[thelist] Accesibility Tip

Mark Groen mark at markgroen.com
Wed Jun 12 11:08:01 CDT 2002


> > They got a better site (cleaning
> > up the code from Dreamweaver cut the file size by MORE than half -
> > surprised even me) and I got a chunk of (albeit smaller but better
> > than nothing), change for my efforts too.
>
> What about the Dreamweaver code exactly is bloaty? I found Dreamweaver
> to write very clean code. Am I missing something there?
For instance, I took their javascript for the navigation menu roll overs and
used my own and then placed it an external file so it didn't need to be on the
other pages either, and also now the images only needed to be downloaded
once from the server. Along the way, the designer had created some text,
changed his mind and then added some more. This happened everywhere,
my guess is that he would do some type, then get approval/changes and do
some more. The mark up was duplicated twice/thrice for the same final
output of the text and there were still some deprecated font tags in there too
- older version of Dreamweaver perhaps, but not everyone can afford to
upgrade to MX just yet. There was also some inline CSS that got moved to
the external CSS file. Oh yeah, there was some javascript for a banner type
roll over too that was humongous that I rewrote and placed in the external
file as well.
>
> Do you mean the   Tags within empty table cells for example? I
> always left those, so the bgcolor of table cells is maintained in NS
> 4.x.
Yep, no need for all those empty table cells period if the tables are crafted
properly. Dreamweaver sticks them in there for spacers and NS display
purposes but good table layout/code doesn't need nearly as many spacers
as Dreamweaver places.

> Are there any other issues specific to Dreamweaver or was the
> pronounciation on "NON PROGRAMMER"
I didn't capitalize that, and don't want to start a flame war with anyone. The
person doing the design didn't know much about coding and that is why I
said that - no flame against Dreamweaver users either, I use it myself when
needed but for the final output it's always hand coded using Arachnophilia
and HTML Kit with Tidy.

 (I would not really consider myself
> a programmer, but I always look at the code in split view to have an
> overview of what happens)?
Fine to look and learn, but do you change anything?

> What's up with the W3 validator? It tells me for example that the
> height attribute for tables is not supported in 4.01 transitional. Can
> this be?
Yes, there is no such thing as the height attribute. If you really must have a
specified height, use a .gif or CSS instead.

Hope that clears things up a bit for you,

Regards,

		Mark
MG Web Services
Web Site Hosting and Development
www.markgroen.com
mark at markgroen.com
604-780-6917




More information about the thelist mailing list