I want to learn standard web design that will be accepted in IE, Firefox, etc.

[Kaido]

I discovered that my website looks like trash in Firefox. I know some HTML and PHP, but I'd like to expand my horizons. How do I write 'portable' code, so it looks good on a variety of browsers instead of just Internet Explorer? I want to begin a serious study of HTML and PHP, as well. What do you guys recommend for websites, books, mailing lists, forums, and other resources?

 

[trek]

http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/ everything there works with firefox, but some of it doesn't work to well with IE

 

[Modeps]

Originally posted by: Kaido
I discovered that my website looks like trash in Firefox. I know some HTML and PHP, but I'd like to expand my horizons. How do I write 'portable' code, so it looks good on a variety of browsers instead of just Internet Explorer? I want to begin a serious study of HTML and PHP, as well. What do you guys recommend for websites, books, mailing lists, forums, and other resources?

First of all, PHP is server run, therefore really has no bearing on writing clean HTML code, it generates the HTML code for your browser.

What you need to focus on is learning exactly what everything in HTML will do and how it works. I highly suggest, for most of your coding, that you focus on HTML with CSS.

 

[Cheetah8799]

I discovered that my website looks like trash in Firefox.

Why? You must be using some IE specific javascript or something. I avoid javascript for the most part simply because of the browser compatibility issues. I normally do basic html output from my PHP scripts. I know it's simple, but I know it'll work on any browser.

If you want to do good web design, you should read up on CSS. I haven't gotten to it because I do so much other stuff as well...

 

[stndn]

a good start would be with basic x/html and css over at w3schools
after you've awed yourself with the cool designs at css zen garden, head over to a list apart for the theories and all that.
of course you can try to look around the cool designs and what others have accomplished over at open source web design.

and as already mentioned, php has nothing to do with html site design.
css and javascript would be a pain, since they don't always work the same across browsers.
but just like Cheetah8799, i try to avoid javascript myself. the incompatibility and the fact that most people turn off javascript nowadays ...

more css learning can be obtained from css/edge. you might also want to look at the web standards project for articles and links to resources related to web standards.
if possible, try to avoid the css hacks (which you can read up at p.i.e website, among others). trust me, those will drive you crazy despite the fact that it can help make your css work across major browsers.

my suggestions would be to try designing sites with basic html (with no scripting like php or whatever - just pure html), add in some css to it, play around with it, get comfortable and frustrated with it. after that, add in the php and other scriptings, etc).

oh, one more thing: start designing in mozilla then port it to msie, not the other way around. msie should always be one of the last browsers you test on. you might also want to download opera and see how it looks like.

i would add more, but i guess i've overwhelmed you enough with this lengthy writings ,p

 

[Kaido]

what's the deal with css? I don't know much about it. Can someone give me a big picture?

 

[stndn]

css is one of the ways that enable web designers to separate contents from data.
that is, you put all your raw html data (with no formatting whatsoever) in html file, then use css to style and format your page and make them look all nice and pretty.

if you use css to style your page, you don't need to change the whole html page when you redesign your page. that is to say, for example, if today you create your page with navigation on the left and page contents on the right, but tomorrow you want to put the navigation on the right and contents on the left, you don't need to change the html file to swap the position of the two. All you need to do is to change the entry in CSS file that controls the position and you'll get what you want.

Similarly, if today you want a page with black background and tomorrow you want white, you can just make the changes to css file instead of all html file that you created.

this is just oversimplification of why css is a powerful tool. i'm not good at explaining things.

but anyways, start the web design using css. they're lighter, better, more powerful, although sometimes frustrating ,)

 

[kkeennyy]

perhaps you might also peruse
http://builder.com.com/

 

[stndn]

by the way, i somehow found this site today (can't remember how i got it, though)
click me
quite interesting story they have there ... -)

 

[Kaido]

thanks for all your help, I appreciate the links and info everyone!