Comments on: This Validates!

By: The Homeless Guy

The Homeless Guy — Sun, 29 Feb 2004 13:16:37 +0000

Got no errors from W3C’s?! Congratulations... and respects... I have never got for the first time checking (with no corrections). especially on large or complicated sites... like mine or others

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 29 Feb 2004 13:16:27 +0000

Got no errors from W3C’s?! Congratulations... and respects... I have never got for the first time checking (with no corrections). especially on large or complicated sites... like mine or others

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 28 Aug 2003 16:53:00 +0000

Simon – Right on. This is a great little writeup. Thanks.

By: Simon

Simon — Thu, 28 Aug 2003 10:53:25 +0000

This is good stuff:
http://www.realworldstyle.com/environmental_style.html

By: sam

sam — Thu, 28 Aug 2003 05:07:00 +0000

indeed. contextual selectors are incredbily useful & powerful, imho.

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 28 Aug 2003 03:17:32 +0000

Well said, Mike. Exactly what I was getting at. It’s a really simple way to reduce your markup. Use the power of contextual selectors.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 28 Aug 2003 02:55:15 +0000

Dan, I really agree with you about young guns throwing the class attribute all over the place. I’ve been trying to code my pages’ CSS around where elements are placed inside the overall scheme of the page as opposed to defining only random instances. And by checking out the source of the pages you’ve designed (this included) it seems as though you do the same.
If a confused look is creeping across anyone’s face at this point, please bear with me, I’ll explain everything.
Say you have your page structurally broken up into sections like #topLogoAndBreadCrumbs, #rightNavAndLinks, and #mainContentBlogEntries (painfully obvious names I know). If you only have a few different styles in each section, there is no need to pepper class attribs throughout your code, just define your styles by where they are in the flow of the document.
#top h1 { /* main logo style */ color: #777; font-style: bold; } #top h2 { /* breadcrumbs */ color: #222; margin: 0 0 15px 0; ... }
The goal is to define the main structural elements once at the beginning of your CSS (the hn‘s, the p’s, the a’s), and then redefine portions of those style definitions when needed, depending on where those elements reside in your code. You wanna have your h3 with some added margins only in the nav section? Define it as such.
Structurally pure CSS? I think so ;)

By: Dan R.

Dan R. — Thu, 28 Aug 2003 00:23:54 +0000

I’m still forming a complete opinion on this issue (which is why there’s no post on my site about it yet) but I think I agree with most of the points made so far by Dave, Dan, and Jason.
Responsible designers realize quickly the benefit of using proper semantic structure whenever possible — true, there are plenty of folks creating sites that are valid XHTML/CSS but not semantically structured, but I believe a certain percentage of those designers are still just getting their feet wet where XHTML/CSS/semantics are concerned, and for a designer it is easier to learn how to work with CSS for presentation, and then learn how to structure their XHTML, than the other way around.
Semantic structure is not a visual concept in the way CSS positioning is. Semantic markup is (mostly) unrelated to a designer’s job, which is why I say that responsible designers will follow a natural path to semantically rich markup once they’ve figured out the visual details of XHTML/CSS.

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 27 Aug 2003 21:53:39 +0000

Here, here! That book is the best thing since sliced bread. It’s my new bible and no web designer should be without it.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Wed, 27 Aug 2003 21:43:14 +0000

Still getting through the book, but you’re right, it’s an amazing resource.