| Good HTML Syntax and Style |
When the value of an attribute is not a number, put it between quotes, otherwise don't. As soon as it contains a non-numeric character, like "%" or "#", it's not a number.
Example: <IMG src="example.gif" width=100 height=60>
This doesn't only look better, it avoids problems with certain applications too.
Never insert a "hard return" in the middle of a tag, unless you really need to.
In some browsers, a return in your source file counts as a space in the HTML file. In others, it is ignored. So if you need to have two images next to each other with absolutely no space between them, you must put the two IMG tags right next to each other with nothing between them.
Make sure that every HTML document starts with "<HTML>" and ends with "</HTML>". If it doesn't, it simply is not a HTML document. Don't put anything before the <HTML> tag, except an optional !DOCTYPE tag. Also, a decent HTML document should always contain a header with a title in it, and a body.
Never use the characters ">" or "<" directly in your text if they are not used as start or end of a tag. Always convert them to ">" and "<" respectively!
Never use any non-standard ASCII characters, like ü, é, ..., in object names, style definitions, JavaScript function names, ...
Keep in mind that most server systems are case sensitive for URLs. However, you must never give two files names which only differ in the case of certain characters. Luckily, in Mac OS and Windows this is impossible anyway.
Use "Web-savvy" colors as much as possible. These are colors with only 00,33,66,99,CC,FF in their color code, and are the only colors which are displayed correctly when the viewer's monitor is set to 256 colors.
Although it is not required by HTML standards, always use ending tags in tables for TR, TD and TH elements! This avoids problems in certain browsers.
When designing your page, don't rely on fixed values for table and frame dimensions only. When your lay-out is ready, resize the browser window to all possible sizes to see if the page's lay-out doesn't get screwed up!
You can combine a link with a named object in one tag, like "<A name="section3" href="#top">"... However, HTML TagWriter will not recognize a named object if there is something between "<A " and "name=...", e.g. if you swap the "name" and "href" attributes in the previous example. If it doesn't slow down things severely, I'll fix this in a following version.
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