Web Design in a Nutshell
by Jennifer Niederst

Unconfirmed error reports are from readers.  They have not yet been 
approved or disproved by the author or editor and represent solely the
opinion of the reader.

This page was updated May 29, 2001.

Here's a key to the markup:

        [page-number]: serious technical mistake
        {page-number}: minor technical mistake
        <page-number>: important language/formatting problem
        (page-number): language change or minor formatting problem
        ?page-number?: reader question or request for clarification


UNCONFIRMED errors and comments from readers:


{15} Table 2-1:
Under the PC column resolutions are listed as:

640 x 480
800 x 600 (common on laptops)
1024 x 870
1280 x 1024
1600 x 1200

should be:

640 x 480
800 x 600 (common on laptops)
1024 x 768   <--
1152 x 870   <--
1280 x 1024
1600 x 1200


{15-18} Tables 2-1 to 2-5:
The monitor resolution 1152x870 is mentioned five times (six if you include 
the typo in the PC column in Table 2-1). This resolution should be 1152x864 
instead.


{41} Figure 3-4 contradicts its label text.


(60) The table has an incorrect chmod command. It's the last one in the table.
The correct command is chmod 700 filename if you want read, write and execute 
permissions and chmod 600 filename for only read and write permissions.


[62-63] Table 4-3, MIME types:
The MIME types for JavaScript code (referenced on page 154), Java applets 
(referenced on page 166), MNGs (animated PNGs), and probably other file types,
are missing.


{74} HTML skeleton at bottom of page:
The HTML skeleton code is missing the <!DOCTYPE> tag. This tag is required if 
the HTML is to be validated, as suggested on page 11.


(78) bottom of page:
"fuschia" should be "fuchsia" (two occurrances).


(79-82) Table 5-2:
The web-safe colors for darkslategray, navy, and yellowgreen are incorrect. 
Either the RGB or hex value for blanchedalmond is incorrect.


{80-82} Table 5-2 (see above erratum as well):
The websafe color for lawngreen should be 66FF00. The websafe color for 
lightpink should be FFCCCC. Either the RGB or hex color for tomato is 
incorrect.


[84-85] Character Entities:
In the first sentence under Character Entities, the "normal alphanumeric 
character set" is mentioned. It would clarify matters to state that this is 
the ASCII character set. Likewise, page 85 refers to standard and nonstandard 
characters, and it would be clearer to state that these are the "ISO Latin-1" 
and "Windows ANSI" character sets, respectively. It would also help to mention
what the values for each of these 3 character sets should be listed as in the 
charset attribute (e.g. "US-ASCII" and "ISO-8859-1").

Page 84 also states that using non-ASCII characters in HTML pages will 
generally result in the browser displaying the numeric entity instead. I've 
never seen this effect.


[86] table (continuation):
In the continuation of the table of character entities, entities numbered 131 
through 159 are in error. The numbers given here are recognized in HTML 4 as 
<control> numbers per ISO10646 (= Unicode), not as valid numbers for character 
entities. Furthermore HTML 4 _does_ assign mnemonic names to these characters 
(none is given in the table). This sequence should read as follows (I have 
omitted ampersands, hash signs, and expression-final semicolons):

 402	fnof		Florin
8221	bdquo	Double low-9 quote
	(this is a foreign punctuation sign that
	sits on the base line, different from 
	"Right double quote" erroneously given here)
8230	hellip	Ellipsis (note correct spelling)
8224	dagger	Dagger
8225	Dagger	Double dagger
 710	circ	Circumflex
8240	permil	Permil
 352	Scaron	Capital S, caron accent
	("Underscore" given here in the table is wrong; 
	the underscore is correctly given earlier in the table as 095)

(Note that "Less than sign" does not belong at this point in the section; it 
is correctly given earlier as 060).

 338	OElig	Capital OE ligature
8216	lsquo	Left single quote
8217	rsquo	Right single quote
8220	ldquo	Left double quote
8221	rdquo	Right double quote
8226	bull		Bullet
8211	ndash	En dash
8212	mdash	Em dash
 732	tilde	Tilde 
	[this is the named entity in the HTML4 spec
	Unicode calls it a "small tilde"; this is
	different from keyboarded tilde, given correctly
	as 126 earlier in the table]
8482	trade	Trademark
 353	scaron	Small s, caron accent
	[underscore is correctly given as 
	095 earlier in the table]

(Note that "Greater than sign" does not belong at this point here in this 
section; it is correctly given earlier as 062).

 339	oelig	Lowercase oe ligature
 376	Yuml		Capital Y, umlaut

Missing from the table are other named entities in the HTML4 specification. 
Table probably should include these, found at W3C in three official documents 
(used as verification for the above errata):

http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/HTMLlat1.ent
http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/HTMLsymbol.ent
http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/HTMLspecial.ent


{91} 2nd paragraph:
The first paragraph of the Summary of Structural Tags mentions "Browsers that 
deprecate the tag". To my knowledge, and also according to the definition of 
"deprecated" given on page 529, only a standard can deprecate a feature.


[94] <meta> tag description, http-equiv attribute:
The description of the http-equiv attribute states that it is used in 
conjunction with the name attribute. It is not. It is used in conjunction with
the content attribute and in place of the name attribute.


{105} <basefont> tag description:
The "HTML 4D" notation on the <basefont> tag indicates that <basefont> is part
of HTML 4 but is deprecated. But the statement that "This tag is not part of 
the HTML standard" indicates that <basefont> is not part of HTML 4. Is it or 
isn't it?


{105} <big> description:
<big> is not equivalent to <font size="+1"> unless the current font size is 
the basefont size.


{107} <small> tag description:
The description for the <small> tag indicates that IE 2 supports it but IE 3 
does not. I think that IE support for <small> is the same as IE support for 
<big>: supported by IE 3 but not IE 2.


(112) under <ul>:
now reads
	
	Defines the beginning and end of an ordered list.

should read 	
	
	Defines the beginning and end of an unordered list.


{131} 2nd paragraph:
For the REL and REV elements, HTML 4.01 specification does not recognize the 
attribute values head, toc, parent, child. To use these it is necessary to 
cite them as conventions with a profile attribute inside the HEAD tags.

Recognized attribute values for REL and REV not given here include alternate, 
stylesheet, start, contents, copyright, chapter, section, subsection, appendix
help, bookmark.

reference:
http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/types.html#type-links


(131) 3rd paragraph:
now reads
	
	(the opposite of the rev attribute.)

should read 
	
	(the opposite of the rel attribute.)


{140} Example 8-1: 
There is an extra ">" in the 2nd line and a "#" is missing from Line E. It 
should be:

	<IMG SRC="orbit.gif WIDTH=500 HEIGHT=125 BORDER=0 USEMAP="#spacey">


{140} E annotation:
The usemap attribute of img must say USEMAP="#spacey" instead of 
USEMAP="spacey".


{152}  under the <object> tag:
The <object> tag is not supported by Netscape.


(179) 2nd bullet in 1st paragraph:
"backround" should be "background".

{223}  Faking an <iframe>;
The page number given refers to the first edition, although the error
also appears in the second edition.

In the html shown 'NORESIZE' has been placed as an attribute of
the FRAMESET tag.  This is incorrect.  NORESIZE is an attribute
of FRAME.

In this particular example 'NORESIZE' should have been placed
in the <FRAME SRC="pix.html> because if this frame is prevented
from being resized none of the surrounding frames can be either.

The same error occurs also on page 224, 'Preloading Images with Hidden Frames' and on
page 225 'Getting Rid of Page Margins'

{227} under "enctype=encoding":  

	"The value multi-part/form-data should be used in 
	combination with the file input element."

"multipart/form-data" should not have a hyphen. With the extra hyphen, a Web 
page using this enctype won't work properly (to be specific, file uploads via 
the <INPUT TYPE="file"> tag won't work).


(237) now reads:

   	<INPUT TYPE="hidden NAME="extra_info" value="important">

should read:

   	This is a hidden element<p>
   	<INPUT TYPE="hidden NAME="extra_info" VALUE="important">


{239} second paragraph under "File selection": 

	"When using the  file input type, you should specify 
	enctype="multi-part/form-data" in the <form> tag..."

"multipart/form-data" should not have a hyphen. With the extra hyphen, a Web 
page using this enctype won't work properly (to be specific, file uploads via 
the <INPUT TYPE="file"> tag won't work).


{243} Table 12.2, first column, second non-header row:
For the Password Entry row, the example in the left-hand column is:

	<INPUT type="file">

but should be

	<INPUT type="password">


(244) The information on this page is incorrect.

You can control form font types and sizes.

<form .....>
<span class="textG">
<select name="...">
<option name="...">
.
.
.
<option name="...">
</select>
</span>
</form>

In the head of the doc.

<style>

.textG {font-family: .... font-size: 12px; ..}

</style>

The style fails on Netscape under 12 pixels, but is reliable on IE to any size.

CCS1 Supported


(273-274) explanations of Figures 14-4 and 14-5:
The description of Figure 14-4 refers to the graphics on the left and right, 
but the graphics it refers to are on the top and bottom. The backgrounds for 
Figures 14-4 and 14-5 are described as black, but only the transparent area in
the alpha channel appears black. The actual background for the images is gray.


(293) 2nd line:
The PNG Home Page is now located at http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/.


(305) "Other Palettes", "Adaptive" subheading:
last sentence of the "Adaptive" subheading on page 305:
	
	"Because the number of colors is being reduced, some 
	dithering and color-shifing will occur."

should read
	
	..."color-shifting..."


(380) HTML code at top of page:
The end of the comment should be "// -->" instead of "//-->" because a space 
is required before "-->," as described on page 73.


(336) 4th paragraph:
The greek letter mu is missing from the u-Law paragraph.


{380,382} When declaring the properties of a window being opened via 
Javascript, you use the property "resize." It is actually "resizable."


(384) JavaScript after 1st paragraph:
The strings "n4" and "e4" are missing the quotes around them. Also, the line 
that reads "//-->" should read "// -->" so that the end of comment "-->" has a 
space before it as described on page 73.


{391} 8th paragraph:
The "font-face" value should be "font-family".


{397} CLASS and ID Attribute Selectors: 
It states:

	Note: CLASS names cannot contain spaces; use hyphens 
	or underscores instead if neccessary.

According the the CSS spec, the underscore is not a valid character. Silly, I 
know, but here's the specific bit from the CSS1 spec:

	in CSS1, selectors (element names, classes and IDs) 
	can contain only the characters A-Z, 0-9, and Unicode 
	characters 161-255, plus dash (-); they cannot start 
	with a dash or a digit; they can also contain escaped 
	characters and any Unicode character as a numeric code

It's in section 7.1, near the end
(http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS1#forward-compatible-parsing).

Relying on your book's advice, I have happily used underscores, but have now 
found that Netscape 6 follows the CSS spec so closely that this obscure rule 
caused me a few hours of troubleshooting.


{397} under heading "ID Selector":
now reads:

	Omit the HTML tag name to apply properties to all elements 
	with a given ID.

should read:

  	Omit the HTML tag name to apply properties to the element 
	with a given ID. Indeed there should be only one element 
	with a given ID.

cf. http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/global.html#adef-class


(399) last H1 style:
The last H1 CSS style is missing a close brace "}".


{417} 2nd example under list-style-type:

	OL { list-style-type: upper-roman } (A., B., C., D., etc.)

Shouldn't "upper-roman" be "upper-alpha"?


{437} now reads:

   function show()
   {
      if (isNet4)

         document.hidden.visibility = "visible";
      }

should read:

   function show()
   {
      if (isNet4)
      {
         document.hidden.visibility = "visible";
      }


{439} The clearTimeout command should be clearInterval.

clearTimeout is used with the setTimeout while setInterval is used with the 
clearInterval.


(439) The sentence at the bottom of the page needs to be changed. now reads:

   	The onload event passes the value setInterval('motion()', 
	20) to the counter.

should read:

   	The onload event sets the variable counter to the return
   	value from setInterval('motion()', 20) which is a control ID
   	that will be used by the clearTimeout function to stop the
   	timer.


[445] 4th paragraph:
The URLs shown on pages 445 and 452 (for SGML and XML information at 
www.sil.org) have changed.  See an announcement of the new URLs at 
http://www.sil.org/newsgmlurl.html.

It appears that the referenced information on p 445 is now at 
http://www.oasis-open.org/cover/general.html#hist, and the referenced info on 
page 452 for "SGML/XML Web Pages" is at 
http://www.oasis-open.org/cover/xml.html.


{446} 1st paragraph in DTD section:
The DTD is described as defining "how markup tags should be interpreted". This
implies that DTDs provide information on semantics, when in fact they provide 
only information on syntax. That is, they define the proper structure of XML 
documents, but say nothing about the meaning or interpretation of the tags.


{446-447} DTD section and 1st bulleted item:
The statement is made that XML doesn't have to be associated with a DTD and 
that to convert HTML to XML you should remove the <!DOCTYPE> tag. But XML 
documents that are marked as standalone have strict requirements: they cannot 
have attributes with default values or entities other than amp, lt, gt, apos, 
quot, for example. Converting many HTML documents to XML according to the 
rules on page 447 would result in an invalid XML document. Instead, the 
converted XML document should begin with something like:

	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
	<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
	"DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">


{447} XML at top of page:
A simpler rewriting of "<Element1><Element2>This is content 
contained</Element1> in overlapping tags</Element2>" would be 
"<Element2><Element1>This is content contained</Element1> in overlapping 
tags</Element2>". With this simpler rewriting, there is still only one 
<Element2> element. In the more complicated writing, one <Element2> element 
has become two, and depending on the semantics of the <Element2> tag (compare 
to <p> or <li>), this could change the meaning of the XML.

Is there an assumption that <Element2> tags must be inside <Element1> tags? If
so, this point should be clarified.


(460-2) Table 27-1:
Table headings should read "Language" not "Country" as these are not country 
codes.

Missing from the table are: 

kw for Cornish
lb for Luxemburgish
rn for Kirundi
ro for Romainan
se for Northern Sámi
gv for Manx Gaelic

There is no need for a blank line between sl/Slovenian and sm/Samoan.

NOTE: Language code for Dutch is "nl" not "ml" as here.


(461) first entry in rightmost column:
The language code for Russian is blank. Should it be "ru"?


(511,513) tabs:
The tabs on the side of the page should read "deprecated" instead of 
"depreciated".