Modern HTML crash course?

Zeon

So, i spent the last 6 years or so working in strictly HTML 3.2 standards (SEC filings). Im good at that and can code pretty much anything from scratch to those standards. However, i just got a new job dealing with online marketing, and obviously theyre using modern standard HTML 4.0 and all the fun stuff that comes along with that (nested tables, CSS, etc). I can understand most of it but im not as comfortable with it as id like to be. I dont need to code things from scratch this time around, i just need to be able to troubleshoot the code. Is there a site or something where i can go to get a quick crash course in modern HTML? I mean, idealy there would be a site that goes over all the shit available in 4.0 that wasnt in 3.2, but im not really expecting that... just a refresher or something would be good enough.

bigbh

http://www.w3schools.com/ has a lot of good resources.

Delzhand

Zeon wrote: »

all the fun stuff that comes along with that (nested tables, CSS, etc)

If you're looking to upgrade your skills, use this as an opportunity to forget about using tables for layout. Tables are good for one thing only in modern CSS - actual tables of data. Spreadsheet type stuff. If you're positioning elements, you ought to be using pure CSS to do it.

The vagaries of floats, relative, and absolute positioning can be a bit tricky to wrap your head around, and have driven many an uncommitted developer/designer back to tables. I found this to be helpful:

http://www.barelyfitz.com/screencast/html-training/css/positioning/

Edit: Also, learn the difference between block and inline elements (http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/html-css/css-block-and-inline/). It will save you a lot of time wondering why setting width on a span isn't working.

Dehumanized

bigbh wrote: »

http://www.w3schools.com/ has a lot of good resources.

Their site isn't very good. It's got loads of misinformation and badly written markup in their examples. I'd recommend some of these resources instead:

http://htmldog.com/ <-- General HTML/CSS resource. Good tutorials here.

http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/1-introduction-to-the-web-standards-cur/#toc <-- Opera's reference on how to develop for web standards.

http://code.google.com/edu/submissions/html-css-javascript/ <-- Google's reference on HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Lots of good video tutorials here by Google's own web developers.

http://www.w3.org/wiki/HTML <-- The actual wiki for the w3 consortium. Includes tutorials and a full reference of all HTML elements here.

Echo

I'd just like to state that HTML 4 came in 1997.

And yeah, tables are for displaying tabular data.

Really, if you know 3.2 that well, the big parts are "don't make tags overlap, and all tags must have a closing tag"

Zeon

Echo wrote: »

I'd just like to state that HTML 4 came in 1997.

And yeah, tables are for displaying tabular data.

Really, if you know 3.2 that well, the big parts are "don't make tags overlap, and all tags must have a closing tag"

Tell that to the SEC? I mean, i had basic HTML skills before i started that job, but I learned the ins and outs while on that job, so everything i learned was 3.2. I guess the SEC standarized on 3.2 because EDGAR Phase 2 was conceptualized around 1995 i think, so they would have had to have the basis nailed down. Plus the SEC targets ALL browsers, even text based browsers, so 3.2 is probably a good basis.

I dont really have a choice in how the HTML is designed, unless its not working then i can make suggestions. But most of what ill be working with is just troubleshooting formatting issues with clients HTML (this isnt my whole job, just a subsection of it). You had relatives and floats and absolutes in 3.2 so i get that stuff, mainly what im having issues with is CSS (i understand the idea, we also used a code based typesetting system at my old job which had style sheets, and user defined tags, so the principle im good on, using it is the problem) and the extra tags we didnt have in HTML 3.2 (background being able to have images is a big one, as are borders which seems like the syntax has changed for some of the options? or maybe its just been expanded) and stuff like adding scripts.

I'll check out that W3 page, ive used it a couple times for looking up tags but i wasnt aware they had indepth "manuals" for lack of a better word.