ve3oat

I wonder how will all of this be affected by Google's initiative for "Mobile First" pages? Will media="all" and the break-points described above be enough to satisfy them?

I don't recall the details but the HTML5 standard was proposed, discussed, modified and debated openly (as in open source) for several years before its release.

Thanks for those links, fisicx. When the servers at my hosting service are behaving themselves (not all of the time, it appears), my pages load very quickly so page speed does not seem to be a problem, normally. As you observed, my site is simple. So it meets most, though not all, of the other criteria for accessibility and mobile-friendliness, and I am not too worried. I will keep looking for ways to improve it. As fisicx has suggested, the test at varvy.com does not seem all that credible anymore. I have adopted a simple "skip to main content" solution and am now looking to test it on an actual screen reader. I think that will be the proof of the pudding, regardless of what Varvy says. Thanks to fisicx, BrowserBugs, and david19922 for your ideas and help with this -- very enlightening! This has been a learning experience for me from the start, for sure. Thanks again.

Thanks, fisicx, very helpful. (Sorry for the missed name.) What you say about varvy.com would explain why so many apparently very successful sites fail so many parts of the Varvy test when I try them. The Google PageSpeed site seems busy right now so I couldn't try it myself, but their scores you quote for my site do seem low. In your experience, what kind of numbers should I be shooting for?

Well, visibility may be one of Varvy's criteria but I have tried several different scheme's, some visible and some not, and all of them failed Varvy's test. The last one I tried was the suggestion by David19922, both as he quoted and as modified to make the link visible again -- neither passed. All of the visible methods I have tried worked for me -- click the link and the screen jumps down past the header and navigation bar. None passed the Varvy test. Is there some special CSS code that is needed to enable a screen reader? I have not tried any method that uses Java. So far I have avoided using any script at all on the site, except for some PHP to run the e-mail "contact me" function, and I would like to keep it that way. Web Guru is right that mine is only a hobby site and my economic well-being doesn't depend on it. Still, it would be nice to get a good rating by Varvy. Are you sure that Google doesn't count it? I used to receive a lot of questions about my family history DNA projects and radio frequency measurement activities. Not so many lately. At the moment I am stumped. Please feel free to play with my html and CSS. (I apologize that some of it is not very elegant.)

Thanks, BrowserBugs, but adding tabindex values didn't solve the Varvy test failure problem. There must be something else. I like your idea of putting the <nav> section inside the <header>, though. Not sure why I didn't do that in the beginning. Might make some of my CSS easier down the road.

Sorry, realized too late that I should have posted to the CSS, XHTML/HTML area. Perhaps a moderator would like to move my query ...

Trying to make my website (ve3oat.ca) more responsive, I include the usual "skip to main content" link near the top of each of my pages. However, when tested with the tool at varvy.com, my pages always fail due to "No 'skip to main content' link". I use <a href="#content"> Skip to main content</a> in the header, and <div class="content" id="content"> as the target below the header and the top-navigation bar. It works in Firefox and MS-IE, but always fails the Varvy test. Could someone please tell me something simple in html (I don't use Java any other scripts on my site) that will both work for users of screen readers and that will pass the Varvy test?? Thanks.

Mangat said : 7. Make your URLs search engine friendly This is a new idea to me. How does one do that? What is the effect?

Wow, 400 a day! Guess I have to be thankful that my site gets only 3, 4, 5 a day. Thanks for your insight, fisicx, and you have shown me that I will have to learn to expect this sort of thing. It's a wild world! Thanks again for all your comments and I am grateful for your wisdom and experience. This is certainly a learning experience for me. :-) ... Martin

Thanks, fisicx, and what you say makes a lot of sense to me (though I know nothing about WordPress). I have noticed two things about these access attempts. One is that they almost always use the non-SSL address (http) for my site, even though my site is on an SSL server and their request is automatically redirected to my https address. The other is that they almost always use the domain name in the address, rather than my dedicated IP address. This makes me think that my domain name is on a list somewhere they have picked up, instead of simply using a script to go incrementally through a numerical range of IP addresses. Does that make sense to you? Have to admit that I am pretty naive about these things but am trying to draw logical conclusions from the situation. If that is possible ... ;-) ... Martin

Checking my logs during the past few months there has been a very noticeable increase in the number of visitors to my website who attempt to access "/wp-login.php". These visitors usually come out of the blue without having visited any pages before this. Now, I don't use WordPress (I assume that is what the wp part means), and don't have any log-in page at all on my site, so they all receive a 404 error and go away. No harm done. But what is the reason for it all? Has accessing "/wp-login.php" become a favourite method of attack? And what if I did have a /wp-login.php page? Thanks for any insight. ... Martin

Thanks, Jack and BrowserBugs, I am beginning to feel more positive about the idea of using CloudFlare for my own website, despite their scripts and cookies. Maybe my idealism is giving way to practicality. ;-) Thanks very much for your comments and I think I am starting to see the future in this after all. Thanks too to rbrtsmith for helping to break the ice in my mind about CloudFlare. ... Martin

Hi, Web Guru, thanks for your comments. I am sure you are right about the security of Java scripts used by large corporations. My site, on the ohter hand, is small (I am a nobody) and I have intentionally avoided scripts so that my visitors (who don't know me) will feel more safe. I see that among CloudFlare's other services, they reserve the right to install cookies on visitors' computers to track them. Lots of big companies do this, of course. Being small on the other hand, I have also avoided using cookies, in order to reassure my visitors of my lack of any hostile intent. "No scripts, no cookies, hey, this site must be safe" sort of thing. I guess I need to know how most privacy- and security-conscious visitors feel about scripts and cookies from CloudFlare. What do you think of it? ... Martin

Moderator - please move this posting as you see fit. Not sure I have chosen the right place. Thanks. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using Cloudflare? They say they can speed up delivery of your content. That might be nice, but from my own point of view my website uses no scripts at all and I am happy to be able to do that (less vulnerability for my visitors). Using Cloudflare would of course require allowing their scipt(s) to run. Are there any other considerations? Thanks for your opinions and guidance here. ... Martin

Like Old Dragon, my first computer was a Commodore C64. I had a word processing program and did all my correspondence on the C64 and an Epson printer, long gone. Also used it for genealogy with a primitive data base program. Even had a cartridge that I could plug in to the C64 and interface it with my Amateur Radio transceiver for receiving and transmitting digital AMTOR signals. Those were the days!! ... Martin VE3OAT

I am not an expert, but it seems to me that Content is what it's all about. If your website has good (that is, useful, authoritative, reliable) content then people will visit your site, re-visit your site, and visit again. Your site might be the most beautiful and innovative site on the Web but if the content is of little value then no one will ever visit your site more than once. Use a good basic design for your site (your own or someone else's) and follow the basic guidelines for SEO as mentioned in the replies above, and then concentrate on your Content. Hope this helps.

Thanks, fisicx and rbrtsmith, and I agree. None of my "normal" friends know or care who the W3C is, but web developers know and (I think) should care. The W3C community has made a tremendous contribution to the development of the web, especially during the years of the browser wars (yeah, I am that old), but I expect it has been difficult for them to keep up with the technical changes brought by the present plethora of new devices. Still, for a bunch of volunteers they have made a huge difference in the way things are done, most for the better, I think. Just my opinion. Having said that, I am still seriously considering removing the badges since my CSS is not strictly compliant (for print media). Like you, rbrtsmith, I am more concerned about the html (which is compliant).

Yes, I am inclined to agree. Torn between principle and practicality, I am considering just removing the W3C badges from my pages and leaving the CSS as it is. I'm sure that others have struggled with this kind of choice too. Thanks for your input.

Thanks, BlueDreamer, an interesting suggestion. It wouldn't have occurred to me to try that. Unfortunately ... I just now tried it on the fly and it elicited that same Parse Error from the validator that my original code caused. I have no idea why. 34 a[title]:after Value Error : content Parse Error attr(title)

I have decided to show the URLs for links when someone prints a page from my website and have CSS code that works fine to do this, but it causes my stylesheet for printed media to break the W3C CSS validation that I worked so hard to get. And I can't figure out how to make my code conform to the W3C standards. The code I have been using in my stylesheet for printers is this : /* Show URL */ a:link:after, a:visited:after { content:" [" attr(href) "] "; } Does anyone have CSS3 that will print the link URLs without breaking W3C standards?? Thanks for any suggestions.

Not wanting to muddy the waters, but everything looks OK using Firefox v44.0.2 running under Ubuntu Linux v12.04. Maybe one of your recent changes fixed things?

To answer my own question here, I have been informed (private e-mail) that the W3C MobileOK checker is out-of-date by some years and should not be relied upon. For anyone who wondered, I am going to ignore the reported problem and concentrate instead on my longer-term goal of upgrading my site to HTML5. Thanks to all and carry on! ... Martin

Hello, Newby here. I have been using the W3C Mobile OK checker at https://www.w3.org/Mobile/ to try to make improvements in my rather cludgey old website at https://ve3oat.ca The Mobile OK checker always reports that "The certificate is invalid", a Severe failing, referring to my SSL/TLS certificate. The site "explains" that "This usually means that the certificate could not be retrieved or that the cryptographic algorithm used for the key exchange is not widely supported". And yet, the certificate is from Geotrust and no one I know has had any problem accessing my site with their mobile device (neither have I). Further, when I check the certificate at any of the SSL testing sites, they like it. digicert.com cryptoreport.websecurity.symantec.com entrust.ssllabs.com sslshopper.com all report that my certificate is valid and trusted. Can anyone please explain why Mobile OK checker doesn't like my certificate and what I can do about it? Thanks for any help. ... Martin

Thanks, yes. I think I might shut everything down for the day on Feb 29 just in case the Web Wizard has a special arrangement with Sadie Hawkins. <g> Can't be too safe!