GDVS — Sat, 01 Apr 2006 19:50:26 +0000

dk01 wrote: its always been my personal opinion that the more you can separate the design and content the better.

You won't hear any arguments from me on that score . Just because the elements are allowed doesn't mean they should be used.

dk01 — Sat, 01 Apr 2006 19:29:20 +0000

GDVS wrote: Not quite true, the doctype for this document is XHTML 1.0 Transitional which allows both and tags while all XHTML DTDs permit . and were deprecated in HTML 4 but only obsoleted with XHTML 1.0 Strict. XHTML 1.0 Transitional no more seperates content from presentation than does HTML 4, in both cases it's down to the author to design the site well and avoid use of deprecated tags. CSS is the key to good clean design, not XHTML.

Woops my mistake. Wrote that late last night. Well anyhow its always been my personal opinion that the more you can separate the design and content the better. Although you wouldn't be wrong to leave in your b, font, and center tags, it might just be easier to eliminate them now if you intend to start using CSS anyhow.

GDVS — Sat, 01 Apr 2006 12:19:16 +0000

dk01 wrote: Another thing I noticed was you had some invalid tags. In XHTML formatting is separate from data. This means that there is no tag, tag, or tag.

Not quite true, the doctype for this document is XHTML 1.0 Transitional which allows both and tags while all XHTML DTDs permit . and were deprecated in HTML 4 but only obsoleted with XHTML 1.0 Strict. XHTML 1.0 Transitional no more seperates content from presentation than does HTML 4, in both cases it's down to the author to design the site well and avoid use of deprecated tags. CSS is the key to good clean design, not XHTML.

dk01 — Sat, 01 Apr 2006 07:22:13 +0000

Hi,

I went through your code and added the appropriate CSS and fixed some html errors you had. First thing you need to change is your DOCTYPE declaration. You should be using the global doctype in my example below and not a local copy.

Another thing I noticed was you had some invalid tags. In XHTML formatting is separate from data. This means that there is no tag, tag, or tag. Also is written:

Remember to use the XHTML validator here to check your documents for valid code. This will tell you where you have errors and will help you debug your code.

Here is the code I would use. Post here if there are any parts that you need explanations for. I am more than willing to go into detail on certain parts of the code.

Best of luck in your efforts to learn xhtml/css.

- Jim

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title>XHTML TEST</title>
<style type="text/css">

/* This CSS changes the body background and alignment */
body { 
	background: #f7f7f7;
	text-align: center;
}

/* This changes the link color */
a { 
	color: #ff4040;
}

/* This changes the visited link color */
a:visited { 
	color: black;
}

/* This is the CSS for the table. */
#centeredTable {
	width:44%;
	background:#ffffff;
	margin: 0 auto;
	text-align:left;
}

/* This is for the first row of the table */
.firstRow {
	font-family: Arial, sans-serif;
	font-size: medium;
	color: #000;
	width: 100%;
}

/* The CSS for the left hand column */
.columnLeft {
	font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;
	font-size: larger;
	color: #191970;
	width: 50%;
}

/* The CSS for the right hand column */
.columnRight {
	font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;
	font-size: larger;
	color: #191970;
	width: 50%;
}

</style>
</head>
<body>
<table id="centeredTable">
	<tr>
		<td class="topRow" colspan="2">
			<p>
				<strong>Testing</strong>
				How bad does my XHTML suck?
			</p>
		</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td class="columnLeft">
			<p>
				First try ever. <br />
				No clue what I am doing.<br />
			</p>
		</td>
		<td class="columnRight">
			<p>
				If i do okay<br />
				CSS is next...<br />
			</p>
		</td>
	</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>