Re: HTML links - beginner's material

On 25 Apr 2013, at 08:13, David R. Herz <WPD@theherzes.com> wrote:

> This is at the bottom of the HTML links page:
>  
> “Exercise questions
>  “What is wrong with the following link: <a href="report.pdf" title="report as PDF, 2.3MB">get our latest report</a>?”
>  
> I took this and made it part of an html document and it validated just fine.  It also opened properly on opera.  Syntactically it is correct.  Stylistically, the link text is not specific, so if we do a link check, it will not be distinguishable out of context.  At the beginner level, I don’t know that I wouldn’t want to be more specific with the question.  For those of us uncomfortable with our grasp of the syntax, this is the type of error we are seeking.

Yeah, thinking about it, this is not a good question for an introductory article. These questions are left over from when I originally published this course back on http://dev.opera.com, almost 5 years ago. The answer is one of accessibility mainly - see http://blog.paciellogroup.com/2010/11/using-the-html-title-attribute/ for a lot of detail on why.

>  
> Also, I have rethought my position on style sheets and having the styles in-line in our examples.   I think from the very outset, everything that belongs on a style sheet should go there.  This, unfortunately, would require the doubling of the number of code blocks in the html section – one for code, one for style – but good habits are best begun early.

Yup, I agree entirely.

>  
> Would you like to set up a time to talk, or arrange a conference call of all interested parties on this?  I think it would be a good idea if we nailed down the architecture of the beginner sections and how they relate to the non-beginner/advanced sections, and perhaps set up an index and trouble shooting guide, which I can populate as I go, and then we can build in the links to the various syntaxes references later.
>  

It sounds like this would be a good idea. When is a good time for you? I am in the UK, and Doug and most of the other organizers are in the US, so between -4 and -7. We generally have a weekly meeting on Fridays at 5pm UK time, in which different points are brought up. We could put it on the agenda for that meeting, or just have a separate meeting. I am happy to do either. Perhaps the latter would be best, and then one of us could report our findings back to the group at large?

Received on Monday, 29 April 2013 16:01:32 UTC