Validation questions

I posted the URL to a site I created in response to Capt. F. M.
O'Lary's request for a site created using Dreamweaver.

The URL, for anyone who wishes to see the site, is at:

http://www.ccaa.edu/~obrienk/class/eco331/

You will note that this site is for a class that I teach, and that I
am a college professor.

I asked Capt. O'Lary what the errors were, and he kindly responded
with a few of the validator sites that he used.

I then ran my index page through the URL validator at:

http://validator.w3.org

I assumed that w3.org was sufficiently authoritative for our
purposes. When I did so, I received a list of the errors keyed to
the line number of my HMTL file, so this was very useful.

This validator found 13 errors. They were, in order:

1. Missing a DOCTYPE declaration at the start. In looking at the
explanation, it seems that the document should declare which version
of HTML it claims to follow. Mine obviously doesn't do this. There
may be some issues here in terms of trying to be backwards
compatible, and seeing what each browser will support. But clearly
the DOCTYPE attribute is missing.

2. Missing an "alt" tag on an image that I used as kind of a course
logo. One can argue about how essential it is, but in any case, the
fault is not with Dreamweaver, really, but with me. Dreamweaver has
a place to type in the ALT information, and I neglected to do so. I
suppose one could argue that Dreamweaver should have held a gun to
my head until I filled this in.

3-13. The other eleven errors all concerned missing ALT information.
In each case, the images were small, transparent spacer gifs that I
had used to layout the page the way I wanted it. I did this by using
a neat feature of Dreamweaver that let me layout the page using
layers, which I could drag around the screen until I got the look I
wanted, and then convert the page to an equivalent table for
backwards compatibility with older browsers. Since most browsers at
our college are NN3, this is necessary. (Rule number one: Know your
audience). 

Now, to my way of thinking, putting ALT information in spacer gifs
that are designed to be invisible is completely unnecessary, and
this points out the danger of a mindless reliance on an automated
validator program. You may disagree. But for my purposes,
Dreamweaver comes out pretty good in creating compliant code, though
not perfect.

I hope this information helps anyone who is trying to decide what
tools to use in creating their Web site. 


-- 
Kevin B. O'Brien                  TANSTAAFL
kob1(at)ix.netcom.com
"There is no "royal road" to geometry." 
 -- Euclid -- Said to king Ptolemy I

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