validation

Paulbisch · #1 (**permalink**) 03-03-2005, 02:54 AM

After checking my site on several recommended validator tools, I got somehow stuck... The results I got tell me that something is wrong but I just can't figure out how to interpret..must have to do with doctype stuff. Can anyone give a hint? Paul www.maplesplendor.ca

paulhiles · #2 (**permalink**) 03-03-2005, 03:37 AM

Hi Paul, welcome to WebProWorld!

I think the validators are stumbling over the lack of any content-type. Basically, this tells the validator what content it's about to come across. In most cases, for standard web pages this content will be "text/html". A character set also helps tell any browser / parser what sort of characters it will expect. In this instance, Western Latin-1 (ISO-8859-1) is most likely an appropriate choice.

I've included a snippet below of the few lines at the start of your page with an additional line for the content-type and character set (charset).

Code:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equip="Content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
<title> Waldorf Supplies for Canadians</title>

Hope that helps!

Paul

Paulbisch · #3 (**permalink**) 03-03-2005, 03:28 PM

Thanks Paul, It helped a lot. I changed the coding in all the pages. The char encoding error message has gone. Do I need to worry about the error message:This page is not Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional ? greetings from Paul in Canada

paulhiles · #4 (**permalink**) 03-03-2005, 03:39 PM

Hey Paul from Canada!

The only error you've got at the moment is from your Javascript email obfuscation. Not exactly a major error, so I wouldn't worry unduly.

Cheers,

Paul from London

Paulbisch · #5 (**permalink**) 03-03-2005, 03:55 PM

Thanks a lot. Can I ask you one more question? What is the difference between strict and loose in doctype. is it right to use strict for pages with animation, slideshow and that stuff? Is every page independant or do I need to decide what doctype I use? Paul

paulhiles · #6 (**permalink**) 03-03-2005, 04:43 PM

I wouldn't go so far as to say that one doctype is more suitable for a certain kind of media than another. You just need to code in accordance with the demands of the doctype (if that makes any sense!).

Generally speaking, a transitional doctype is more forgiving than a 'strict' doctype, and if you're looking to both present and future standards then you should be using XHTML rather than HTML 4.01.

Paul

DrTandem1 · #7 (**permalink**) 03-04-2005, 09:44 AM

I see eight (8) errors on your splash page. Most are minor and reside in the body tag. The W3C validator tells you exactly where the problems are.

Do you need to worry because it does not validate? Maybe. You have a better chance of being cross-browser compatible, if your pages validate.

What is more perplexing is why you bother with the splash page which redirects to the contact page. I would recommend simply creating a normal Home page and lose the splash page.

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