newbie seeking advice

[jovy]

hi, i build my site with frontpage.. and i notice there is a bunch of bot-boggling js codes on the top of my codes...
i have decided to handcode my site, but i am uncertain what programming language is best to use...
xml? html?
html is SE friendly...
is xml the same?

[esmartdo]

HTML is most commonly used and recognized.

[drummin]

Hi Jovy.

This may be off topic a bit but I noticed you were also looking for optimized templates in another post and I’ve also looked at your site. I think that learning to hand code, avoid tables for layout, move as much of your style elements off your page and put your main body of text under your BODY tag (not 100 lines down in your code) will get you the best results. Hey, just my two-cents.
Drummin

[jovy]

thank you drummin,
well there's another expert to the rescue ^_^
i went to the book store yesterday, bought lots of books on html. html tips and tricks, html bible etc.
realli appreciate your advice drummin, i was searching for confirmation. thanks for stepping out to help :)

[jovy]

HTML is most commonly used and recognized.

xml is sort of a version of html.
is xml SE friendly?
and why are javascripts seldom used in our codes?

[drummin]

Hey Jovy,

You probably should post this question to the search engine forum. Although xml my be the furture standard of coding, html is not going away anytime soon.
Drummin

[paulhiles]

Jovy, do you mean XHTML rather than XML? At the moment, we're some way off authoring pages using XML.

If you do a spot of research, you may find many business systems using XML as a basis for their corporate information storage and it's excellent for data structuring, but it's a long way from being adopted as a web authoring language... I'm not even sure it will ever be, because those aren't necessarily XML's strengths.

XHTML however, is the latest standard for authoring web pages, and this is what you should be using to write your pages. A well-formed XHTML page should view consistently in any modern browser, providing you've followed the correct syntax (dictated by its doctype).

Paul

[jovy]

hi paul,
i m not certain.
i actually do mean xml
i heard xml is iso + ansi
and iso + ansi is the deciding factor for SE and also international standard.
i hope to see xml as the future as a web authoring language,

XML was designed to describe data and to focus on what data is.

HTML was designed to display data and to focus on how data looks.


html is commonly used and recognize but i feel right now html is suitable for me..

another question paul,
if u have seen my site,
http://www.free-ebooks-publishing-software.com/
experts says that my site is very neat,but the codes are messy, i used frontpage to build my site.
+should i handcode it all over again?
+concentrate on the content only because it dosent generate any error now?
+or modify my code? if u do hv the suggestions.
thanks

[paulhiles]

Hi Jovy,

I took a quick look at your site and made a few observations.
Your page size could be reduced considerably if you used standard (x)HTML and CSS. By the way, HTML is considered a markup language, it was never intended to format the page appearance (that's the job of CSS!). So my advice would be to lose all those <font> tags and leftover code from Microsoft Office "cut and paste" operations. Use CSS to keep your formatting and presentation separate from your content.

Try to plan out your styles. Establish what your base font should be, and then think about how your section headers might appear; how about creating feature areas, etc? You need to use your design and layout to convince a visitor that your products are professional and reliable, and the quality of the site appearance can go a long way to help that impression.

There are some instances in the site copy where paragraphs seem to have been duplicated, and there are a few spelling errors "compilier" for one.

Any specific questions, feel free to ask, I'm sure you'll get some helpful and informative replies! :o)

Paul

[Faglork]

XHTML 1.1 is the way to go ... it is the current standard since January 2000:
http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/WD-xhtml11-20000105/

If you *have* to include some older constructs, you will need to employ a XHTML transitional DTD (Doctype Definition), else I suggest using XHTML strict - it just forces you to write clean code, which will benefit you greatly in the long run.

Make sure you validate your pages:
http://validator.w3.org/

hth,
Alex

[jovy]

hi paul,
i have been away for a week, offline..
to celebrate chinese new year and its monday today.
time for work.

"compilier" hmm its just some typing mistake :)

the duplicated paragraphs..,
actually this website, its just a skeleton site.
i write some garbage content inside..
simply junk some words in to keep it working.
thats how i get pr3.
m working on the content now, and also the links.
but m worried of the messy codes but then i hv decided to handcode it again.


my question is, how do i tidy up all the messy codes?
what do u mean by lose all the <font> tags?
how can i do it?