Jennifer's Web Design / HTML Blog

If you already know HTML, but you still don't understand forms, this class will help. After 5 days you will know how to use form tags, how to write a mailto or CGI form, how to decorate your forms, and even how to validate them with JavaScript. HTML forms are hard but this class will help make them easy.

• Free HTML Forms Class

Sandy K asks:

"We went live last night despite the fact that her host only gives her 5mg and the movie is 22mg.... The video remains on my domain and I also am redirecting my home site back to her index page.... Would you do this?... We couldn't let our client down, that's how we looked at it."

My Thoughts
Your final sentence says it all for me "We couldn't let our client down". When you're doing design work for someone, you need to remember customer service. In this situation, your customer needed extra space at short notice, and you provided that space for them.

Personally, I don't think customers pay an awful lot of attention to the URLs, so from a reader standpoint, you're fine leaving the video there. Doing the redirect was above and beyond, but certainly acceptable. Hopefully your client is appreciative.

What I wouldn't do is leave the video up there for a long time, and I would get something in writing detailing how long it's going to be on your site if it's going to be there more than a couple of days. Videos take a lot of bandwidth, and even if you're not over your limit right now, if you do this type of thing regularly, you could easily go over your limit. And unless you have some type of agreement with the client, you'll be stuck with the costs of hosting the video or other files you put on your site. There are many Web designers who did something nice for a client and later lived to regret that impulse.

Stories of Web Work Gone Wrong

• How Many Rewrites Will You Do?
• Sub-Contractors are Fun
• Add a Forfeit Clause to Your Contracts
• Additional Pain Included Free
• Have bad things happened to you?

Do you do temporary hosting for projects?
Do you do it all the time? Or only by contract? How would you advise Sandy? Let us know by posting your ideas in the comments here or in the forum.

In your opinion do we still need to use the browser safe color palette? This is a palette of about 216 colors that should display the same on most browsers, monitors, and operating systems. But most people use monitors with millions of colors, so limiting your designs to only 216 colors may seem extreme. On the other hand, there are still a lot of people on older monitors with fewer colors, and non-browser safe colors can look absolutely hideous when the monitors try to guess.

Are the browser safe colors still needed?

Do you design pages with the browser safe palette? Or do you stick with these colors alone? Let us know in the comments.

What is your favorite color palette?

Google Doctype is an encyclopedia of Web development written by Web developers. One of the best things are the test cases for checking browser compatibiilty. Google Doctype

Here are the most recent Web editor reviews submitted by other Web Design / HTML readers. If you love or hate your editor, or just feel ambivalent about it, let us know - write a review of your Web editor. And it doesn't have to be an expensive editor, if you use Notepad or KompoZer and love them, I'd love to know! It only takes a few minutes to write a review, why not write one now?

• HomeSite 5
  
  by JMD
  "A code-centric editor that is as easy or as complicated as you want or need. You need a rudimentary command of HTML, which may be a concern to beginners."
  Homesite Resources
  
  
• Adobe GoLive version 9
  
  by David
  "GoLive 9 continues the tradition of great site management features found in previous versions and improves on it..."
  GoLive Resources
  
  
• Ezgenerator version 3.0.0.36
  
  by Teacee
  "It has features like project wizard, which walks you through the the process of picking your template"
  
  
• Coda version 1.1
  
  by Elle
  "Great application for writing clean, semantic HTML and CSS!"
  Coda Resources
  
  
• Adobe Contribute version CS3
  
  by Kahlilah
  "I should be thrilled to have the run of a very expensive piece of software, but I would honestly prefer using Notepad to this."
  Contribute Resources
  
  
• Adobe Go Live version CS2
  
  by Brian
  "I really like GoLive, and I wish it had more features in dealing with CSS than it does"
  GoLive Resources
  
  

More Web Editor Customer Reviews...
Lots of different editors reviewed by About.com readers just like you.

What is your favorite Web editor? Write a Review

I got a question the other day asking me about copyright. The reader wanted to create a website for job seekers and he was concerned that since there are a lot of other job search websites that he might be violating copyright by putting up another one. I have good news - you can't copyright ideas.

• I want to build a site like ____, would that violate their copyright?

Many novice Web developers ignore the <head> tag because it doesn't seem to do anything. In fact, if you read the specification, it's not explicitly required in valid Web pages. But if you want to have a Web page that includes a title and is visible to search engines, you'll want the <head> tag in your HTML.

• What is the <head> Tag For?

My Thoughts
This site is built completely with CSS and XHTML. There are a few errors in the XHTML that probably crept in after the site was finished, in maintenance, but otherwise the code is well done. There are a few things I'd change about the design to clean it up a little bit.

Read my full review

Other Site Designs

• Brian Cray.com
• CnP Video
• Taipei Fine Arts Museum
• The Fairy Book

Do You Want Your Site Considered for the Web Design Clinic?
There are two ways you can have your site reviewed on Web Design @ About.com. You can use either method, you don't have to use both:

1. Post a request in the Site Review Requests folder in the Web Design forum. This is the best way to get feedback, as you'll get responses from other Web designers in the forum, and selected posts will be chosen for the Web Design Clinic.
2. Submit your site to the Web Design Design Gallery and check the "solicit critiques" checkbox on the form. Pages submitted there will be reviewed by the About.com Guide to Web Design, Jennifer Kyrnin, and may be chosen for the Web Design Clinic.

Hedie asks:

"is it possible to embed an obscure font into a site so that I don't need to create images for section headings?"

My Thoughts
Embedded fonts are really popular with Web designers, and a complete anathema to font designers. There is a way to embed fonts using "Dynamic Fonts" with OpenType or TrueDoc, but they aren't widely supported.

If you have to use a specific font (such as for a logo or other branding element that requires it), then you should use an image of that text. But that isn't very accessible. So you are better off using CSS to define your preferred font family first, followed by alternates in decending preference. The last font on your list should be a generic font, in case a reader has none of your preferred fonts.

And you should include at least one family that is common to Macintosh and Windows computers. I've got lists of these common font families on my site.

• Common Macintosh Fonts
• Common Windows Fonts

As well as a comparison chart so that you can see how different the fonts look.

How do you get fancy fonts on your pages?
Do you rely on CSS only or do you create images of your headlines? Let us know by posting your ideas in the comments here or in the forum.

It's one thing to state that you design fast loading pages, but do you really? The best way to tell is to check the speed of your pages and find out. You can do this with Dreamweaver or with WebSiteOptimization.com. Keeping your pages loading quickly is important - do you walk the walk?

Do you check the download speed of the pages you build?

If you don't check your page sizes, why not? Are there other tools you prefer to use to check page download speed? Let us know in the comments.