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Posted by cwdjrxyz on 01/21/55 11:37
Michael Winter wrote:
> On 13/01/2006 21:43, cwdjrxyz wrote:
>
> [Around 6KB of needlessly quoted text]
>
> Please learn how to post; trim quotes.
I quite well know how to trim quotes, and if you examine some of my
other posts you will see that I often do. Since the poster asked a
variety of questions that I thought might be best covered by an
example, I wanted to leave all in to show what prompted my answer. Then
after reading my example code, the poster is of course free to ask
follow up questions if desired. Who in the world worries about 6 kb
anymore - at least not I. Today broadband pages with streaming media
files of over 50 MB are not uncommon, and even on 56K dialup a 10 kb
file is fast loading. Server disc space and bandwidth charges have now
become nearly dirt cheap and continue to become even cheaper(I only pay
about $US 10 a month on an annual basis for about 2 GB of disc space
and about 200 GB of monthly bandwidth) The only way I could come close
to using up my disc space and bandwith is to use a very large number of
streaming media files.
If someone does not wish to read the quote they are quite free not to
do so. In fact I am set up so you have to click on a quote message line
to display the quote at all.
> [snip]
>
> > http://www.cwdjr.net/calendar2/perpetual_calendar.php
>
> That's quite a bad example, on several fronts. Probably the worst, of
> course, is...
>
> [snip]
>
> > http://www.cwdjr.net/calendar2/mime2.phps
>
> ...which totally fails to act how a compliant server should. Not only
> will it serve XHTML to a user agent that would (perhaps overwhelmingly)
> prefer HTML, it would even serve XHTML to an agent that explicitly
> forbade it.
>
"Bad example" is a value judgement taken alone, and is meaningless in a
technical example without technical specifics. Your follow up technical
specific concerns the mime2.php file. It is doing exactly what I want
it to do - namely serve application/xhtml+xml to any browser that
claims it will accept it at all. Some claim they would rather have
html, but I want to bypass that when at all possible. It turns out that
most recent common browsers that will accept the mentioned xhtml mime
type, even if they say they would prefer html, will in fact work just
fine using true xhtml on many properly written codes. I have written
over 100 pages with this approach, and find that it works fine on
recent Firefox, Mozilla, Netscape and Opera browsers. It serves html
4.01, as it should for IE6 and close relatives, such as the SBC/DSL DSL
browser. However, as with anything that is not yet being widely used
you have to be on the lookout for bugs, such as the CSS
background-color bug for Mozilla family browsers mentioned in a comment
in my posted code. You need to test your pages on several browsers, but
I know few persons who are so perfect that they do not have to check
html 4.01 on several browsers either. I suspect the fact that many
browsers respond that they will accept application/xhtml+xml, but
prefer html, is just to protect the browser vendors from complaints
caused by a few bugs that can turn up at this early stage. Many people
once would argue that one should not use CSS because it had many bugs,
as indeed it did in 4 era browsers. Today many posting here will jump
all over you if you do not use CSS. And of course CSS will not work on
all browsers, but now only a tiny percentage of very old browsers.
> May I ask what's the point of that large comment? Moreover, what
> possessed you to even think of scripting an obnoxious prompt that would
> be viewed by the majority of your users?
The point of the large comment is to complain that IE is out of step
with most other modern browsers and W3C standards. My little comment
may not help much, but if enough people complain about Microsoft's lack
of support of application/xhtml+xml there is a minute chance that they
might start to correct the situation within the next 5 to 10 years.The
comment will be seen only by those who look at the code, and not on
viewing the page.
The prompt is of course commented out and not used on the page. When
modifying the mime.php file, it is useful to trace what path is being
selected. Of course there may be some so dissatisfied with Microsoft's
lack of support of W3C standards that they may want to leave the prompt
on the page. I decided not to, for the reason that some, including
myself, may use the calendar generator page often, and the prompt soon
becomes tiresome.
The php calendar page posted will of course work if javascript is not
supported. Just turn off script on Firefox for example, and you should
still be able to use the page. The only thing that would not show, sans
script, is the mentioned prompt, if you used it, which I do not on my
example.
For those for whom the mention of true xhtml 1.1 causes a large
increase in blood pressure, they may use the html 4.01 strict page that
I posted. Of course javascript must be turned on for that. The
extensive calculations needed are far beyond the reach of plain html -
javascript, php, perl etc are needed. So far I have not had anyone
complain that the php page will not work on a common modern browser,
and if they did I would send them the URL for the 4.01 strict html page
at the URL I posted. Of course the page might not be suitable for some
handheld devices with a tiny screen that is too small to display a
calendar for a whole year. One likely would have to add an option to
allow display of single months to have any chance of being viewable on
a tiny screen, and even that might require better eyesight than many of
us have.
I would be happy to view the code for any of your pages written to work
on true xhtml 1.1. I am not interested in finding fault. At this early
stage every new approach to best using xhtml 1.1 and bugs that may
occur when using it helps. The more that contribute, the better. Actual
working page examples, with comments to point out how possible problems
are overcome, are much more useful than tons of verbiage and abstract
general discussions about the relative merits of this and that.
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