bonrouge

This site hasn't been updated for a few years. If you're looking for something good and up-to-date, maybe you want to look somewhere else...

About HTML, CSS, PHP and javascript

This is just a few pages to help a few people do the odd thing or two...

I'd recommend the CSS FAQ and the CSS LAYOUTS as well as the top tips below.

A word of warning : this site looks terrible in older versions of IE.

My Top Tips

Use semantically-correct mark-up - 'h1' tags for your main header, 'p' tags for paragraphs, 'ul' or 'ol' with 'li' tags for lists (including menus), etc. Use tags that are related to what they contain.
Don't use tables for layout - that's not what they're for. Use CSS instead (-examples-).
- Tables make your code ugly and difficult to read - especially when you start nesting tables and doing things like using spacer gifs to hold the page together.
- Tables increase your markup by a lot and so make download times slower.
- CSS really isn't that difficult once you learn how to do it, and when you've learnt enough, life becomes a lot easier.
- With tables, adding content to one column can cause all the columns to stretch and you have less control over how and where each element on the page is positioned.
- Tables make the output of screen readers sound very strange.
Use relative positioning and floats for your layout - not absolute positioning. Also, don't position relatively-positioned elements with 'top' and 'left' - use margins and padding instead. (-more-)
Remember that different browsers have different default values for different CSS properties.
You can iron this out a bit by starting your stylesheet with this: CSS * { margin:0; padding:0; }
Use a complete 'HTML 5' DTD on the first line of every page. This tells browsers that you're trying to write code that complies to the W3C standards. If you don't include a complete, valid DTD, you will have less cross-browser compatibility.
<!DOCTYPE html>
Use a good text editor to write your pages.
Use external CSS and JS files - it makes life a lot easier.
Use PHP includes for things like menus - you don't want to have to change your menu on each page every time you update your site.
Check your HTML by using the W3C Markup Validator and check your CSS with the W3C CSS Validator