160October 20, 2003

Readers return to sites that appear fresh and new on each visit. On a news site, magazine, or blog, stories or headlines will be updated frequently. But how can static sites keep that fresh feeling? Dan Benjamin’s free image randomizer may do the trick, and you needn’t be a programmer to install it.

Sliding Doors of CSS

by Douglas Bowman

Issue 160October 20, 2003

Image-driven, visually compelling user interfaces. Text-based, semantic markup. Now you can have both! Douglas Bowman’s sliding doors method of CSS design offers sophisticated graphics that squash and stretch while delivering meaningful XHTML text. Have your cake and eat it, too!

Using XHTML/CSS for an Effective SEO Campaign

by Brandon Olejniczak

Issue 159September 1, 2003

Improve your search engine ranking by harnessing the benefits of well-authored XHTML and using CSS to boost your code-to-content ratio.

Accesskeys: Unlocking Hidden Navigation

by Stuart Robertson

Issue 158June 16, 2003

Your favorite applications have shortcut keys. So can your site, thanks to the XHTML accesskey attribute. Accesskeys make sites more accessible for people who cannot use a mouse. Unfortunately, almost no designer uses accesskeys, because, unless they View Source, most visitors can’t tell that you’ve put these nifty navigational shortcuts to work on your site. In this issue, Stuart Robertson unlocks the secret of providing visible accesskey shortcuts.

A Standards-Compliant Publishing Tool for the Rest of Us?

by Jeffrey Zeldman

Issue 157June 6, 2003

Publishing with web standards is not for experts alone. A new tool hopes to make it easier for anyone. ALA interviews Six Apart’s Anil Dash about his company’s easy-to-use, standards-compliant publishing tool, TypePad.

Cross-Browser Variable Opacity with PNG: A Real Solution

by Michael Lovitt

Issue 156December 21, 2002

Think you’re stuck with wimpy GIFs and their rigid binary transparency? Well, think again, Sunshine. Michael Lovitt shows how to overcome flaky browser support for PNG so you can take advantage of this graphic format’s lossless compression, alpha transparency, and variable opacity.

Flexible Layouts with CSS Positioning

by Dug Falby

Issue 155November 15, 2002

Want to spend less time on CSS hacking and more time on design? Need your site to look as good on a 160x160 PDA screen as it does on a 1024x768 PC monitor? In Flexible Layouts with CSS Positioning, designer Dug Falby shares two techniques for practical grid-building.

Flash Satay: Embedding Flash While Supporting Standards

by Drew McLellan

Issue 154November 9, 2002

By default, Macromedia Flash generates HTML that is invalid (but it works). Can you have your Flash and web standards, too? Drew McLellan has found a way to embed Flash content using only valid tags and attributes.

Inline XML

by Lachlan Cannon

Issue 153November 1, 2002

What’s in a namespace? For one thing, the power to use multiple XML languages in a single document. Lachlan Cannon explains how inline XML can extend the capability of your sites.

CSS Design: Taming Lists

by Mark Newhouse

Issue 151September 27, 2002

Do you crave the disciplined order of proper (X)HTML lists but long for control over their presentation? You can put a stop to their wild ways and bad behavior. Mark Newhouse shows you how to tame those lists by making them submit to your CSS while maintaining logical HTML structure.

Manage Your Content With PHP

by Christopher Robbins

Issue 148August 9, 2002

XHTML for structured markup. CSS for presentation. What more could you ask? How about an easy way to manage your site, using free, open-source tools? Christopher Robbins shows how to use PHP to build an intro-level, template-driven system that handles site maintenance chores and remembers your visitors’ preferences.

Using XML

by J. David Eisenberg

Issue 147July 19, 2002

More than a rulebook for generating your own markup, XML is part of a family of technologies that work together in powerful ways. Eisenberg demonstrates some of that power by creating an XML-based markup language from scratch and transforming it for a variety of formats, using nothing but his noggin and some off-the-shelf tools.

Win the SPAM Arms Race

by Dan Benjamin

Issue 145May 24, 2002

SPAM is evil, moronic, and pervasive, but help is on the way. All it takes is a bit of JavaScript, a smidgen of PHP, and the ten minutes it takes to read this short, sweet tutorial. Reduce dreck mail with Dan Benjamin’s easy-to-implement address encoder.

Fix Your Site With the Right DOCTYPE!

by Jeffrey Zeldman

Issue 142April 12, 2002

You’ve done everything right, but your site is breaking in the latest browsers. A faulty DOCTYPE is likely to blame. This essential ALA article will provide you with DOCTYPEs that work, enabling you to fix your site with just one tag.

Modifying Dreamweaver to Produce Valid XHTML

by Carrie Bickner

Issue 141March 22, 2002

You don’t have to wait for Dreamweaver 5 (or 6) to squeeze valid XHTML out of the web’s most popular visual editor. Carrie Bickner’s illustrated tutorial will show you how to modify Dreamweaver to make it a standards–friendly authoring tool.

CSS Design: Mo’ Betta Rollovers

by Tim Murtaugh

Issue 140March 8, 2002

Design smarter, faster, better rollovers with CSS.

Slash Forward (Some URLs are Better Than Others)

by waferbaby

Issue 138February 22, 2002

Some URLs are better than others: easier for visitors to remember, easier for designers and developers when it comes time to change the technology that drives the site. Waferbaby neatly and briefly considers the effect of web addresses on usability, design, and ease of maintenance and technological transition.

Better Living Through XHTML

by Jeffrey Zeldman

Issue 137February 15, 2002

Everything you wanted to know about converting from HTML to XHTML, including why you’d want to, tools that help, changes in the way browsers display XHTML pages, shortcuts, bugs, workarounds, and other tips you won’t find elsewhere.

What the Hell is XML?

by Troy Janisch

Issue 132January 4, 2002

Attention, content managers, developers, site owners and designers: XML is here, and the time to start using it is now.

Why Don’t You Code for Netscape?

by Jeffrey Zeldman

Issue 129December 7, 2001

Long considered the Holy Grail of web design, “backward compatibility” has its place; but at this point in web development history, shouldn’t we be more concerned about forward compatibility? ALA makes the case for authoring to web standards instead of browser quirks.

MSN, Opera, and Web Standards

by Håkon Wium Lie

Issue 127November 9, 2001

Håkon Lie, the father of Style Sheets and CTO of Opera, debunks Microsoft’s claim that web standards have anything to do with the blocking of Opera and Mozilla users from MSN.com. Lie’s eye–opening commentary includes a chart analyzing all 63 top–level pages at MSN.com in terms of standards compliance.

Alternative Style: Working With Alternate Style Sheets

by Paul Sowden

Issue 126November 2, 2001

Build a standards-compliant Style switcher: After explaining the basics of alternate style sheets, Sowden shows how to make them work in IE, Mozilla, and other modern browsers with just a few lines of JavaScript. Use style switchers to make your site more accessible, to facilitate user customization, or to develop creative effects.

The Trouble With EM ’n EN (and Other Shady Characters)

by Peter K Sheerin

Issue 124October 19, 2001

More than you ever wanted to know about dashes, spaces, curly quotes, and other vagaries of online typography. HTML specs, grammatical rules, browser bugs and character encoding—it’s all here, in this famous and much-bookmarked ALA article.

How to Read W3C Specs

by J. David Eisenberg

Issue 121September 28, 2001

Although they appear maddeningly incomprehensible at first, W3C specifications are actually great sources of information, once you understand their secrets. Learn how to read the specs.

Build a “Send to Friend” Page

by Daniel Short

Issue 120August 31, 2001

In this quick ’n easy tutorial, Short shows how to increase your site’s popularity by building a simple “send to friend” service in HTML and ASP.

Practical CSS Layout Tips, Tricks, & Techniques

by Mark Newhouse

Issue 119August 17, 2001

Think you need HTML tables to craft complex liquid layouts? Not so! In this tip-packed tutorial, Mark Newhouse shares advanced yet practical CSS techniques any working web designer can use.

Topics: Code: HTML and XHTML

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