Web Do's & Don'ts » Advanced

Use CSS for generating purely presentational content

Siniša — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 11:42:09 +0000

The content property was introduced in CSS 2.1 to add generated content to the :before and :after pseudo-elements. Given that IE 8 also now supports content, we really are getting to the point where can use this CSS feature in our production work. Just be sure to use it only in appropriate circumstances, and be mindful of the accessibility implications that generated content still has.

Use progressive enhancement instead of graceful degradation

Siniša — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 21:08:49 +0000

It can be said that both progressive enhancement and graceful degradation try to do the same thing: keep our products useful to every user. Progressive enhancement is a more sophisticated and at the same time stable way of assuring that but it takes more time and effort. Graceful degradation can be used more easily as a patch for an already existing product; it means harder maintenance later on, but requires less initial work.

Don’t use HTTP based resources on a HTTPS page

Siniša — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 20:35:27 +0000

Internet Explorer interrupts the download and displays a confirmation dialog whenever it detects the use of mixed content on a secure page.

In IE 7 and ealier, this dialog would cause annoyance to users but generally didn’t cause any other significant problems because most users would click on the Yes button and allow non-secure content to be downloaded. However, the wording in the IE 8 version of this dialog has changed and to download the content a user would now have to click on the No button.

Don’t use protocol relative paths to CSS files

Siniša — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:53:03 +0000

Internet Explorer 7 & 8 will download stylesheets twice if the http(s) protocol is missing.

Get familiar with CSS escape sequences

Siniša — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 11:38:43 +0000

Escape sequences are useful because they allow style sheet authors to represent characters that would normally be ignored or interpreted differently by traditional CSS parsing rules.

Learn when to use GET and POST

Siniša — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:54:58 +0000

HTTP GET promotes URI addressability so, designers should adopt it for safe operations such as simple queries. POST is appropriate for other types of applications where a user request has the potential to change the state of the resource (or of related resources).

Use the optgroup element for hierarchical select options

Bojan — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 11:38:39 +0000

Grouping of options in HTML select element should be achieved using optgroup element in combination with label attribute.

Optimize the title tags

Bojan — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 08:20:03 +0000

Optimization of the title tags is a very important item in the SEO to-do list. Keep your title tags concise and consistent while using relevant keywords. Try not to go over 70 characters and create unique titles for each page.

Avoid CSS expressions

Bojan — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 08:04:40 +0000

While JavaScript expressions in CSS have their upsides, they are very resource intensive. That will affect the speed of the website because the expressions are frequently evaluated by the browser, causing the site to be sluggish.

Consider using Diagnostic styling

Siniša — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 09:06:13 +0000

Using Diagnostic Styling can help you reveal specific problems within an HTML document.