Power Sellers Unite

grannysuze · Posted: Sat Nov 26, 2005 2:22 am Post subject: How do I clean HTML?

Hey there ... I need to strip out the unnecessary stuff from my template to try to get it down to size ...

is there an easy way to clean it?

you know ... all those &npsb& or whatever they are that don't do anything and I don't know what they mean so I leave them there :-)

Thanks for the help !

GrannySuze

psunite · Joined: 27 Jan 2005 Posts: 6213 Location: Columbus OH

If you want clean HTML you shouldn't ever use create your HTML with Microsoft Word. It adds all kinds of unnesscary tags.

You might want to take a look at
http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett/tidy/
http://yook.de/webmaster/clean/

LurkeyLou · Posted: Sat Nov 26, 2005 3:56 am Post subject: Re: How do I clean HTML?

Your  's are non breaking spacers, used to nudge elements and text. I have seen these used to excess and would suggest that if there are 3 or more in a row, that they can be replaced with a spacer graphic (a blank .gif) to compact .html.

If you need to removed a lot of flotsom and jetsom and don't have an .html editor, you can use word processing and find/replace (leaving the replace field blank) to remove useless elements and comments. Once completed, you'd want to cut and paste to a basic text editor (such as NotePad) and save the document with an .html extension. This will leave your original document intact in the event you're not satisfied with results.

Should you run into unfamiliar tags, this chart is pretty good - although it lacks an explanation fo the nbsp - http://24hourhtmlcafe.com/htmltags.htm

G'Luck!

OH!! Congrats on that BnS sale!! I hope that it's the first of many :-)

LurkeyLou · Posted: Sat Nov 26, 2005 4:00 am Post subject:

oooh! yook.de is worthy of a bookmark - ThanX, psunite!

CrystalStar · Joined: 06 Mar 2005 Posts: 3571

Well I was gonna suggest bleach but..... ;)

Several of the html editors will re-write the html also. So what will look OK on one will be a mess somewhere else. If you are using an auction site with a built in editor...they also will change things. And they are never alike from one site to the next.

There are 2 html eitors that I like. One more so than the other...1stPage and HTML Builder XP Lite. The Lite is an exceptional html editor and easier to use than 1stPage for me. There are others that I have tried but most re-arrange and re-write the html to the point of making it useless.

grannysuze · Posted: Sat Nov 26, 2005 11:57 am Post subject:

I'm embarrassed to say that I taught myself everything I know ... and that makes me one dangerous htmeller!

I do most of my edits in somebody's wysiwyg ... Copying an auction that came out well, and then use that as a basis for the next ... deleting and adding ... well, every time you delete something ... seems like the coding remains ... or something remains ...

Anyway ... BNS doesn't have a useful wysiwyg for creating an auction ... it's only half the screen and I'm constantly scrolling left to right and up and down so it's no good for me.

Blujay doesn't have a wysiwyg and doesn't have a preview ... oh, but their one page lister is The bomb!! The Best !!! The Brightest !!! and their store is so very nice and clean ... I digress.

I have to admit to all of you that the way I've been doing it is ... yes ... I admit it ... I go to overstock and click on their sell tab ... and I create my auction html there ... and then copy it over to bns and/or blujay.

How freakin' sad is that !!!

If / when they get around to banning me completely, I will be up the creek without a paddle.

However, it does mean that my relationship with "O" is worth something after all.

Thanks for the help ... maybe in addition to cleaning out the stuff i don't need, I can also find a way to clean out the aspect of "O" that I don't need anymore.

Pipphoe · Posted: Sat Nov 26, 2005 12:30 pm Post subject: Re: How do I clean HTML?

Hi Granny,

I'm self-taught, too. Don't be embarrassed. That's commendable. You know, the 45 credits that I got in Graphic Design over 9 months -- that I'm still paying back, BTW -- was basically self-taught. This was at the knew Katherine Gibbs and the teachers in the design software areas were just not that great. Luckily I had invested in a Mac G3 for this and got all the educational software versions for Photoshop, Illustrator and Quark, and what time I didn't spend pouring through books and testing things out, I spent hours at home. By the time I burned out I knew more about the big three than most of my fellow much younger classmates.

All my other skills that I'm building my business on are all self-taught. I have indeed added to the coffers of many, many technical authors and craft authors, and there are some great websites out there for down-and-dirty HTML learning :cry: Boy do I appreciate them!

At the moment I don't have an HTML editor. And I remember doing an HTML page in MS Word -- yuck, yuck, yuck. I'm subscribed to SellerSourcebook and I'll create my auctions there and then copy and paste the code. For me it was just a wise investment because then I can pretty much create auctions whether I'm at home or at the shop. OA's O-Lister is only on the computer down at the shop.

I think when you teach yourself you work harder and you're going to remember commands easier -- it just sort of happens.

Noshi · Joined: 09 May 2005 Posts: 61 Location: Ottawa

if you do your html right, you shouldn't need most of the &npsb's and so on put there by an html editor, they use them to format,but if you learn the code you can format it properly without them. My suggestion is to use a none click and drag html editor, and physically edit the html and see how the changes effect it, use notepad or dreamweaver(the best) to fix it and see what you get.

LurkeyLou · Posted: Sat Nov 26, 2005 1:27 pm Post subject: Re: How do I clean HTML?

Pipp is right granny - you have nothing to be embarrased about. It take more than a little gumption to figure out how to do these things. I'm self taught...started at geocities and put their online editor though quite a workout!

Granny, if O disappeared tomorrow, you're still in good shape. If you need an online editor, there are several free sites that have 'em. Yahoo bought geocities, but you can still reach the free hosting by plugging in geocites. Alternately, angelfire and fortunecity still have free websites and probably online editors.

One trick, when you use these - because they do add things to the header and footer - is to add a comment top and bottom and work between comments. This way you know instantly which part of the .html is yours. A comment tag stays in the code without interrupting the output.


And you'll probably like that these editors don't smash your code up and change tags...it will make picking up .html a lot easier.

In addition, here's a great little resource for things related to getting your auction together: http://www.isdntek.com/auctiontools.htm. In addition to free a free editor that you can download, you'll find live .html practice boards toward the bottom.

Noshi's right, and eventually you'll probably get to coding in NotePad and/or Dreamweaver. Full control is a beautiful thing :-)

Have fun!!

psunite · Joined: 27 Jan 2005 Posts: 6213 Location: Columbus OH

My favorite html editor is Allaire homesite. But Macromedia bought them out and added it to their suite of software. So if you have Dreamweaver you most likely have homesite installed too.

Dooley · Joined: 29 Jul 2005 Posts: 53

grannysuze wrote (View Post): › docWrite("quote")
Hey there ... I need to strip out the unnecessary stuff from my template to try to get it down to size ...

is there an easy way to clean it?

you know ... all those &npsb& or whatever they are that don't do anything and I don't know what they mean so I leave them there :-)

Thanks for the help !

GrannySuze

Hello GrannySuze:

If you don't have a WYSIWYG editor you might want to give NVU a look. It is more w3c compliant than most of the others.
If I remember correctly, (it's been a while since I used it) you have a option to clean the HTML.

Something you might want to remember when you are editing for most auction sites, you don't need anything other than the html tag as the header or start of the template. Then insert this tag <body>, next insert what ever you want, then close with this tag</body>.

Something else which might be of some help.

Most of the auction site software will strip certain html tags if you try to either, revise or relist an auction. I have found if you use a sites bulk lister or if the auction sites allows you to relist, you have this problem. And with most of the sites the first thing it will remove is the &nbsp tag. Also, some of the sites don't like double quotes which most of the editors will insert.

Hope this helps.
Dooley