MAKING PAGES COMPATIBLE
WITH PC BROWSERS
TIPS FOR MSNTV USERS:
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For a complete list of HTML tag's, Interactive Fun, and other things, Please visit:
http://www.w3schools.com/html/



PROPER CODING:

To bring your coding up to the present
"HTML 4.01 Transitional" standards:

  1. The folks at the World Wide Web Consortium (w3c) recommend always putting this tag first, even before the <html> tag:

    <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">

    You may want to keep the 3.2 (earlier version) for a while, until you have upgraded each page.
    This tag informs VALIDATORS how to evaluate the page. If you are not going to have your page validated, then don't use this tag and save some bytes.


  2. However, the DOCTYPE tag is not used by browsers. If you want BROWSERS to know which language, e.g. English, to use to display the page, use this version of the HTML tag: <html lang="en">


  3. Always nest tags properly:

    Correct: <font size="4"><b>Text here.</b></font>

    Incorrect: <font size="4"><b>Text here.</font></b>


  4. Always use lower case letters instead of caps.
    Computer browsers will become much stricter about this than MSNTV's browser.

    Correct: <font size="4"><b>Text here.</b><font>

    Incorrect: <FONT size="4"><B>Text here.</B></FONT>


  5. Always use quotes around all values (that which follows the equals sign):

    <font size="4" color="white">

    <body bgcolor="black" text="yellow" link="blue"
    vlink="orange" fontsize="small">



TAGS FOR THE HEAD:

Meta tags so computer browsers don't cache older versions of a page.
Use both of these tags:

<meta http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache">
<meta http-equiv="Expires" content="Tue, 01 Jan 1980 1:00:00 gmt">

The first is for older browsers, the 2nd for newer ones.


TAGS FOR THE BODY:

TABLES:

  1. Width: always specify width in pixels, not percents.


  2. If you want the page to look the same on computers as it does for MSNTV:

    a) Use width="544" border="0"
    and put the whole page within this table;

    b) Center the table, using

    <div align="center"> </div>


  3. To make hyperlinks within a table:

    Do not use either the table tag or the td tag to make the hyperlink.

    Put the hyperlink inside the td tag:

    <table> <td> <font color="black"> <a href="url of page">
    Page or Image Name</a> </font> </td> </table>


  4. Empty td tags collapse with some computer browsers and also sometimes with 2.7 and 2.8 MSNTV updates.

    Use the following to fill the td:

    <td color=??>& nbsp;</td>

    Be sure to delete the space between the & and the nbsp;.
    This code will put a "space" (content) inside the td.


  5. Internet Explorer and perhaps Netscape do not show color for table borders, like the MSNTV browser does. So add a bordercolor attribute to the table tag:

    <table bgcolor="#ccccff" border="5" bordercolor="#ccccff">



CENTERING TAGS:

For large items on page:

  1. Best: <div align="center"> </div>

    Older: <center> </center>


  2. For images and text in a table cell:

    a) Horizontal alignment:

    align="center" or "right"

    Do not use align="left" as this is the default.

    b) Vertical alignment:

    valign="top" or "bottom" (default is middle)

    NOTE: Do not use valign="center" - This does not work for computer browsers.



MSNTV BUG WARNING:

To put a bug warning on a page that computers will not see,
use the following tags right after the body tag:

<noframes> put your warning here </noframes>



COMMENT TAGS:

Use proper comment tag form instead of just the brackets surrounding numerals, etc,
like MSNTV users sometimes do:

Correct: <!-- comment here -->

Incorrect: <5>


Netscape will not load the page beyond an incorrect comment tag,
or any incorrect tag, for that matter!.

Internet Explorer will show the incorrect tag as text.

Also, if comment tags are used near any SSI tags, chances are that the MSNTV browser will confuse the SSI tags with a regular comment tag. Thus the content that was supposed to be present (added by the SSI tag) will NOT show up.


IMAGE TAGS:

  1. Always use the proper file extension for an image: jpg, gif, etc - or many computer users won't be able to see the image at all.


  2. In the tag always include height and width of the image in pixels.This allows browsers to reserve space for the image while the rest of the text loads, in case the image loads slowly.


  3. Always add a border attribute.
    Make border="0" if you do not want computer browsers to show a default border around the image.


  4. Always add alt="description" to image tag. Make the description short.


  5. Always add a line break after an image, even though the image is full screen width for MSNTV (544 pixels).

    Because most computer users have their screens set for 800 pixels width or wider.

    Example image tag:

    <img src="url of image" height=(pixels)
    width=(pixels) border="0" alt="Short Description of Image">



SWF FILES:

These special image files require special treatment so computer browsers see them properly:

  1. Use embed src (not img src) tags for swf files.


  2. Use the correct .swf or whatever extension.

    Do not use .gif, which MSNTV allows, but computer browsers do not allow.


  3. Looping #1: Do not use the attribute loop="false" or these fies will not loop for either webbie or pcs. (Unless you don't want it to loop.)


  4. Looping #2: Also, don't use swf files as image links, because they will not loop, either.


*NOTE*: Some SWF files are designed NOT to loop.


PROPER USE OF SOUND TAGS:

  1. Use both sound tags if computer viewers will see page. Either works for MSNTV:


    <noembed><bgsound src="midi-url" loop=2></noembed>
    <embed src="midi-url" autostart="true" hidden="true" loop="2"></embed>


  2. Loop must be expressed as whole numbers more than 1 for computer browsers.

    Do not use -1 (minus 1).


  3. NOTE: The embed tag must be closed. Otherwise some computer browsers will "hear" two songs slightly out of synch with each other.

    The bgsound tag is played by older versions of Internet Explorer. However, the newer versions play both tags. Some day we'll have to write only the embed sound tag.


  4. If you want to put more than one song on a page so viewers can click on them, leave the sound tags off.

    Use <a href="url-of-song">Name of Song</a> for each song.



REDIRECT CODES:

Several don't work for MSNTV. Probably it's best to use a clickable new url, with a message such as:

This page has moved! Please click on the following url:

<a href="url of new page">Complete URL of New Page or Page Name<a>


TEXTAREA BOXES:

  1. With computer browsers, text boxes are always "default" grey with black text. (The default is different for each user and his/her settings.) The boxes can be resized.


  2. With MSNTV, you can make them different colors.

    Example Sizes: Width - 10 cols equals 87 pixels. Multiply accordingly.

    Use 60 cols for a box of 522 pixels wide and center it.


PC & WEBTV PAGE TRANSITIONS:

Pc's can see certain page transitions. For a page that explains which one's that can and can not be seen, please visit "Tom357Mag's" page


COMPUTERS CAN NOT "SEE":

  • Block Spacers

  • X or Y Speed

  • "Fixed" Backgrounds

  • MSNTV's Internal "Rom border buttons"

  • Page Logos (in body tag)

  • "nohighlight" Attribute in Hyperlink Tags

  • Some types of Javascripts and DHTML, such as JS used for scopes.

  • MSNTV can not "see" many types of Javascripts and DHTML that computer browsers can.



FLO: CONTENT
TA: PAGE LAYOUT AND EDITING
TOM: TECHNICAL ADVICE
SALLY: RESEARCH AND ENCOURAGEMENT

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