Most web pages contain invalid coding, making it difficult for some readers to access them. Optimizing your pages for specific browsers is not a good idea, as this usually involves tricks and workarounds for browser-bugs that change with each new browser version. An increasing number of readers access the web through small devices (like mobile phones or pocket computers), which have limited capabilities, compared to desktop machines, so it is no longer possible to assume that your pages will be displayed on a specific platform.
The hypertext coding of your pages should be valid, since various browsers respond differently to invalid coding. But strict adherence to the standards is not in itself sufficient to guarantee accessibility, as many wide-spread browsers do not fully support the official HTML specifications. If you want your pages to be accessible by everyone, it is only possible to use a subset of HTML that is guaranteed compatible with all browsers.
XHTML Basic is such a subset. Although it is simple enough to be displayed on small devices, it has also sufficient power to permit interesting web page design. The XHTML Basic 1.0 technical recommendation was published in december 2000, as the most restrictive language for coding web-pages to date, since it includes only a few necessary elements, that the major industrial actors could agree upon.
If you are just beginning from scratch, XHTML Basic is easy, since there are much fewer elements to learn. On the other hand, it is a bit difficult to convert existing web pages that are coded in old HTML, because it will be necessary to remove a lot of deprecated elements. This site is exclusively coded in valid XHTML Basic, and we have also the capacity to help you validate your web pages.
XHTML is an XML language, and is therefore compatible with the wide range of XML programs already available: browsers, text editors, databases, graph plotters, and more... XHTML version 1.0 is also compatible with every old browser, so it is the optimal platform if you want both forwards and backwards compatibility. XHTML is not very different from HTML, but its syntax is cleaner, more standardized, and more strict. Therefore, it is easier to compress, so the pages download faster.
It is also easier to analyze the contents of a web page coded in XHTML, so the search engines' robots have a better chance of deducing what the page is about. This can often lead to higher rankings in search engine results, when your pages have relevant and original substance. Thus, by improving your XHTML coding, it is possible to increase the odds that your pages can appear among the search engines' top results.
Since 1999, MegaDoc has generated well over 100.000 valid XHTML-pages. To this purpose, it was necessary to produce original text generation software from scratch. The W3C Validator finds no error on this page (or any other page on this site). Our XHTML generator is not ready for distribution, but it is used internally to generate valid web pages for MegaDoc's clients.
During the last years, XHTML has gained considerable momentum. It is only the beginning of a complete web make-over: very soon HTML will be completely outdated, and replaced by the more powerful and versatile XHTML. In January 2001, the World Wide Web Consortium announced the merging of its activities related to alternative computer platforms for Internet access (mobile telephones, web television) into one single Device Independence Activity. Of course, this effort was chartered right from the start to "watch carefully" the XHTML and CSS trends, as these are acknowledged to be "very important to realize both scalability and interoperability with various kinds of devices".
If you are concerned about the interoperability with small devices, an important point to bear in mind is that "frames" simply cannot fit into the dimensions of a small screen. By the same account, specificying fonts or absolute positioning of layout elements can easily break the design of a page, when displayed on alternative platforms.
The main advantage of CSS is that it gives you the possibility to control the appearance of all pages on your site from a single file. This means that it is possible to change the graphical appearance of a whole site, by changing a few lines in one CSS file. As a side-benefit, taking the formatting codes out of the individual pages and putting them in a central place makes the pages slimmer, resulting in faster downloads.
When pages load slowly, the average reader will dump the whole site. Reducing the load time of your pages greatly increases the chances that an impatient reader grants you another click. This often involves cutting down on unnecessary images. The usual authoring tools tend to fill up pages with a lot of graphics that only serve for formatting, and should rather be replaced by adequate style directives.
Another advantage of stylesheets is that they allow the specification of alternative layouts, to match the diverging capabilities of different computer platforms. This ability will soon become of foremost importance, as the diversity of web-enabled devices increases.
The optimal encoding for web pages is a subset of XHTML 1.0, guaranteed to work with all existing browsers. Preferrably, you should use XHTML Basic.
Used together with stylesheets, valid XHTML pages will also fit the capabilities of an emerging breed of alternative web-devices.
If you want to improve some aspect of your web-site, you can contact info@megadoc.net for a review of your pages at a reasonable price. We can point out the formal weaknesses of your existing design, suggest improvements, and regenerate the whole site.