Spicy News @ Express Speed.

Several places, we told the developers to the basic and all requirement of upcoming theme meyshan, which is intent to one of the best theme ever produced for Wordpress. Some of following question answer, we answered through odesk, rent a coder, guru.com, and at freelancer.com. The idea of publishing here, it, is to be useful for others, and for our own developers to refer back to.

What are web standards?

The adherence to standards (HTML, XHTML, XML, CSS, XSLT, DOM, MathML, SVG etc) and the pursuit of best practices (valid code, accessible code, semantically correct code, search-engine-friendly etc).

What is considered a non-standards approach to web development?

Non-standards Website development is an extension of the printed media – designed to make sites look pixel-perfect in mainstream browsers. Common characteristics include:

• Table-based layouts
• Presentation within the content (font tags)
• Invalid code
• Inaccessible code
• Semantically incorrect code

What does it mean to develop a site with standards in mind?

Web Standards are about accepting the web as a broad communication tool that can be accessed by a wide variety of users and a variety of devices. Common characteristics include:

• Semantically correct markup
• Valid code
• Accessible code (for humans and devices)
• Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to separate content from presentation

In other words, a site built to web standards should be lean, clean, CSS-based, accessible, usable and search engine friendly.

How does the user of a Website benefit from Web Standards?

• Files will download faster (less code, no overall tables, valid code)
• Content is accessible to wider range of users (normal users, blind users, vision impaired users, dislexic users, motor skill impaired users etc)
• Content is accessible to wider range of devices (screen readers, browsers, text based browsers, hand helds, search robots, printers, fridges etc)
• Allows users to customize site appearance (style switchers)
• Provides print friendly versions for all pages

How does the owner of a website benefit?

• Easier to maintain (less code, modular code)
• Cheaper hosting costs (less code)
• Better search engine ranking
• Content can be restyled easily without changing code
• Provides users with customization
• Provides print versions without replicating content
• Improves accessibility (essential for Government clients)
• Easier to code (modular code)
• Less device dependent coding (stable across wider variety of devices)
• Provides a competitive edge as more of the world moves to using Web Standards.

What is the downside to web standards?

• Steep learning curve
• Browser compatibility issues
• Some layouts can be achieved much more easily using tables than CSS. (example: web forms)

What are the upsides to standards?

• visitors benefit (faster download, accessible to wider range of users and devices)
• clients and organizations benefit (easier to maintain, cheaper hosting costs, better search engine ranking, improved accessibility)
• developers benefit (easier to code, easier to maintain, provides a competitive edge)

How do I start using standards?

Web Standards are not a black and white issue. The move from traditional to Web Standards based development takes time and practice. Rather than jump in and quickly becoming frustrated, set achievable goals and gradually move towards Web Standards. For example:

Basic changes

• Add a correct doctype to all pages
• Add alt text to all images
• Add meaningful page titles

Intermediate changes

• valid code
• semantically correct code
• replacing inline font tags and inline colour with CSS
• accessible forms, data tables and skip menus

Advanced changes

• Basic positioning with CSS (padding, margins etc) while using overall table for layout
• full positioning with CSS – no tables for layout

conclusion

The theme must be 100% XHTML, CSS validator theme, with heavy ajax enhancement for tapped browsing, ajax live search, ajax comment using yahoo UI, using dojo tool kit for fisheye style menu, etc.