I have a gripe to make.

[Grumble]

Just to say whoever coded the HTML for vb 2.0 deserves a good solid smack for creating such a dementedly messy beast of a pile.


Other that having to re-write practically every other template im perfectly happy however. Well Done there veebee people. :)

[PeF]

Just to say whoever coded the HTML for vb 2.0 deserves a good solid smack for creating such a dementedly messy beast of a pile.


I don't think so but you may feel it like this.

[Wayne Luke]

Actually the HTML code is pretty messy and it doesn't comply with standards.

It has:

Missing Attirbutes.
Mixture or upper and lowercase tags (all tags should be lowercase).
Inconsistant quoting.
Inconsitant use of the vB replacement variables.
Unclosed tags.
This list itself would kill an XHTML browser because the LI tag should be closed.
Overuse of the font tag which is deprecated as of HTML 4.0.
Lot of other minor things.

[RobAC]

I have to agree with wluke. The HTML coding is a mess and I've been planning on going through all of it and cleaning it up once the final production version is released. I'm hoping that in some small way, cleaning up the code, will also help increase the speed.

Other than that , you guys are doing an awesome job! :)

[Mas*Mind]

I allready mentioned this and I agree 100%

VB is an outstanding product, but the way the html is coded is purely unprofessional and not how such a big product deserves.

All tags should be:

lowercase
attributes in quotes
properly closed
closed in the right order: ie: <b><i>bla</b></i> has to be: <b><i>bla</i></b>
All images need the alt="" text
Nicely formatted (not required, but helps alot to read it)

Try validating your pages at w3c.org (http://validator.w3.org/)

A nice tool is tidy (http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett/tidy/) which automaticly corrects errors and formats your code.

Also it lacks support for borders in Netscape, I got it working on my forum just by coding tables like this:

<table width="650" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" bgcolor="#000000">
<tr>
<td width="650">
<table cellpadding="4" cellspacing="1" border="0" width="650">
<tr>
<td>blabla</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>blabla</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

[Mike Sullivan]

It's been mentioned many times that the HTML will go through a full clean up before the final version is released.

[RobAC]

If you guys need some help, let me know.

[JamesUS]

It certainly is necessary.

Perhaps making it XHTML 5 compliant would be a good idea? Not that hard to implement if the HTML is already going through a cleanup but ensures compatibility with all future browsers. It also works in all current browsers so there is no reason not to use it :)

[RobAC]

I have to agree. I've been slowly going through the code of my own site and updating it to XHTML standards. It's not perfect and I still have a lot left to do, but I'm slowly getting there.

What confuses me a little is Ed's comments regarding cleaning up the code for final production release.

This seems odd to me that code cleanup would be done then and not during the beta testing phase. The html coding is found in all of the templates, so I would have to ask: does this mean that we're going to be getting all new templates with the final production version and expected to copy over the templates that we have from previous beta versions??

If that's the case, then is it safe to assume that any coding changes we've made to any of the templates in order to customize the look and feel of our Forums is going to be erased yet again?

[Mike Sullivan]

The templates are functional now, albeit not clean. If you wish to use the cleaned up versions, then yes -- you'll have to make the changes. If not, then you can use what you have now. Along with bugs, this is a downside of using the beta.

[RobAC]

I was afraid that would be the answer. :(

[JJR512]

"Overuse of the font tag which is deprecated as of HTML 4.0."

Umm, what does this mean? I use the font tag in my other pages, too, from time to time (like making one word another color or something).

[Kier]

Originally posted by JJR512
"Overuse of the font tag which is deprecated as of HTML 4.0."

Umm, what does this mean? I use the font tag in my other pages, too, from time to time (like making one word another color or something). The font tag has been deprecated in favour of CSS (cascading stylesheets). CSS is a great system, but unfortunately different browsers have different levels of support for it. Netscape 4 in particular has atrocious CSS support, and for that reason it's unwise to rely completely on CSS for formatting at present.

[Sharg]

The templates are functional now, albeit not clean. If you wish to use the cleaned up versions, then yes -- you'll have to make the changes. If not, then you can use what you have now. Along with bugs, this is a downside of using the beta.

Great.
Since my template are ALL customized, and since I use two template set, that is over 650 template I will have to clean up.

[mjames]

Let's just hope this is all straightened out in time for the full release of 2.0...