Is your site W3C compliant?

Its tough to keep an actively-updated site, such as a forum, compliant. My Halo web site definately isn't close.

However, does it really matter, if the site generally works in all browsers?

Originally Posted by DesignsbyPam Thanks for the help Jonny. I'm down to one error... the background. Can't seem to figure it out. As you can probably guess, I'm still learning alot of the css stuff. Little by little but I'm getting there. That's why that css book would come in real handy Pamela

Here's a very general use of the background property in CSS

Originally Posted by Aphex However, does it really matter, if the site generally works in all browsers?

It matters a lot IMO.
Let's take an example, IE renders a page in "quirks mode" (meaning it tries to fix things on it's own; "tries" being the keyword) if you don't have a Doctype, for example but this is the wrong way to go about doing things, so let's assume that the IE team decide to do the right thing and display the page as it is without a doctype, now your page will have a problem.
There are so many other scenario's I can think of, the key scenario being that if something is MEANT to be a certain way, then that's for a reason so we should code according to standards otherwise we end up in a messed up standards-non-compliant world and inefficiency kicks in and it becomes hard to share and exchange data blah blah blah (I can go on if you like heh heh)

I believe that if a page is not valid, the parser (in this case the browser) should'nt display the page (just like the XML renderers that display an error if an XML document is not valid XML)...but that's just me.

Originally Posted by Robson http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=www.talkfreelance.com Talkfreelance isn't, just a few errors though What about yours?

Actually, TF is not valid, as it uses tables for the design elements, and in XHTML tables are supposed to be used only for tabular data, but the validator doesn't really check for that.

I don't have a site, but if I did, I'd try to make it validate, but I'm not using XHTML just because I want something standard, I use it because it's easier to change the content and/or the design. Content and design separated is just easier to update, only a little longer to code, but not that much, if IE would render things as they should, it would be much shorter as now, on a design I'm working on, I have 3 .css files, one for all the pages, one for the specific page, and one to fix IE's errors...

Originally Posted by flez Actually, TF is not valid, as it uses tables for the design elements, and in XHTML tables are supposed to be used only for tabular data, but the validator doesn't really check for that.

That's probably because that falls under the "semantics" category rather than the validation category

Originally Posted by flez on a design I'm working on, I have 3 .css files, one for all the pages, one for the specific page, and one to fix IE's errors...

If you do need a browser sniffer let me know
This is just a basic example but note how the scrollbar looks different on IE5 and IE6 and also note how it validates as CSS although scrollbar properties are not allowed:
http://koobi-studio.com/gf/dynamicCss/test.php

That just sniffs at what is accessing and I've designed it to respond a certain way depending on the browser. This can be customized for absolutely any browser right down to a specific release.

inspire designs is, though CYS/Axis doesnt actually have a proper main page.. so no.

yup

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=www.adamcroot.co.uk

Even though it's semantics, what's the need of using the XHTML doctype when you don't follow it's rules.

I use
and it works quite well and is simple.

Originally Posted by Koobi That's probably because that falls under the "semantics" category rather than the validation category If you do need a browser sniffer let me know This is just a basic example but note how the scrollbar looks different on IE5 and IE6 and also note how it validates as CSS although scrollbar properties are not allowed: http://koobi-studio.com/gf/dynamicCss/test.php That just sniffs at what is accessing and I've designed it to respond a certain way depending on the browser. This can be customized for absolutely any browser right down to a specific release.

Originally Posted by flez Even though it's semantics, what's the need of using the XHTML doctype when you don't follow it's rules.

Because it's a markup validator and not a semantics-tidy-upper thingy

Originally Posted by flez I use Code: <!--[if IE]> <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/iefixes.css" /> <![endif]--> and it works quite well and is simple.

Is that a method via DOM? or an Apache module that handles this?
Sorry, I'm new to anything other than PHP, MySQL, XHTML and CSS

Originally Posted by Koobi Is that a method via DOM? or an Apache module that handles this? Sorry, I'm new to anything other than PHP, MySQL, XHTML and CSS

It's HTML, only read by IE, conditional comments:
http://virtuelvis.com/archives/2004/02/css-ie-only

Originally Posted by Koobi Here's a very general use of the background property in CSS

Thanks again for the help! One more question then I'm off to give things a try.... what about backgrounds for a cell or table?

Pamela