Amazing tool

[winwintoo]

This is for all of you that are busy learning HTML etc, you will know the experience : write a bit of code, jump to the browser to try it out, maybe jump to the other browser(s) if you feel like it and try it out there (or don't and then find out later - when it's too late, that your code will only work on one browser )

Well, I came across this little utility that makes it all easier.

http://www.w3schools.com/html/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_script

Just type your bit of code into the space provided and hit the button and you immediately see the result of your effort. If you have the utility running in all your browsers, it's a simple matter of copying and pasting the code from one to the other.

Probably not useful for intense coding, but to check out the effect of style changes etc, I expect it to be a real time saver.

Take care, Margaret

[jeaniesa]

Cool Margaret! Being one of those in the process of writing HTML and JavaScript, I really appreciate this!

Jeanie

[CJ Swartz]

Cool! Sure beats uploading my new page, then refreshing the webpage to see how it looks, then editing, and doing it all over again!

[winwintoo]

CJ - are you uploading your page to the server just to check how it looks??

Margaret

[CJ Swartz]

CJ - are you uploading your page to the server just to check how it looks??

I could use an editor with a preview, (I have a trial version of CoffeeCup) but I'm usually just adding some text changes to a website that I help with, and just key in the text on my notepad and upload - then review online. I often find that I need to change the formatting, and so I have to make the changes and upload again. I should just use an editor with preview, but it always seems to be just a simple little update, so I don't bother.

The webpage you found looks even easier to use than CoffeeCup -- since I'm still not good at coding HTML, I like easy!

[winwintoo]

Hi CJ, did you know that you can open an html document in your browser from your hard drive - you don't need a program with prreview and you don't need to upload the file and you don't need to be connected to the internet.

You can open any HTML document located on you hard drive by selecting "Open File" from the File menu - then navigate to where the HTML document is stored and open it.

I've just spent several hours trying to figure out why I got an error on a page I'm working on. I was using <form> tags, with no intention of submitting the form - the error kept telling me that my form was not defined. Apparently the tag should read <form action=URL but since I wasn't going to submit the form, I had no URL to put there.

To further frustrate me, I have hundreds of examples that work without the "action" attribute.

After not being able to sleep, I got up and looked again and finally figured out what was wrong.

In my script, I was calling a javascript function. When I eliminated the call to the javascript function, I didn't get an error. Problem solved.

Now all I have to do is rethink my whole design and find another way of doing what I wanted to do.................Margaret

[CJ Swartz]

Now all I have to do is rethink my whole design and find another way of doing what I wanted to do.................Margaret

I know you'll do it -- after you get some sleep.

[Guest]

Margaret, thanks for the grrrreat tip! Verrrry useful site, especially for html-challenged folk such as myself!

Phyllis

[winwintoo]

The rest of the story...

I'm building a web site for my son's business and I wanted to add some "tools" to it - like a calculator.

Well, I worked for 20 years as a programmer (and learned a bunch of useless computer programming languages and I earned early on the number one rule of computer programming - never wite the program yourself, if you can "borrow" one that someone else wrote.

So I went looking and found a cute little calculator that someone had posted on a free scripts site - I downloaded it and was modifying it to suit my purposes when I encountered the problem I spoke about above.

After some sleep, I attacked it again and overcame my earlier problem only to learn that the calculator was mathmatically challenged - it would only work with single digit integers. Not good. I spent another frustrating hour trying to figure out what I might have messed with that would cause it to quit working. Finally I went back to the original site and discovered THE ORIGINAL DIDN'T WORK IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!

Take care, Margaret

[clare]

Re: The rest of the story...

Originally posted by winwintoo

Well, I worked for 20 years as a programmer (and learned a bunch of useless computer programming languages and I earned early on the number one rule of computer programming - never wite the program yourself, if you can "borrow" one that someone else wrote.

Take care, Margaret [/B]

My thoughts entirely - its a real bind when someone produces code that doesn't work though!

Margaret, thanks for the link - very intesting and useful - do you know of a link that shows the results as they would be seen in a variety of web browsers?

Clare

[winwintoo]

Hi Clare,

The closest I've found to different platforms/browsers is this page that has a group of "favelets" that change the screen size. Just select the size you want to text and click on the link - your window will resize. Not perfect, but it will give you an idea.

http://tantek.com/favelets/

BTW: favelets and bookmarklets are bits of code that execute in the URL line of your web browser. There are thousands of them out on the internet - just do a search on Google for favelets or bookmarklets and see what you can find.

I also have one that will show the edges of tables on a page, one that shows the edges of divs and another that shows all the stylesheets attached to a page - very useful when you're trying to get a page laid out properly.

If you're interested, let me know and I'll post them - after I find out where I got them LOL

Take care, Margaret

[jeaniesa]

Clare, I swear I read recently of a site that will show how your webpage looks in a variety of browsers, but I can't find it now for the life of me.

However, there is a site where you can download just about any version of any browser that you can think of:
Browser archives

Jeanie

[winwintoo]

I couldn't find a site that emulates the different browsers - just the ones that change the screen sizes and that's not quite the same thing.

This site has several useful tools - links to W3C varification, link checker, meta tag checker as well as the tools to change the screen sizes.

The favelets page I mentioned above has some screen sizes not mentioned in this page (the Palm Pilot for one LOL)

http://www.anybrowser.com/index.html

Hope this helps, Margaret

[winwintoo]

Here's a site that gives a pretty detailed report of your pages:

http://www.fixingyourwebsite.com/drhtml.html

I couldn't get it to work with local files, but it does a nice job of pages that are on the server.

Hope this helps, Margaret

PS/ I have work to do. Is this work? Yah, how can I work if I don't have the right tools?

[clare]

Thanks Margret and Jeanie,

Those have gone straight on my bookmarks list - to useful to lose.

Dr Htlm the bottom link gave a very good clear indication including incorrect spelling and if the code was supported by different browsers. I have started my new site and boy is this going to be easier than the trial and error method I have been using upto now.

Thanks you have just released several days of hair pulling from my life and alowed them to be used up for photography

Clare