XHTML: some good practices

Some good practices on XHTML

  • <doctype> always use a doctype before <html>-tag: don’t get in quirksmode –recommended list of doctypes (W3 schools)
    • Transitional is most common
    • Strict: prohibits the use of target=”_blank” and a few other HTML tags, like s, center, strike, u, applet, iframe, font, isindex, dir, basefont
  • <h1> Only one h1 per page: use for the main topic
  • <blockquote> Only to refer to bits of text coming from other locations
  • <q> Use for a single ‘quote’
  • <table> Never use for lay-out purposes
  • <cite> References to books, websites, articles
  • <address> identify contact information to the author of a page

Other usefull tips

Disallow compatibility mode

Tell Internet Explorer never to go into compatibilty mode (use an older IE engine than the one installed). Put this after the <title>-tag:


Linking style sheets

Use <link> for simplicity and better performance


Validate your code

http://validator.w3.org

Forget about HTML attributes like

  • vspace
  • hspace
  • bgcolor
  • text
  • link
  • alink
  • vlink
  • img align: use CSS-floats instead

Low level format browser specific attributes like

  • leftmargin
  • topmargin
  • marginwidth
  • marginheight