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Posted by Gιrard Talbot on 01/13/06 21:23
Marc a Γ©crit :
> Thanks for taking the time to write an extensive reply cwdjrxyz, please
> see my comments. :-)
>
> cwdjrxyz wrote:
>> The most important thing is that you use some valid type of html. Even
>> old 3.2 would serve for very simple pages and is still understood by
>> most browsers. However it is quite common for many pages from large
>> corporations to be written in a html soup ranging from html 3.2 to
>> xhtml levels.
I would stay away from HTML 3.2 for several reasons, one being that it
triggers modern browsers into quirks rendering mode.
Some such pages likely were started many years ago and
>> just added to by various people over the years. It is no surprise that
>> some such pages have problems with some common browsers and often fail
>> and must be patched at new browser upgrades.
>
> We always validate our (X)HTML markup and CSS styling, and I'm all to
> aware of the html soup websites you refer to - we're often asked to work
> on websites like this and we usually say that it would be cheaper for us
> to start from scratch and build the website again.
>
>> Concerning xhtml 1.1, it can be used if you make the effort to learn it
>> well. At a minimum, in addition to writing valid html 1.1 code, you
>> must set up your server to serve the page with the mime type of
>> application/xhtml+xml associated with the extension .xhtml, or you can
>> also serve as .xml. If you serve a page written in valid xhtml with the
>> extension .html on most servers, you are just serving the page as html
>> and might as well use 4.01 strict. When you serve true xhtml 1.1 with
>> the proper mime type, you will find that it will be viewed well on the
>> recent Mozilla family browsers(Firefox, Mozilla, and Netscape) and
>> Opera. There are a few bugs in some browsers that can be overcome, such
>> as a CSS body background color one on the Mozilla family browsers.
>
> Regarding serving an XHTML page with a different mimetype, why should we
> do this?
It's because XHTML should be served with a different mimetype to begin
with; it shouldn't be served as text/html to begin with.
Is it because the browsers do not understand the XHTML
> extension? Most of our pages have a .php extension, so what happens in
> these cases - what mimetype would the server pass? How would the
> browser interpret it?
>
>> However, IE6 will not display a true xhtml page served correctly, and
>> rumor has it that neither will the upcoming IE7. You could write a
>> special page for IE in html 4.01 strict as well as the xhtml 1.1 page.
>> However, there is a way around this. The server and browser exchange
>> information when they first connect. The server can ask the browser if
>> it can handle the correct mime type for true xhtml. This is taken care
>> of by a php include at the very top of the page that replaces
>> everything above the head tag of the page, and the page is given an
>> extension of .php .
>
> I understand your logic, but what about when a user has the ability to
> use HTML in a webform which will then be displayed on the website? How
> do you make sure this is valid and inline with the doctype being used?
> Isn't that a bit overkill?
>
>> There can be complications if you use some javascript. For example,
>> document.write is not allowed in xhtml 1.1 and use of it may cause the
>> page not to display or just give an xml error message. The page is
>> parsed as xml when you serve it correctly, and there is no telling what
>> a document.write might generate such as unclosed tags which are fatal
>> for some xml applications. Thus document.write can not be allowed.
>> However this can be overcome by writing some of the script in php on
>> the server which then downloads what the document.write would have
>> generated on the browser, so the xml parser is happy and can check
>> everything for closing tags etc.
>
> Generally we don't use JavaScript, but an exception would be Google
> AdSense banners which give you some JS to incorporate to display the
> banner - again - how do we know that this JS is inline with our doctype?
>
>> I have written well over 100 pages in html 1.1 that are served
>> correctly. Once you have done this several times, it takes very little
>> more time that using html 4.01 strict, so for me it is no longer a big
>> deal. My only advice is that if you use xhtml 1.1, do it right. Else
>> stick with html 4.01 strict.
>>
>> The reason for xhtml is to make PC html code XML pure. There are now
>> many other computing devices, and XML has become the standard for
>> information exchange between them. Xhtml 1.1 greatly improves the XML
>> purity, but it still does not go quite far enough. The higher levels of
>> xhtml in the works will require new browsers.
>
> I've written most of my pages in XHTML 1 Strict or Transitional over the
> last 2 years. I've never noticed any bugs which can be attributed to my
> choice of doctype, but then, maybe I wouldn't notice that...?
>
>> What code you should be using depends on your background and what kind
>> of pages you write. If you work for someone else, the code you should
>> use is what they demand, although some bosses are open to suggestion.
>> If you are your own boss, there are many options. If you are writing
>> general pages to sell things to a wide variety of people, you usually
>> can not get too exotic in the code you use. If you are writing for a
>> network where you can control everything, you can use about any kind of
>> code you wish. And there are many other levels between these two
>> extremes.
>
> I run a small company and one of our services is web development for
> local businesses. We host our own websites, so we have server root
> access and the freedom to do things as we wish.
>
> My main reason for asking was because I'm currently programming a big
> CMS for our use (we won't be distributing it), and it will be one script
> outputting every page, so I wanted to make sure I used the best doctype
> for the job from the start.
Then I recommend HTML 4.01 strict. If you lowercase elements and
attributes, if you avoid minimization, if you close all your tags
(except maybe <img> and <br>), then you make your HTML 4.01 strict
webpages XHTML-ready, easier/faster to convert to any kind of XHTML.
What's most important for you, as I understand your numerous posts, is
to trigger standards compliant rendering mode in MSIE 6 and MSIE 7 (beta
2 will be released in 4-6 weeks). All modern browsers now support 2
rendering modes based on doctype declarations and it will be the case
for new upcoming versions/releases in the years to come.
GΓ©rard
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