Is the following W3C Compliant:
<div>
<h3>Heading</h3>
This is the text for this section.
</div>
Or does the text require a container element?
<div>
<h3>Heading</h3>
<p>This is the text for this section.</p>
</div>
The first example doesn't sit right with me, but a content editor asked me and I realized I don't really know if it's okay.
Both examples are valid.
Technically in the first one, the text is inside a container, the outer <div>.
Anyway it is perfectly valid to put text directly inside the <body>, which means the following HTML document will pass validation with no errors or warnings:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Document</title>
</head>
<body>
<h3>Heading</h3>
This is the text for this section.
</body>
</html>
The more relevant question is whether it is semantically correct. To put it simply, paragraph text should be surronded by a <p> tag. More generally each type of content SHOULD be written inside the semantically relevant tag.
I will advise you to use the second approach.
When you use the correct Heading Tag it helps boost your page SEO wise.
Moreover, paragraph tag, P, helps some browser to render your page in “reading mode”.
Finally, a div is a block-displayed element. This CSS code looks a bit weird: div {color: blue}. But, p { color: red; } make more sense for a lot people.
Technically, both are conforming HTML (unless you validate it against the strict HTML4.x/XHTML1.x scheme which has no connection to reality anymore). Hovewer, the second approach would be probably more convenient from the styling/scripting perspective, where it's always better to have a possibility to address any piece of content directly. The first example has an implicit paragraph, and explicit is usually better than implicit.
Related
so I have this huge amount of text from several documents that i'd like to insert on my webpages. When i copy paste the text into my <p>element, it works fine and all, but it looks messy in my html-file.
Is there any other way to transfer my written document to my html-file, for instance link the document to the html-file, or maybe there's a way to hide or separate the <p> so the html-file looks neat even though there's a huge amount of text in my html-file. Any advice?
I do not know about any way to include html in another html (something like php's include), but it could be done with JQuery:
index.html:
<html>
<head>
<!-- link jquery -->
<script>
$(function(){
$("#fileContent").load("doc.html");
});
</script>
</head>
<body>
<div id="fileContent"></div>
</body>
</html>
doc.html (file that contains your text)
There's a lot you could do to separate these blocks of text.
Firstly, I'd recommend using <div>..</div> tags to divide the content into separate semantic sections. There are a bunch of different tags that aim to divide the content of the page semantically: <aside>, <main>, <header>, <nav>, and so on. I'd recommend reading up on these tags and using them appropriately.
However, to answer your question more directly, you should separate each block of text into separate <p> tags. After all, the <p> tag is meant for defining separate paragraphs. While the HTML document may not look pretty when indented and filled with multiple different tags like <div> a <p>, it is the best way to do it.
Unless the HTML page is going to be presented in its core (code) format, then how the <p> tags look in the .html file is unnecessary because after all these are what define how the page is presented and rendered in the browser.
I'm working on some oracle code to generate an HTML eMail. It's mostly working, but I took the resulting HTML and placed it in Dreamweaver CS6 to use the validation. I get a few errors:
1) No Character encoding declared at document level [HTML 4.01]
2) element "U" undefined [HTML 4.01]
The html code is generated automatically by a rich text editor widget. Should I use something other than HTML 4.01? I'm not too savvy with HTML Header code.
Here's the HTML code that is generated from my test.
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN""http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title>Saint Susanna Parish Mailing</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>This is normal text</p>
<p>
<strong>This is bold</strong>
</p>
<p>
<u>This is Underscored</u>
</p>
<ol>
<li>
<span style="color:#ff0000;">This is numbered</span>
</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>This is bulleted</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: center;">This is centered</p>
<p>
<span style="font-size:18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">This is a new font</span></span>
</p>
<p style="text-align: right;">This is right justified</p>
<p> </p>
</body>
</html>
Thanks for looking at this.
I think the encoding can -and must- be specified in the mail headers, so I would ignore that warning.
The article The Importance of Content-Type Character Encoding in HTML Emails says:
[The client] will display the email based on what Content-Type has been set.
However, email clients read the Content-Type value that is set in the
email header and they completely ignore the META tag that is within
the HTML.
So that suggests that you should add the proper header, and can safely ignore the validator's warning, although it can't hurt at all to add the meta tag as well.
If you want a second opinion, you can try the W3C Markup Validation Service, although that one might also complain about missing content types. After all, these validators don't know what headers you are going to supply.
Different rules apply to HTML mail anyway. Clients ignore basically everything that is outside of the body. They also filter out all kinds of attributes, won't allow JavaScript and fully ignore external stylesheets and inline style tags.
The <u> tag was deprecated in HTML 4.01 but not obsolete. In that case the validator seems to be wrong, so I would ignore that warning as well. I wouldn't underline text at all though, because obviously that text could easily be mistaken for a link. If you need to, and you don't want to use <u>, you can use an inline text-decoration style.
Some suggestions:
U can do a lot of control by using classes etc - declared in a style.css file that u call first as well.
<!DOCTYPE HTML> - HTML 5
<b> and </b> can replace strong to save characters
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../style.css" title="Standard Style">
I noticed in my element inspector (both chrome and firebug) that the html was parsed different from how i had intended it to be parsed.
Some elements ended up outside of their parent element, often this comes from broken html (unclosed tags etc.).
I threw the code in the W3C validator and narrowed the html down to just a few lines.
My HTML looks like:
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>title because we must</title>
<meta charset="utf-8"/>
</head>
<body>
<p>
<div>test</div>
</p>
</body>
</html>
The error i get is
Line 10, Column 6: No p element in scope but a p end tag seen.
Since the HTML5 validator is still experimental i figured i should try the XHTML 1.1 validator as well. It then mentions that I might be trying to put a block element within a inline element. This shouldn't be the case since both "p" and "div" are block elements by default.
Can anyone explain this behavior?
A p element cannot contain a div element
The end tag of the p element is optional
Therefore:
<p>
<div>test</div>
</p>
Means:
<p></p>
<div>test</div>
</p>
So you have an end tag for an element that is no longer open.
Since the HTML5 validator is still experimental i figured i should try the XHTML 1.1 validator aswell. It then mentions that I might be trying to put a block element within a inline element.
Yes, in the extended explanation of the error it mentions that you might be trying to put a block element within a inline element.
The error message itself reads:
document type does not allow element "div" here
which is quite clear.
You cannot place a div element inside a paragraph <p> tag.
This is invalid:
<p>
<div>test</div>
</p>
The correct way would be to wrap the div around the p.
we can not put <div> inside <p> ,as it is inline element and doing so is not recommended as per w3c standards,still if you do so browser will show that div out side p tag like this
<p></p>
<div>div contents<div>
<p></p>
for reference see following
http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/sgml/dtd.html
http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/sgml/dtd.html
<!ELEMENT P - O (%inline;)* -- paragraph -->
Not sure how to tag this question. I have a database of XHTML documents that are converted by LaTeXMLpost; however, saying that they have validation issues is an understatement. I need to show them inside a browser. However, tag autoclosing due to invalid markup messes up my structure.
A minimal example:
<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
<title>test</title>
</head>
<body>
<div id="content" style="background-color:pink">
<!-- yield -->
<section >
<ul>
<li>
<div>
<p>
First
<li>
<div>
<p>
Second
</p>
</div>
</li>
</p>
</div>
</li>
</ul>
</section>
<section>
Next
</section>
<!-- end yield -->
</div><!-- end content -->
</body>
</html>
jsfiddle
Everything outside comments is layout; inside it is the loaded document. If things were taken at face value, everything should be pink, right?
The problem is, "Next" gets booted outside the #content. Even though it is valid XML, it does not conform to HTML/XHTML DTD (or whatever passes for DTD in HTML5), so it gets mangled.
The question is: How can I protect my layout against invalid markup inside it? Can I do something to the content to normalise it? I'm loading it into Nokogiri before displaying, but I still end up in this mess anyway (since the XML isn't malformed, I suppose, Nokogiri doesn't do anything about it).
I don't care if it's displayed nicely or not, all I care now is that it remains safely contained (otherwise I have trouble with manipulating it, attaching events, styling, and pretty much everything else).
You can try Nokogiri it has some built-in functionality for fixing invalid mark-up.
Related question : Repairing invalid HTML with Nokogiri (removing invalid tags)
Is there a coding standard for HTML? Please suggest links that have the coding styles for HTML.
For example:
<table>
<tr>
<td>
Data
</td>
</tr>
</table>
Here's a few standards to add to your list.
1. Indentation
You seem to have the right idea on this already. The main purpose of indentation should be to make it clear where a tag is opened and closed. Consider this example.
<div><p>Hello World</p><div><p>Hello World</p></div>
This looks okay until you indent it properly and spot the error:
<div>
<p>Hello World</p>
<div>
<p>Hello World</p>
</div>
The original div wasn't closed. Ooops! This is why indentation can be a great time saver.
2. Tags and Attributes
It is generally accepted now that all tags and attributes should be lower case. We dispensed with ALL CAPS tags a long time ago in HTML and also with camelCasing for things like onMouseOver and onClick, which are now all lower case. All attribute values should be surrounded with double-quotes. For example:
<div id="content">Hello</div>
Not
<div id=content>Hello</div>
<DIV ID="content">Hello</DIV>
3. Semantic mark-up only
Don't use any tags to infer style or to control style. For example...
<font>
<b>
Or attributes like...
<table border="2">
Also, don't use things like h1 tags just to get a bigger font.
Try to think of what the tag means, "h1" is a top level heading, "p" is a paragraph, "table" denotes data laid out in a tabular format. Never use a tag for a different purpose to what is intended and try to know what tags are available. For example, using lists instead of manually laying out lists of things.
Don't use tables for layout. (I have emphasised this important point using the semantic "em" tag).
Don't use too many div tags to solve a problem! (div-itus!)
Firstly choose your doctype and then validate your html against the W3C validator for formatting errors
Other things to consider off the top of the head are
Proper indentation
Resisting the temptation to add too much markup i.e. keep the markup simple
Structure your html semantically so that if you switched off style sheets the document would still make sense and be in the right order
Avoid deprecated tags e.g. <font>
Choosing generic class names e.g. mainHeader instead of largeRedHeader
Use classes for repeating elements and ids for elements that appear once
Use classes and ids on parent elements only and style child elements using css e.g. #intro > p instead of #intro .paragraph
HTML Tidy provides a pretty reasoble style, which it will also help you enforce.
Did you mean indentation style? Here is the de facto indentation style:
<table>
<tr>
<td>One line of text - no indent.</td>
<td>
<p>
Multiple lines of text. <br />
With line breaks - indent.<br />
Inline: <b>no indent</b>
</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
However, the style above takes too much spaces, for some indentation styles, HTML, HEAD and BODY are not indented.
<html>
<head>
<title>Title</title>
</head>
<body>
<div>
<h1>Title</h1>
<p>Hello, world! The content begins here.</p>
</div>
</body>
</html>
Personally I follow the xhtml standards (all open tags get a closed tag, case sensitivity and so on). It makes it easier to follow the code and to format things automatically. I also generally indent everything 1 from their parents:
<table summary="example table">
<tr>
<td>
Data
</td>
</tr>
</table>
I also tend to try and include all of the required attributes for accessibility, I figure it is a nice thing to do.