bookmark_borderSlashdot shocker

I’ve not actually checked to see if my site is currently compliant with any XHTML or CSS standard, I would imagine if they are not it is redundant ‘covering’ code anyway… that aside I do try and keep up with the goings-on in the CSS design ‘area’, and A List Apart is a great place to start.

It was with some intrigue that I spotted the article “Retooling Slashdot with Web Standards”, which includes the line “underneath the hood you will find an old jalopy” (OK, deliberately taken out of context). What follows is an interesting look at converting a site to CSS based design AND achieving compliance. Interesting stuff.

Redesign thoughts
Aside: What did the person who invented the drawing board go back to?

Anyway, that’s where I am. Sitting at the ‘virtual’ drawing board. Do I stick with a CSS ‘no table’ layout? Worry about XHTML, or head back to my old friend the table. To mouseover or not to mouseover, that is the quandary. Which elements to drop (eye/mirror project links for example), which to promote, which to move somewhere else altogether… More graphics, less graphics? Hi-tech design, boxes, or smooth minimalism?

Well here are a few sites that I keep admiring:

Feel free to chip in if you have any good ideas… or sites ya think I’d like…

bookmark_borderBacktracking

HTML Design: If you are aware of the movement towards CSS and away from tables and frames for site structure, read on. If you don’t, I would skip this.

A List Apart and WaSP. Two sites campaigning for the same thing, a move towards acceptance of the standard (as defined by the W3) CSS and XHTML definitions.

The suggestion was that browser makers would try and implement proper support, and we (the designers for want of a better term) would follow and code our sites in nicely degrading XHTML and CSS. So if you used an older browser, you can still access site content without any major issues.

The main man, or one of them, behind this push is Zeldman. A legend in his own living room. Today he posted a suggestion on his own personal site. The suggestion being that “transitional XHTML layouts that include some table-driven formatting feel more and more like a reasonable choice”. He eloquently states his reasons, none of this is his desire, or by his design, and I have to say I agree with him. But is he backtracking? Are we all slaves to the browser makers?

This isn’t an attack on Jeffery Zeldman, on the contrary, I sympathise greatly. As he states, he is being driven to a ‘reasonable choice’ rather than a desirable one.

The last estimate I saw stated that there were around 500,000 blogs. That’s a helluva large petition if you ask me. If I had the energy I would start a campaign. Gimme a few hours though…

Full Report by Zeldman – explains why he came to this decision.

bookmark_borderCompliance

Mayor of London. A good site, very informative, kept up-to-date, easy to navigate and quite modern feeling for a government site.

Question: Why advertise it on a billboard near Parkhead in Glasgow?

Just curious…

In other news
Valid CSS!

CSS2 compliance achieved!! Woo Hoo!!

One page XHTML compliant – the rest getting screwed by non UTF8 characters but should have that sorted by Sunday or so.

I’m so happy I could cry. (OK not really, mild satisfaction is probably more apt).