HTML Tidy and PHP Validation

Legible, Tidy Code

So… after I’d laboriously gone through and tried to make my code a little more legible, I found this resource. I don’t think I’ll use it now, but thought I’d post it in case anybody is at a stage where it will be useful. I would back up code before I replace it with the tidied version – even if it is through the W3C! There are heaps of other tools available for this type of thing, such as this one, which can be used online.

PHP Validation

All my pages have server-side includes; therefore they are all PHP, and I wanted to make sure everything was valid. So while the web pages validated, the included php-coded pages didn’t. Of course (oops, what a time-waster!) as stated in this post validation should be carried out only on the output html, not the source php file. I’m a little tired….d’oh!

Hope all going well with everybody’s final submissions, good luck!

Julie

References

Clean up your Web pages with HTML TIDY. 2012. Clean up your Web pages with HTML TIDY. viewed 2 June 2012 <http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett/tidy/>

HTML Tidy Online. 2012. HTML Tidy Online. viewed 2 June 2012,  <http://infohound.net/tidy/>

validation – how to validate php file with w3c.org – Stack Overflow. 2012. validation – how to validate php file with w3c.org – Stack Overflow. viewed 2 June 2012,  <http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2987116/how-to-validate-php-file-with-w3c-org>

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Validating Embedded Google Maps

I wanted a Google map on my website, so followed the simple instructions and pasted the code to embed the map. The code works, but does not validate because the Google code uses iframes but for valid XHTML 1.0 Strict, object tags should be used. These links will help:
Code example is here. Explanation and attributes are here.

Julie

References

Embedding Google Maps: iframe to object with XHTML Strict | Lab Notes. 2012. Embedding Google Maps: iframe to object with XHTML Strict | Lab Notes, viewed 26 May 2012, <http://blog.poplabs.com/2009/08/embedding-google-maps-iframe-to-object-with-xhtml-strict/>.

OBJECT – Embedded Object. 2012. OBJECT – Embedded Object, viewed 26 May 2012, <http://htmlhelp.com/reference/html40/special/object.html>.

Accessibility Validation

Following my previous post regarding screen readers and accessibility, here are a couple of tools to check your site’s compliance with accessibility standards:

http://cynthiasays.com/ – and there are other downloads available on this site in relation to accessibility standards. The report is a table, and I thought it was reasonably easy to follow.

A more visual one is at http://wave.webaim.org/ You can even download a toolbar from this site so you can check things without leaving your current browser tab.

Julie

 

Not just for the visually impaired…

“While screen readers are commonly used by those with visual impairments, they are likely to become more popular in other web-based scenarios, such as for those who want to access information while they are driving or doing something else that prevents them from actually reading a screen (Duckett, Jon 2010; p421).”

Issues of accessibility need to be addressed (see the next paragraph), but I hadn’t actually thought of the very plausible scenario described by Duckett,

In the leadup to the Sydney Olympic Games, a case against the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games was brought before the Human Rights And Equal Opportunity Commission relating to the accessibility of the Sydney2000 website. Full text is here—see Section 2 ; and commentary (probably a little easier to read) is here.

I’m pretty sure the decision in Maguire’s favour gave a jolt, if needed, to web developers/designers, and I wonder if enhancements are on the way for screen readers, if they do become more widely used?

Julie

References

Duckett, J. 2010, Beginning HTML, XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript, Wiley, Hoboken, N.J.

H 99/115 Bruce Lindsay Maguire v Sydney Organising Committee For The Olympic Games (2000). 2012. H 99/115 Bruce Lindsay Maguire v Sydney Organising Committee For The Olympic Games (2000), viewed 22 May 2012, http://www.hreoc.gov.au/disability_rights/decisions/comdec/Maguire%20v%20SOCOG3.htm.

Olympic Failure: A Case for Making the Web Accessible . 2012. Olympic Failure: A Case for Making the Web Accessible , viewed 22 May 2012, http://www.tomw.net.au/2001/bat2001f.html.

adaptive dithering bypass analog

So last week I asked Vince if being able to recite the first few lines of  ‘Lorem Ipsum’ would ever come in handy like, say, at a trivia night (doubtful!) Realising I’d been staring at it too long, he helpfully suggested this alternative dummy text generator–fun! However, I didn’t stop there. Check some of the ones out on this page. It also contains a dummy image generator that could be useful. It is missing one of my favourites, but I reckon you’ll f ind something to make you smile… anybody for Thai? By the way, my post title comes from this one using ‘technobabble’. I’m categorising this post under ‘Research’. Back to work…

Julie

Week 11 and 12 Exercises

Here they are:

Week 11: My first foray into the world of Jquery. Just one tiny step so far using a tutorial.

Week 12: Validation Exercise. I added a few CSS styles to make it a little more readable.

Not really a lot to say about these exercises, except that if I can get my head around it in time, I would love to put an event calendar on my project website. I found a tutorial that would fit, but if a few of my recent experiences are anything to go by,  it may be too much to achieve in the time left (long time glitch-solving what appear to be the most straightforward things) and I am still working on other parts of the site. I would at least like to try, though…. Sometimes things work quickly-ish.!!!!

Julie

CSS Rounded Corners and More

Great tutorial here about getting every type of rounded corner you can imagine, including the rounded-est corner of all–a circle!

Still on rounded corners, this blog showed and explained the basics, but check the list of posts to the right.  I thought that  there are quite a few good ones on a variety of topics that would be relevant to most of us.

Lastly, this is a really detailed CSS reference, and includes tutorials.

One thing I’ve found is that when I muck something up (often!) validating my XHTML and/or CSS helps me find the problem. Like when I removed, then replaced my page header, which then refused to appear, which meant other things on the page started moving around. Problem: I made a typo of one double, then one single quote around a div class, and it was highlighted in the errors. Or accidentally deleting a curly bracket. I doubt I would have found either very quickly if I’d spent ages staring at the code, though that is what I end up doing most of the time!

Julie

Reference

Border-radius: create rounded corners with CSS! – CSS3 . Info 2012, viewed 18 May 2012 , <http://www.css3.info/preview/rounded-border/>.

CSS – MDN, 2012, viewed 18 May 2012 , <https://developer.mozilla.org/en/CSS>.

CSS Rounded Corners In All Browsers (With No Images) | Jon Raasch’s Blog, 2012, viewed 18 May 2012 , <http://jonraasch.com/blog/css-rounded-corners-in-all-browsers>.

Interesting Image Gallery

Anybody seen this type of image display? Here is where you get the free plugin. If you want to use it in your project, check with Viveka — I had the impression that plugins are ok for the ‘completeness’ of your application but for the most part we should be using code and code resources.

Julie

References

ARTWORK – Gallery V, 2012, viewed 15 May 2012, <http://www.galleryv.com.au/artwork>.

Cooliris Express | Get the full experience, 2012, viewed 15 May 2012, <http://www.cooliris.com/yoursite/express/message/>.

Contact Form: Captcha, JavaScript and PHP Validation

Found this site and have been modifying the code for my project. I chose it because it incorporated both client and server-side validation, having said in my learning proposal that I would like to incorporate both client-  and server-side technologies (what was I thinking???).

I went with one from here and added a new field because I like to keep first name and last name separate.  That was easy enough in HTML, and I managed to get most of the validation scripting to pick it up but must have missed at least one little thing (I don’t know what–yet) that kept making it throw an error.  In this case (an email signup) it probaby doesn’t matter if you have just one name field rather than first name and last name. Some web pages only ask for an email in their newsletter signup form. Anyway, there was no alpha validation for the name field, so I added one, allowing only letters and spaces to be added–I have to look further to find code that allows punctuation marks, or people with hyphenated-names will have to omit the hyphen for the purposes of my form.

I chose a form with a captcha code, as my Week 7 Guestbook keeps getting spammed and I wanted to avert that. I was talking to Vince about captcha codes, and he suggested a field asking a question that had to be answered by a human, rather than using a captcha code. I think we both agreed captchas are a bit unappealing, but I thought the one included with the form I chose was better than some I’ve seen. This form  incorporates a ‘human’ question and requests a phone number (that could be handy), but I was put off by the number of problems posted below. That said, I might just try it….

By the way, if you want to create your own captcha code, this site tells you how. So…

This site is has some great JavaScript tutorials relating to creating and validating forms, among other things.

Julie

References

A simple, easy PHP contact form 2012, viewed 11 May 2012, <http://www.html-form-guide.com/contact-form/creating-a-contact-form.html>

Creating a contact form for your website viewed 16 May 2012, 2012, <http://www.html-form-guide.com/contact-form/creating-a-contact-form.html>.

Javascript-Coder.com — Javascript tutorials and articles 2012, viewed 15 May 2012, <http://www.javascript-coder.com/>

‘Make PHP CAPTCHA more secure ‘, 2012, viewed 11 May 2012, Superior Web Solutions, <http://www.superiorwebsys.com/blog/92/Make_PHP_CAPTCHA_more_secure/>

PHP Contact Form Tutorial 2012, viewed 15 May 2012, , <http://www.html-form-guide.com/contact-form/php-contact-form-tutorial.html>.

Spam Tedium from Week 7

After about 5 dodgy-looking spam entries in my guestbook over the last day, I’ve now deactivated the message field. It can still be seen but does not post a message to the database table–I know that malicious code can be entered through these sorts of message boxes, but at this stage I don’t have the know-how to properly sanitise the input let alone the time (assignment priorities right now!). Anyway, I simply commented out the message parameter in the function that adds records to the database so while the message field can be seen and data has to be entered, it does not populate the database. I figured that should do it for now. I’ve also drastically shortened the amount of characters that can be accepted in the database. The entries originated from here, and I just deleted about 8 spam entries from my blog. Tedious.

Julie