Thursday, August 28, 2008

Best Practices

Sunday, March 30, 2003, 16:55
This news item was posted in Tips and Tricks category and has 0 Comments so far.

There are some things that you just really need to do routinely when
you build a web page. Simple, but easily overlooked.

  • Use “alt” with your images. Say What? if you have
    ever created a web page by coding the bare-metal html, you probably
    already know this. If not, hang on. When you insert an image into
    a web document you generally have some html that looks like:
    <img src=”mypicture.gif”>
    Vincentian FamilyThis just says - “I’m an image [img] and my name is “mypicture.gif”
    [src].” Now, have you ever seen those pictures where you roll
    the mouse over and suddenly a little box pops up that shows the name
    or an explanation? That is the result of the “alt”. So now
    the image tag looks like:
    <img src=”mypicture.gif” alt=”mypicture”/>
    Vincentian Family

    Roll your mouse over this copy of the image and see the little box pop up. If you have users with vision problems who use screen readers, this is how they know what the graphic/picture is.

    If you use an html editor, such as Dreamweaver or Frontpage, you
    can find a place to put the “alt” text when you insert
    or modify the image. Do it!

  • Put a Title in your page. Again, easy but easily overlooked.
    The <title> tag is in the top part (the <head>) of your
    html document. When you look at a page on the web using Explorer,
    or Netscape or some other browser, there is a title bar at the very
    top of the browser window. Ever wonder how the titles get into that
    bar? It’s from the <title> tag. Also makes your page come up
    better in search engines. In most html editors you have a place to set up or modify your page
    properties. The Title field in this space is the one I’m talking about.
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