So here we are, with a page that works as we intended for most of our visitors, and can be left alone. Updates for browser features can be confined to the source code files for the stylesheet and the JavaScript. I really don't think I'll have to touch the HTML again.

Being a bit of a code junkie, I wrote an editor that I can feed formatted HTML and convert into one of these newsletters. It applies my styles to containers it generates and strips off the extra tags. I was getting pretty pleased with myself for a while there. But, as happens every time I come up with the BIG idea, I found that somebody else has already been there.

Not only that, these guys have written a really great application, and it is part of the W3C's open source program. If you haven't tried it, get it. It is called TIDY and can be downloaded as source code or compiled for virtually any platform. It is a text editor for valid html, but it has more goodies in it than Betty Crocker. If you mean to write valid code, you'll have use for it.

The last part of the series is going to wrap up by describing things I found while writing the Yankee Reader page and these articles. Things that don't work the way you'd think, things that don't work at all, and things that do work that nobody told you about. I'll be naming names (well, Microsoft and Netscape, anyway) and I'll address the most frequently asked questions I've received since I started this project. Until then, good coding.

Source Code for "Writing Friendly Code"

P.S. Here is a style and position scripting toy you might like to play with - feel free to use it, or take it apart and see what makes it tick: Colorswap.

Comments are welcome