Need code that will validate -- DESPERATE

[Weedy Lady]

I am in the process of going through all of my 900 web pages one at a time to check for validation. No, don't check them out now because the ones that are validated are not loaded on line yet.

My problem is -- and I am really DESPERATE -- I cannot find a code for background music that will validate AND that will let me show a little player on screen so people can turn off the background music if they wish.

Please don't write and tell me not to use music. I have to have music. My site is a greeting cards site.

Please DO write and let me know of a code that will work cross browser and will show a little player on screen.

The code I am using presently in the body of my html is:
<embed src="http://www.happydaycards.com/dirname/songname.mid" width="165" height="24" autostart="true" loop="true"></embed>

Although I know there are many sites with top rankings on the SE's that do not validate, I feel it is important for me to do this. I really need help on this embedded music thing. The on line validator I am using is: http://validator.w3.org/

Please help!

[bhartzer]

I cannot find a code for background music that will validate

So, just validate the page and then add your code for the background music. If you feel that you need to obsess of validation, then get as close as you can and then don't worry any more about it.

There's no proof that validated pages rank better than unvalidated pages.

[httpman]

Try Flash !

The fastest way to let your visitors control the sound is to use a small Flash object on your pages. Then your visitors can choose to start/stop the sound, or change the volume, or even change the music among the choices you wish to offer.

For futher samples, I use flash on 'www.virgil.fr' : there the visitor can start/stop the music BUT what is more important, the music remains unchanged as the visitor goes from one page to another - this was required by the site's owner.

Flash is a solution to your issue.

JP

[wsmeyer]

I had this bookmarked on using <object> instead of <embed>. It's not exactly on point as it's for use with Flash but it might give you some ideas...

http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/dre...ash_satay.html

William.

[dean]

Have you tried enclosing the background music code within a containing element, such as a div or a p ? I think that may be what the validator needs.
Here's a related question for the experts out there;
The embed tag is actually deprecated in favor of object, but I think the object tag requires that you specify a player, ( or a windows registry key for the player )? Which way is better, the object or embed tag, or a combination of both ? Is there any good way to embed something like music that doesn't rely on a specific player and gets wide browser support?

[JSeverson]

Hi,
You should be able to write out the code using JavaScript. I use this method when embedding Flash movies in to a page since the html code that Flash or Dreamweaver generates isn't xhtml compliant.

Try:
<script type="text/javascript">
document.write('<embed src="http://www.happydaycards.com/dirname/songname.mid" width="165" height="24" autostart="true" loop="true"></embed>');
</script>

I'm not an expert with JavaScript so you may have to play around with the above.

Hope that helps

[ADAM Web Design]

As someone suggested before, Flash.

XHTML-compliant cross-browser code can be created for Flash with no Javascripts. For those who want to one of my code samples, go to www.sustainabilityincubator.com (under construction). The animated banner on the left under the logo is what you're after.

Flash allows for volume adjustments and on/off sound buttons and things of that nature, which I would highly recommend if you're going to insist on embedding sound in your pages at all (sound on webpages when it's not expected upsets lot of people, including yours truly.)

[Weedy Lady]

I tried a java script code a couple years ago and got a lot of complaints from people because it wouldn't work on their machines. Then I found the current code, which seems to work most of the time. It just won't validate.

I have tried to create flash files several times and couldn't figure out anything past "step" 2. However, I haven't tried just music.

When I complete this project of validation I will reload everything with the current <embed> code, which works on almost everyone's machine.

Then I will try again with the flash. The problem with that is that I am using 269 different songs (currently), which means doing 269 different flash files. Another long project. But I'll give it a whirl anyway. May have to come back here for help when that occurs -- a few weeks down the road.

As to the comment "if you insist on embedding music".........people who send greeting cards EXPECT them to have music. Period. There is no major greeting cards site that doesn't have music with the cards.

I figured there would be suggestions to use flash, and since there actually were several, I will give it a try.

Thanks to all for your input.

[ran_dizolph]

I'm going to agree with the flash idea...'embed' won't validate.
check this article out.

good luck!

[kingman]

Well, first, what standard are you trying to validate to? HTML or XHTML? What version? This will be a determining factor. If it is XHTML you will have a hard time getting any player to validate.

I usually validate the page then add the code for Flash or Java. Sometimes you can play with the encoding type, but then you have to tweak something else in the code. If I get it to validate then I will place a disclaimer near the bottom of the page stating that the page validates without the embedded object or code snippet. If you find an answer that truly works properly and allows you to validate, then make sure you post it here as I am sure many of us would be interested.

And if you really want to kill yourself, try validating it Bobby or Cynthia approved.
Here are the links to both:
http://www.cynthiasays.com/org/cynthiatested.htm
http://webxact.watchfire.com/

You'll have no hair left by the time you are done. LOL :)

[Weedy Lady]

Kingman --
This is what I am using for validation purposes:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">

I was just happy to see that there was a "loose" category that I could fit into. It seems I can't do "strict" anything!

I uploaded all the main pages now, and am starting work on the individual cards pages: about another 800 or so to go yet. It was kind of a surprise to me to find that I had so many missing [/b] tags, etc.....along with a few <a> that needed to be </a>......and other stuff like that.

The 3 pages that did not completely validate for various reasons (one of which is my home page because of the music code) I took off the doctype information. I am learning stuff from this exercise, not the least of which is that the top listed sites for the term "free e cards" on Google do not validate. In fact, I've run a few others through the validator, and it seems that there are not all that many sites out there that actually validate. Very Interesting, indeed!

[Weedy Lady]

Just checked my site out in Firefox, which I never use except for checking purposes, and I find that most of my pages have black lines all across them. The one that does not also does not have the "break out of frames" script, as follows:
<script language="JavaScript" type="text/JavaScript" >
<!--
if (parent.frames.length > 0)
{
parent.location.href = location.href;
}
-->
</script>

Do you suppose it is this script that could be causing Firefox to make the black lines?????

Anyone have any ideas?

I'm in more of a mess than ever now, though, because I can't reload all my other pages before I check them for coding errors, due to the fact that my html editor does miss stuff, which makes pages display even worse than what is happening in Firefox.

[Weedy Lady]

I checked, and it is not the break out of frames script, because it is on this page
http://www.happydaycards.com/kardsforkids.htm
which displays properly, as does my shopping mall page, which doesn't even validate because of all the bad code written by the affiliate companies.

If someone could figure out WHAT is making the black lines on most of my pages but not on the kards for kids page, I sure will make the changes necessary, but I cannot see any difference.

[httpman]

For some obscure reason, the black lines displayed with Mozilla come from your background image "backlogosquare.gif". Just remove this background and they will diseappear.

You may want to redraw this image !...

The image used on the kids page is not the same, it comes from a different directory (.../pics9g/... instead of the root directory). This one seems to be OK, therefore if you don't want to change the HTML code of the wrong pages, just copy the image from pics9g/ to the root, then black lines will disappear.

Jean-Pierre

[Weedy Lady]

Jean-Pierre-

I kind of wondered if it was a corrupted graphic because this has happened a couple times before, but it always acts up in IE also and this time it didn't.

Thank you so much for being able to see what I missed. It's awfully hard to scrutinize your own code when you know what is supposed to be there and can't find the differences!

It works fine now.

Thanks again,
Ginny

[bj]

Removing the doctype declaration is a dicey proposition and probably going to create as many problems as you think it's solving. When you remove the doctype declaration the browsers "guess" at what doctype they should be interpreting, sometimes with disastrous results, and sometimes each with different results. Forget validation with no doctype- you're not giving the validator a standard against which to check. Then there's quirksmode- that's something else browsers do when thrown against a document missing a doctype declaration. Read here for more info:
http://www.quirksmode.org/

[Weedy Lady]

bj:
Thanks for the information. I've scanned it but will read more later. I am using doctype on my pages that validate.

I checked the index pages for the first 4 sites out of 38 million for the term "free e cards" and here are the results:
123 Greetings: NO DOC TYPE/518 errors - no outbound links
Blue Mountain: DOC TYPE/88 errors - no outbound links
Hallmark: No charset info/91 errors - no outbound links
free-e-cards: NO DOC TYPE/48 errors

These sites get millions of visitors per month, a good part of which is due to their SE rankings. They do not validate. A lot of the top 20 do not have a DOCTYPE. Many of them have no outbound links at all.

So what counts? They all advertise heavily on the SE's, and they all have tons of inbound links.

Personally, I would like to have pages that validate, at which time I will include the DOCTYPE declaration at the top. Professionally, I would like to have about 1,000 more inbound links. And I guess it doesn't matter where they come from as long as there are tons and tons of them. Fiscally, I cannot afford to advertise on the SE's.

Realistically: no bucks spent, no top ranking for a keyword phrase with over 38 million listings. Code messiness seems to have nothing at all to do with it. At least that is what my research indicates.

[bj]

This is JUST my opinion, mind you, but if you want your site to take you into the future, then well-formed code is a must. Otherwise you may find yourself needing a major overhaul in a few years' time, and probably when you can least afford the downtime. The major sites you are most likely looking at that don't validate are dynamically generated sites that are working with legacy backend code that was written years ago, a situation that can be a nightmare when trying to make current code validate, and would take MANY man-hours to change over, with possible downtime that could cost them mucho dinero. From what you've said you don't seem to be in that situation. Again, in my opinion, if you aren't in that situation, you're better off dealing with your code and bringing it into compliance. As to those who are not large and don't have the "legacy backend code" excuse, it's most times either ignorance or laziness, and do you want to be branded with either of those labels? I for one don't.

Something else to consider- future users (and some present ones too!) may not be using a traditional computer to access the web. When talking about nontraditional devices well-formed code is a MUST. In fact, if you're not coding to xhtml/css standard you are already cutting off a portion of your potential audience, and as more and more people access the web in nontraditional ways that number will grow.

I know there are good people on this board trying to help you. It might also help if you checked out some of the forums devoted to the subject, where very specific help might be more forthcoming.
http://tek-tips.com
http://www.topxml.com/xhtmldev/

[Weedy Lady]

I'm sorry if you took offense at my posting. I AM working on getting my code to validate. That was the purpose of my original posting on this thread.

I have one snippet of css that I am using on a few pages, as a result of a suggestion from someone here on the forums. I do not understand anything about css except that it looks like it won't work for my site because every page has a different format. Again, this is because they are cards and in order to get the effect I need for each one they can't be standard sizes.

Looks like I would have to have a separate css code for each and every page, and that is more than daunting.

It would be lovely if I could translate every one of them into FLASH and have one standard size for all of the cards. I can not do this. It is way beyond my abilities. Nor can I afford to pay someone to do it for me.

I work at things one thing at a time as I can absorb how to do it properly. But I don't stop. That's why these forums are so valuable to me. There is always someone to help me learn the next step. And, in some cases I can actually help others.

[bj]

Weedy Lady, I didn't take any offense at all. I was just noticing that toward the beginning of this thread you were all for validation, and toward the end it seems you were getting frustrated and looking for ways to talk yourself out of it- of course I could have misread, written words don't show facial expressions or body language after all. I was just hoping I could lead you back to the light and away from the dark side! *grin*

Re css and tableless layout- I'm a very strong proponent, and ANYTHING that can be done with a table can be done with css. It's a challenge. Oh, boy, is it a challenge. The learning curve is Mt. Everest-like for the first few months. I don't wanna put more on your plate than is already there, but your site most likely could be changed to a css/xhtml layout. If you wish to learn more I strongly suggest the css-discuss group at http://www.css-discuss.org/, the best group of Mentors on the web.

Good Luck!

[Weedy Lady]

bj:
Thanks for the information about where to (hopefully) start learning. I would dearly love to have a "perfectly designed" site.

Since I started out knowing absolutely nothing and using "MS Publisher 98" for my first few pages (yes, I really did that), I think I've come a long, long way to writing my own html with all of its atttendant problems and challenges. I am really fascinated with css and all that can be done with it, though, and I do want to try to learn at least some of it. My old (67 at lat count)brain just takes longer to absorb things..........and yes, I do sometimes get discouraged and sort of give up. But I usually come back to it later. My long suffering husband will attest to the fact that I never quit.

One of the problems with spending a lot of time trying to learn new technical things is that the result is no time to design new cards, and I do have a lot of faithful visitors who depend on me for those.

Thanks again, though, for the links.