Todd Taylor's Blog - Friday, October 28, 2005

Building ASP.NET 2.0 Web Sites Using Web Standards

Friday, October 28, 2005 7:49:44 PM UTC :: Filed Under ASP.NET

I recently spent a considerable amount of time converting a client site from not following any particular standard to using the XHTML 1.0 Transitional standard. This was a difficult task since the site was created with VisualStudio.NET 2003 which doesn’t care much about standards! As a result, I spent most of my time designing pages in Macromedia Dreamweaver MX and doing the code in VS.NET (Can you say, “pain-in-the-butt”?)

In converting this site to XHTML, I learned a lot about CSS and the benefits of separating HTML from styles… so much that I have no real desire to go back to the old sloppy way of coding.
With the release of VisualStudio.NET 2005, one of the great features of this new tool is that it creates XHTML 1.0 Transitional code by default! This doesn’t necessarily mean that I can through Dreamweaver out the window, but at least I can open my HTML and ASPX pages up in VS.NET and know it isn’t going to re-write and mangle my code.

The following article from the Microsoft ASP.NET Developer Center is very helpful in explaining the new features of VS.NET 2005 in regards to web standards:

Building ASP.NET 2.0 Web Sites Using Web Standards

If XHTML Transitional isn't good enough and XHTML Strinct is preferred... no problem! Add the following in your project's web.config file:

Note that in addition to changing the runtime behavior to be strict, you can also then change the validation drop-down in the VS toolbar to validate html/javascript against XHTML strict as well.

Comments [0]

Defining Custom Item Templates in Web Projects with VS 2005

Friday, October 28, 2005 7:35:34 PM UTC :: Filed Under ASP.NET

The more articles I read about VisualStudio.NET 2005, the more excited I get! This article from Scott Guthrie explains how to use the new Custom Item Template feature in VS.NET 2005 which will help eliminate the need to waste time “setting-up” a newly created page ASPX page:

Defining Custom Item Templates in Web Projects with VS 2005

A helpful MSDN article relating to the templates:

MSDN: Visual Studio Template Reference

Comments [0]

Taking an ASP.NET 2.0 Web Site Offline With App_Offline.htm

Friday, October 28, 2005 6:56:15 PM UTC :: Filed Under ASP.NET

From Scott Guthrie's blog:

Basically, if you place a file with this name in the root of a web application directory, ASP.NET 2.0 will shut-down the application, unload the application domain from the server, and stop processing any new incoming requests for that application.  ASP.NET will also then respond to all requests for dynamic pages in the application by sending back the content of the app offline.htm file (for example: you might want to have a “site under construction” or “down for maintenance” message). 
This provides a convenient way to take down your application while you are making big changes or copying in lots of new page functionality (and you want to avoid the annoying problem of people hitting and activating your site in the middle of a content update).  It can also be a useful way to immediately unlock and unload a SQL Express or Access database whose .mdf or .mdb data files are residing in the /app data directory.
Once you remove the app offline.htm file, the next request into the application will cause ASP.NET to load the application and app-domain again, and life will continue along as normal.

Comments [0]

Managing Files in Visual Studio 2005 Web Projects

Friday, October 28, 2005 6:03:34 PM UTC :: Filed Under ASP.NET

I’m not sure if it’s a sign of getting old or just my personality type, but I like things to be organized… and that includes the files in my web projects. Lucky for me, ASP.NET Grand-Pubba Scott Guthrie has written a nice article demonstrating ways to clean-up and organize your web projects in VisualStudio.NET 2005:

Some Techniques for Better Managing Files in Visual Studio 2005 Web Projects

Comments [0]

How to Properly Utilize Image ALT Tags

Tuesday, September 20, 2005 5:23:18 PM UTC :: Filed Under Web Design

I’ve been spending a lot of time recently trying to make sure that any web sites I produce standards compliant in addition to being functional and ‘pretty.’ I’ve decide that defining all my web site pages as XHTML Transitional is what I am striving for, and this means (among other things) that all my images must have ALT tags defined.

That seems easy enough, right? An ALT tag is just a description of the image, right? Well… maybe.

Image if you were blind and all of your image ALT tags were converted to text and read to you as part of your web site’s content. For me, that is a scary thought as most of my ALT tags would be pretty meaningless when used in conjunction with my page content.

To help me better understand with the appropriate use of the ALT tag is, I found this article very insightful:

Use of ALT Text in IMGs

For the most part, it would appear as though I should leave many of my ALT tags empty (ALT=””) because there is no sense in describing images that are just there for creating the look and feel of the site.

Comments [0]

Search Engine Optimization vs. Exaggeration vs. Deception

Tuesday, September 20, 2005 1:50:52 PM UTC :: Filed Under Web Design

“So Mr. Taylor, how can we help our customer reach #1 on all the search engines?” Questions like this seem to arise a couple times a year when a customer of the company I work for notices that his or her site is hard to find in the major search engines. The average person thinks there is some magic pill that will get their site to #1 and keep it there without actually spending time or money on their site. WRONG.

I learned many years ago by an ex-Yahoo! Asia employee that the best way to reach #1 in the search engines is simple: Create quality content. Don’t create ‘door-way pages’, don’t liter your pages with keywords, don’t spend time using META tags that don’t accurately reflect what your site actually contains… the search engines will know better (if not today, they will tomorrow.)

Rather than ramble-on, I found this excellent post on James Archer’s blog describing exactly what I’ve been trying to tell people for years:

Ethical Search Engine Optimization

So stop spending your time, money, and effort on applications like Web Position Gold and focus on quality content!

Comments [0]

Navigation

On this page....