Hi

I'm working on my first actual website. I've used HTML before, but never in a real project. I'm more into C++ and Python actually.
I wonder if someone could review my website, specifically under browsers other than Firefox 2. I have already tested it on Firefox, and the website works and looks fine.
Using Internet Explorer, I can't get the bookmark function to work, and the lay-out is not perfect (hovering over links in the navigation bar, the place of the links in the navigation bar...). I have no idea how to change this.
Can I tidy up my code some more, I mean, migrating lay-out tags to stylesheets, to make it compliant to XHTML 1.1. I should also change the extension of my files to .xhtml, but when I do that, the lay-out changes radically and I have no idea why. Also, when I validate using the W3C validator, it says my doctype needs to be changed, but even when I change it, the warning remains.

Thanks
Michiel

P.S.: sorry for my bad English, I'm from Belgium.

You simply forgot to post the url of the site to review

Just out of curiosity, why are you using XHTML?

Well, I knew I forgot something . http://users.skynet.be/lp2
I'm using XHTML to keep the whole clean. I like a well-designed language, and in my opinion XHTML is designed in a better way.

I recommend that you start by fixing the XHTML errors reported by our online validator.

Why do you think my normal font size is 31% too large? Leave the font for body text at 100%, make headings and the like larger, and make legalese and similar fine print smaller. But leave the main font for body text alone.

The fixed-width design doesn't adapt very well to different size browser windows.

A hit counter? A "bookmark this site" link?

In what way do you think XHTML is cleaner or better-designed than plain HTML?

Okay, I'll fix those mistakes next thing tomorrow, and try to change the stylesheet.

About the hit counter and the bookmark link, do you mean it is unprofessional? I must say I do not mean to make a professional website, but only to report about my hobbies, show some pictures, some articles...

Well, why I like XHTML better: it's stricter, demanding lowercase tags, ending tags --> well-formed documents --> easier to read by browsers. It undoes all the non-standard tags, added to HTML. And it suggests the use of stylesheets instead of <font>, <b>... XHTML evolves to what HTML was originally meant to do, to define content instead of form.

Why are you asking actually?

Pretty much.

But is XHTML's strictness useful or meaningful in any way? Or is it just strictness for strictness sake?

You can use lowercase tags in HTML. You can include optional ending tags in HTML (my authoring system does this automatically).

The issue of "non-standard tags" (by which I assume you mean presentational markup, since non-standard tags aren't in either the HTML specs or the XHTML specs) is a matter of using Transitional or Strict. XHTML is no different from HTML in this regard. Both HTML and XHTML encourage the use of CSS for presentation.

A lot of people seem to be using XHTML because it's the cool thing to do, because it's "newer" than HTML. But for most people, there aren't any real advantages, and there are some disadvantages. See also Sending XHTML as text/html Considered Harmful and No to XHTML.

And yes, I realize that this forum software uses XHTML. In our case, the clear advantage was that the best forum software (or perhaps, the least bad forum software) we found used XHTML, and we didn't have time to convert it to HTML. Fixing the validation errors and assorted accessibility/usability issues was hard enough.

I don't even see a link to bookmark the site. I believe my Safari/Mac doesn't even execute any of the javascript as none of the "if" statements apply.

Okay, I may have read only one side of the story online . But I guess it won't make that much of a difference for a hobbyist's website. I wanted to use it because I saw recommendations all over the place, and because it is newer. Like on the W3C website.

Well, I guess I'll remove the bookmark link. It is unnecessary because the browser can do the same thing. And if it doesn't work for most browsers, it really has no use. But I think I'll keep the counter. Maybe I'll make it invisible or something.

I'm not sure if Skynet (Belgacom) provides statistics for their users. But if they do, you should have full sight on how many visit which page, and much more than that.

No, Skynet doesn't. But it does have a page with a summary of used counters and their statistics. So I guess I'll make the counter invisible, so I can still see how many people visited the website.