COMMENTARY on Tutorials (English this time)

Hi, I am thinking of commenting on the following tutorials (in English this 
time):

Dave Raggett, "More Advanced Features" (of HTML),
http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide/Advanced.html

and

Dave Raggett, "Adding a Touch of Style" (to HTML pages),
http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide/Style.html

Please let me know if such commentary would be in order
(if Dr. Raggett is about to update either page, then I can skip this 
commentary and wait and see if this commentary is in order)?

Thanks.

--C. E. Whitehead
cewcathar@hotmail.com

The main notes I have are:

1.  GENERAL:
XML served as a form of HTML, with XHTML, is now starting to be preferred 
over HTML on the World Wide Web (XML is important in the semantic web; it's 
possible to create one's own semantic categories using XML; XML uses tree 
structures; trees--with roots, branches, and branches from the branches 
(though I myself tend to think of the XML structures as parenthetical 
comments inside of other parenthetical comments) are one kind of data 
structure; tables--or arrays of arrays--are another).
The XHTML has some similarities to HTML, but has its own peculiarities.  
Persons interested in learning HTML might also be interested in learning 
about XML and XHTML!  See the W3C Recommendation, XHTML 1.0, for information 
about XHTML.

2.  TABLES ("More Advanced Features"); FONT ("Adding a Touch of Style")

The focus of the information/examples about Tables in "More Advanced 
Features"/font size in "Adding a Touch of Style," seems to be in general 
aimed at telling HTML writers how to create Tables that are more accessible 
to all, with the font size relative to the user settings, and the cell size 
flexible to accommodate when words are not wrapped.

2.a.  Tables of Pre-defined size (versus tables where the width is defined 
as a percentage of window width; or tables where the width is undefined) 
("More Advanced Features"):
Some writers however still use Tables to format pages; though style codes 
that define divisions within the page today can similarly format a page into 
rows and columns.
If one opts to set the size of one's table in pixels, then perhaps one 
should also specify the exact size of the font rather than a relative font 
size, or the table size and column widths might be resized anyway (the 
Mozilla browser, which never wraps longer text strings in a table cell, does 
this; while the Internet Explorer browser can also wrap longer text strings, 
for example, when the text string indicates a link).
It's wise thus to opt for a relatively large font I guess to begin with in 
pre-sized tables, to accommodate all users.
It's of course possible to control word-wrapping completely in table cells 
by inserting an additional division (a paragraph or other division) within 
the cells, but word-wrapping is not one of the possible attributes of table 
cells so it does not work with style definitions of table cells; you have to 
add the division  (for HTML versions 4.0, 4.01).

3.  The Banner Add java script code in the section on Adding Java Script to 
HTML Pages ("More Advanced Features")

Onload is an action which can be called on only once in a page; the "onload" 
code is normally placed in the Body tag and when placed in the Body tag will 
generally happen about the same time the page loads  (I do not know that 
much java script though; oh well; want to comment on it anyway).

4.  ("Adding a Touch of Style")
It's generally argued that the style codes (normally placed in the headers; 
ideally place these in the headers, just above the body tag, if there are no 
java script functions; otherwise place these in the headers just before any 
java script functions are defined as java script functions sometimes make 
use of the style definitions; of course, some web hosts incorporate one's 
page into the body of a host-created page and then the only place to place 
the style and java script function definitions is under the body tag alas) 
are the best way to specify paragraph and division formats.
To change the style of a page using style definitions at the page top, one 
just has to redo the style codes at the top and then check the new display 
in a few browsers to make sure the page looks right.
MS Word of course places the style information in the page division tags 
themselves, in the body, so it's not so easy to edit Word created pages 
using HTML; additionally, style definitions at the top of the page are 
overwritten when edited by MS Word.
(For someone who did not want to get Front Page or learn much HTML, I redid 
her pages with the style codes in the page division tags so that the page 
would not be automatically changed by Word.)


I've got a few other notes as well, but nothing else major.

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Received on Wednesday, 22 November 2006 00:28:42 UTC