Overhaul - was "James Roberts"

Sharon,

This is home turf for me Sharon. This is what my business was built on and
thrives on to this day - just *exactly* this type of situation.

Because of that, I do indeed have some ideas, and some rather strong
opinions (who would have guessed that!).

First, whoever has been giving you that advise about using 4.X transitional
DTD's and CSS? Do not EVER turn your back on them - ever.

That was just EXACTLY what you should avoid doing like the PLAGUE if you
want this site to work reliably in the situation you have described.

I hate when that happens. That is why I always spend so many words in my
post here. Trying to get folks to understand the way the world works
outside their little boxes, and it AIN'T on transitional DTD's and CSS !!!!!

Here is how *I* would fix this - take it for what it is worth:

Find an editor that will strip code (Home Site 2.5 comes to mind), and set
it loose on that folder full of . . . stuff and let it do it's job.

Then build the look and feel you want using a 4.x STRICT or (even better) a
3.2 final DTD and "pour" (copy and paste) the remnants from your stripped
files into the templates you just made.

Then go back and dress it up (cosmetically and editorially).

Then, the most important part, hire an armed guard to escort you to the
bank to cash that OBSCENE check you just earned.

HTH,
Fuzzy
<has custom 45 Colt, will travel for "obscene" things!>


At 11:30 AM 1/26/01 -0800, sfmalo wrote:
>Dear Captain - I sent this message to you on 1/23 but inadvertently
>transposed the carbon copied recipients' addresses. So, thinking that's why
>it never got posted, am re-sending to you. (<:
>Sharon
>
>Captain:
>Am wondering if you, Tamara, Hugh or anyone else in our group would be
>interested in tackling a --big--problem I've inherited. Have a client whose
>site I revised recently. He just loaded Netscape 6 on his computer at home
>and is had a horrific time accessing his site. He has a friend in Asia using
>Netscape 3.x who also couldn't access it. By that I mean they couldn't even
>bring the site up. So, after I changed the DTD, now my client can bring up
>the site but none of the navigation works anymore and he can't get beyond
>the home page! Note: It works just fine on my Netscape 4.7_ browser so I was
>unaware of any difficulties until now. (Who knows what's going on in Asia
>with 3.x)
>
>I changed the home page DTD to 4.01 transitional with a URI of
>".http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/loose.dtd" at the
>suggestion some days ago of someone else in the group...and added CSS. I
>changed all the other 13 first-level pages to the same DTD but left out CSS.
>My problem is I can't load Netscape 6 on my computer--it keeps bombing out
>during installation, so I gave up. I can't test from home and no one I know
>has yet loaded Net 6.
>
>Please don't look closely at the body text as it's a nightmare. The site was
>originally created by someone else with some wretched editor that left out
>literals, had no tables, and did awful things and was originally --one--
>page in length (first-level)!!!!! I made fourteen pages out of the one page
>creating nav buttons, tables, etc. etc., but I left the text and tags alone
>(for the most part) except for the Home page and About page. The second
>level pages number over 100 and are absolutely wretched (no DTD, no meta
>tags, no CSS, no tables, no nothin'!). You can take a look at
>http://www.hi-tm.com .
>
>Any thoughts? Any suggestions? What DTD do you think I should use under the
>circumstances? Leave a URI in or take out? Maybe I should use 3.2 Final as
>the DTD? Help!!!!!
>Warm regards,
>Sharon
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Sharon F. Malone
>http://www.24caratdesign.com
>"web page design and Internet writing services"
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Captain F.M. O'Lary" <ctfuzzy(at)canopy.net>
>To: "HWGBASICS" <hwg-basics(at)hwg.org>
>Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2001 3:44 PM
>Subject: James Roberts
>
>
>> Your response is hereby formally rejected for breaking the 35-40 character
>> rule.
>>
>> Try again.
>>
>> <just kidding. Please, read on>
>>
>>
>> At 11:16 PM 1/23/01 +0100, James Roberts wrote:
>> >|Why?
>> >
>> >Look I'm new round here, and to HTML. But, 4.01 Trans seems to have been
>a
>> >requirement because 4.01 Strict broke browsers. No? And now there's XHTML
>> >1.0 Transitional, for similar reasons...
>>
>>
>> In a word, NO.
>>
>> It is when you do *not* want to break browsers that you use the strict DTD
>> (don't take my word, check out the URL that started this whole thread).
>>
>> So you have it exactly right - only backwards.
>>
>> The transitional DTD is to create a "grace period" for web developers and
>> browser manufacturers to get up to speed. It WILL be dropped. The strict
>> DTD will not.
>>
>> >
>> >
>> >|Why Not?
>> >
>> >Seems to me with HTML and derivatives we're in the position of the lost
>> >traveller who made the mistake of asking the Irish guy how to get to
>Dublin:
>> >'Sure and if'n I was you, I would not be starting from here'.  It's easy
>in
>> >retrospect to see many things that could have been done better. I've only
>> >just got into HTML, although I had my first dial-up internet mail account
>in
>> >1988 (this in the UK). That's because early HTML was a bit of a joke - I
>> >thought. Now it's powerful enough to be useable in a limited way. But
>> >backward compatibility is critical in some applications. The universities
>I
>> >know best in the UK all are using early Netscape (on Windows NT 4,
>already!)
>> >for various reasons best uninvestigated. The transitional spec seems to
>be
>> >helpful in writing code that displays adequately on earlier browsers, but
>> >has the odd bell and whistle on later ones. So - do they really
>disapprove?
>> >Dunno...
>>
>> Well, speaking as an Irish guy (O'Lary) . . .
>>
>> Early is a relative term. If you have NN 2 supporting the 4.x transitional
>> DTD I'll kiss your . . . well, you know. If you can get NN3 to support
>> anything except the very most rudimentary features of 4.x without choking,
>> I'll kiss your  . . . well, you know.
>>
>> Then, I'll buy you a couple of pints, we'll get to be good friends, and
>> then in the traditional way of the Irish, we'll go out back of the Pub and
>> beat the crap out of each other for a hour or two, and then start the
>whole
>> process over again.
>>
>> Ahhhhh, Culture. That is what America is lacking!
>>
>> Fuzzy
>> <with tong planted so far in his cheek - it hurts>
>> ______________________________________________________________
>> Captain F.M. O'Lary
>> webmaster(at)canopy.net
>> Another year ends.
>> All targets met. All systems working. All customers satisfied.
>> All staff eagerly enthusiastic. All pigs fed and ready to fly.
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>
>
______________________________________________________________
Captain F.M. O'Lary
webmaster(at)canopy.net
Another year ends.
All targets met. All systems working. All customers satisfied.
All staff eagerly enthusiastic. All pigs fed and ready to fly.
------------------------------------------------------------------

HTML: hwg-basics mailing list archives, maintained by Webmasters @ IWA