Question

Is there a coding standard for HTML? Please suggest links that have the coding styles for HTML.

For example:

 <table>
 <tr>
     <td>
         Data
     </td>
 </tr>
 </table>

Answer 1

Here’s a few standards to add to your list.

1. Indentation

You seem to have the right idea on this already. The main purpose of indentation should be to make it clear where a tag is opened and closed. Consider this example.

<div><p>Hello <a href="http://somewebsite.com/">World</a></p><div><p>Hello World</p></div>

This looks okay until you indent it properly and spot the error:

<div>
    <p>Hello <a href="http://somewebsite.com/">World</a></p>
    <div>
        <p>Hello World</p>
    </div>

The original div wasn’t closed. Ooops! This is why indentation can be a great time saver.

2. Tags and Attributes

It is generally accepted now that all tags and attributes should be lower case. We dispensed with ALL CAPS tags a long time ago in HTML and also with camelCasing for things like onMouseOver and onClick, which are now all lower case. All attribute values should be surrounded with double-quotes. For example:

<div id="content">Hello</div>

Not

<div id=content>Hello</div>
<DIV ID="content">Hello</DIV>

3. Semantic mark-up only

Don’t use any tags to infer style or to control style. For example…

<font>
<b>

Or attributes like…

<table border="2">

Also, don’t use things like h1 tags just to get a bigger font.

Try to think of what the tag means, “h1” is a top level heading, “p” is a paragraph, “table” denotes data laid out in a tabular format. Never use a tag for a different purpose to what is intended and try to know what tags are available. For example, using lists instead of manually laying out lists of things.

Don’t use tables for layout. (I have emphasised this important point using the semantic “em” tag).

Don’t use too many div tags to solve a problem! (div-itus!)