FAQ Home to Cookwood Press
First and foremost, please consider this page permanently under construction. The more questions I get, and the more frequently I get them, the quicker I'll update the page. Hopefully, you'll find the answer to your question here. If not, try posting a message to my Question and Answer board.


When will HTML 4 for the World Wide Web: Visual QuickStart Guide actually be in the stores?
Any day now! It was released on May 15 and should arrive in bookstores in the next few days (around May 27). If you like, you can currently order the book online from Peachpit Press, Amazon.com, Computer Literacy, or any of the other online bookstores.


What happened to the examples from the second edition?
They're still available, just not so obvious so people don't get them confused with the new edition's examples. You can find a link to them by clicking the Examples arrow in the left frame and then going all the way down to the bottom of the list. You'll see Examples from the 2nd edition. If you want to go there right now, here's a direct link.


Are styles covered in detail in the new edition? How about scripts?
Yes, there are now three chapters devoted to Cascading Style Sheets (level 2) and a special new chapter that explains how to incorporate scripts into your HTML pages. If you want to see what else is in the book, check out the Table of Contents or look something up in the Index.


I've typed the styles exactly as you show them in the book. Why don't they work in the browser?
The problem with styles is that not all browsers support the full specifications for them. One way to find out if the browser is the problem is to check WebReview's Master Compatibility Chart. And don't forget to check for typos!


On page 64 (among others) you say there's a browser safe palette on your site. Where is it?
I've created a browser safe palette for Photoshop users (both Mac and Windows). You can find it by clicking the arrow next to Extras in the left-hand frame and then clicking Useful files.

If you don't have Photoshop but use Windows, you might want to look into PaintShopPro, version 5, which has a built-in browser safe palette for GIF images.


How do I do stuff with JavaScript?
The truth, though I hate to admit it, is that I'm no expert at JavaScript. While I can tell you how to add JavaScript to your Web page (see pages 267-275), you'll need a book on JavaScript (perhaps JavaScript for the World Wide Web: Visual QuickStart Guide) to learn how to write the actual code. (OK, so there's one simple example on page 280.)


There are some tags that don't work with my browser, but you didn't mention that on the page.
Browsers are constantly changing. My book is based on the standard HTML specifications published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Only non-standard tags recognized by just one of the browsers are marked with the Netscape-only or IE-only icons. Presumably, the browsers will support all of the official HTML 4 specifications at some point. I recommend you test your pages in as many browsers and on as many platforms as possible.


My frames work with Explorer but not Netscape. What gives?
If you've got a couple of nested framesets, make sure that you close each frameset properly with its own </FRAMESET> tag. Explorer is a bit more tolerant if you forget one. Netscape won't show the frames at all.


How do I update two frames with one click?
You need JavaScript. Check out the note above.


My tables work in Explorer but not in Netscape. What's the deal?
You probably forgot a closing </TABLE> tag. Netscape requires it (as should Explorer by the way).


When I go to look at my page, I see HTML code instead of a beautiful formatted page. Why?
You probably used Microsoft Word to create your page and then when you went to save your document you used the "Save as HTML document" feature. What that does is convert a regular Word document into HTML. But since you already wrote the HTML code, what it does to your page is convert your HTML code into displayable HTML code and then generates more HTML code to format your HTML code. (Did you get that?) To see what I'm talking about, when you go to look at your page in the browser, choose View > Page Source.

There's no problem using Word, you just have to stay away from that command. Instead, choose File > Save As, and then select Text only from the Formats and make sure you use the .htm or .html extension for your file.

If you find that that still doesn't help, try putting the file name in double quotes when you save the file. This keeps Windows from adding other extensions (like .txt) onto the end of your file name.