Lesson 3D 10 Step HTML Diet

Use fewer files and directories
- Every file is a separate call to the server.
- Instead of using many small images you might consider
  using an imagemap.
- Decrease the number of directory structure levels.
Limit your spacing
- While we know that spaces in your code, as a rule, should
  not effect the layout, it does effect how it's parsed.
  Decrease or eliminate the spaces between your lines of code.
Use relative addressing instead of absolute addressing.
- instead of using href=http://www.mydomain.com/images/pic1.jpg
 use href="../images/pic1.jpg"
- to really speed things up use the <base>tag in the
 <head>like this:
 
 <base href=http://www.mydomain.com>
 
 then use relative addressing in the rest of the page.
Use HTML to control spacing when possible
Eliminate repetitive tags
- This is something you'll often find in pages created with
 point and click web applications (WYSIWYG HTML editors) For
 example:
 
 Hello World Welcome
 to my web page.
 
 In this example the first and the second 
 could be eliminated.
Eliminate attributes with default values
- For example, you don't need to use these:
 
 <body text="black">
 
 <div align="left">
Use short file names and directories
- Instead of href="../imagefiles/companylogos/advertisements.html
  
  try href="../imgs/logos/ads.html
Use Cascading Style Sheets
- Use CSS to position your content. It requires less code
  and you have more accurate control over layout.
Beware of WYSIWYG code trash
- Many web authoring apps add their own proprietary code.
 FrontPage is notorious for this. Beware!!
- Clean up your META tag. You don't need the following info
 in your METAs:
 
 <META NAME="generator" content="Microsoft FrontPage 4.0">
 
 <META NAME="ProgId" CONTENT="FrontPage.Editor.Document">
Table Savvy
- Avoid nesting tables. Rather than creating complex table
  layouts, use the attributes rowspan and colspan to control
  content layout.
- If you can, fill empty table data cells with   This
  weighs less than a spacer.gif.
- Tables take time. Even if you need to use a table for some
  of your content, the entire page doesn't have to be in a
  table.

There you have it. Follow the HTML Diet and your web pages will be
looking and feeling healthier immediately!!!

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