CLEAN UP THAT CODE! by: windsong

How do you write your code so that it shows up on all or most browsers the way you want it to look? By understanding which browsers support which tags, and using a validation service to check your code.

There are different tags that sometimes do the same thing. The problem here, is that some browers read some tags and not others. If the browser can't read your tags, it will cause your page to appear in some way other than what you intended. The trick is to write your code in such a way that all, or at least most browsers can read and display it the way it is supposed to be.

You will find an HTML Tag List at: http://www.ncdesign.org/html/list.htm You can use this as you are writing your code and avoid some pitfalls. It only covers Netscape and Internet Explorer. These are the most used browsers, and probably includes about 80 percent or more of the online crowd.

You can check your html code by going to a validation service like Net Mechanic. You will find a link to this and other validation services at: http://marketing-resources.com/utilities.html This can be a humbling experience. It checks your code and gives you all the errors and warnings.

Do your corrections, and check it again. You may have to do this a couple of times to end up with no errors.

There is no reason not to have perfectly clean HTML code. Learn the tags and which browers support them, and you are almost home. Then just run it through a validator. Now the world sees your page the way it really is.

Copyright © 2001, windsong

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