[WEB4LIB] Re: web publishing process

[Bill Feidt]

I don't know that there's an easy answer.  More of a concern than bloat
though is the likelihood that non-standard HTML which works with current
browsers will cease doing so with future browsers.  Content producers run
the risk of being left with hundreds of HTML files that no longer display
properly, or possibly at all. The requisite cleanup effort could well be
daunting.

The HTML standard constitutes a channel of communication between those
writing HTML and those creating browser software.  The latter must make
certain assumptions about how HTML data will be presented and those
assumptions will likely be base on the standard.  If a content
producer doesn't observe the standard, there's a greater chance his
pages will not be rendered correctly by a future browser.

Whether HTML is created "manually" or using one of the HTML editors, it's
a good idea to run the finished product through a validator.  At least 
then, you know what potential problems you're creating.  An excellent 
validator is the "WDG HTML Validator":

  http://www.htmlhelp.org/tools/validator/

Pesonally, I create the vast majority of my own HTML manually.  I do use
an editor (HTML Assistant Pro) from time to time, but only to help with
the insertion of tags, not to decide what tags to insert and where.


Bill Feidt
wfeidt at nal.usda.gov

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Gooch [mailto:Mark.Gooch at law.csuohio.edu]
Sent: Thursday, February 04, 1999 10:16 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Re: web publishing process


Thanks for providing me with an opening to ask a question I've been
wondering about.  What I am interested to know is are people concerned about
the "bloated" files and less than clean HTML code produced by some of the
HTML editors (Netscape Composer, Front Page, etc.) in this type of
situation.  I've been contemplating whether to have staff here create pages
on their own with Composer or some other editor.  I'm concerned that the
less than stellar code  which is created (and I don't consider myself an
HTML "purist") will eventually fill our server with files which are larger
than necessary.  Also, when people run into coding problems I will likely be
the one who has to hunt through this code to find the problems.  What do
others think about this?

Thanks
Mark