RE: [WSG] Need Assistance...
I don't believe you have to do anything in ColdFusion for XHTML. You just put the appropriate Doctype at the top of the page, just as you would with a static page. CF will output XHTML out of the box with no modifications or special handling at all. You just tell it what you want, as you do with html. For example, ColdFusion doesn't care whether you use br or br / But of course if you use DreamweaverMX to go with it, you can set DW to enforce the doctype rules, whatever they might be. You only need CFCONTENT if you're going to output something other than HTML or XHTML. (at least that's how I understand it, but I might be wrong - I have been wrong before. That was once when I was a young man and thought I was wrong but I wasn't.) Cheers Mike Kear -Original Message- From: Adam Carmichael [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, 3 January 2004 11:19 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [WSG] Need Assistance... Out of curiosity, what does the CF source look like to do the same thing? Adam * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ *
[WSG] XHTML Repost
It may be a good time to repost this from Russ on 5th July 2003: repost Peter and I have been (endlessly) discussing the pro's and cons of XHTML over HTML4.01. We made the move from HTML4.01 transitional to XHTML 1.0 transitional mid last year, and while the transition was quick, we have been aware of two major issues with XHTML that make it not-so-good choice. WORRIES ABOUT XHTML 1. Some people say that if you are using XHTML you should be serving application/xml as a mime type rather than text/html. Here are some articles on the subject: http://www.hixie.ch/advocacy/xhtml http://www.goer.org/Journal/2003/Apr/index.html#20 http://www.goer.org/Journal/2003/Apr/index.html#29 http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/~distler/blog/archives/000150.html 2. The verity search engine (shipped with ColdFusion and used extensively by us) seems to have trouble correctly indexing XHTML documents, and requires filters to be applied to the results to remove characters that have been escaped by the preceding / (this is likely to be a mime type issue). ON THE OTHER HAND There have been many people putting forward reasons for making the switch to XHTML such as Zeldman and Tantek: http://tantek.com/log/2003/01.html#L20030114t1345 QUESTION So, the question is, (keeping in mind the mime type issue especially) can anyone provide me with a good solid reason (no warm and fuzzy ones) why XHTML 1.0 is better than HTML 4.01? Thanks Russ /repost Peter I don't believe you have to do anything in ColdFusion for XHTML. You just put the appropriate Doctype at the top of the page, just as you would with a static page. CF will output XHTML out of the box with no modifications or special handling at all. You just tell it what you want, as you do with html. * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ *
Re: [WSG] XHTML Repost
Anyone else confused?
I read through the WSG thread that came from and followed up a lot of
the links and if like me you're making the transition to stronger use
of CSS based development the xhtml v's html issue seems to be
summarised like this:
The issue seems to be whether you are using this...
meta http-equiv=Content-Type content=text/html
...as opposed to this...
meta http-equiv=Content-Type content=application/xhtml+xml (or
text/xml)
...in an xhtml document.
The latter is telling the end user agent it's an xml document and
therefore apply xml procedures while the former tells it to apply html
procedures. therefore an xhtml document with content=text/html will be
treated like an html document which negates some of the benefits of
using xml in the first place. Please correct or further detail where
necessary.
The above discussion while relevant and interesting does seem a little
academic. It seems to me that xhtml is actually easier to follow than
HTML simply because has more consistent markup rules. e.g. Considering
explaining to colleagues...
Lower case for ALL HTML element and attribute names
ALL elements other than those declared in the DTD as EMPTY must have an
end tag
Empty elements must either have an end tag or the start tag must end
with /
ALL attribute values must be quoted
etc...
In contrast consider explaining HTML that looks like...
TABLE WIDTH=100 BORDER=1
tr
tdpIMG SRC=image.jpg alt=Imagebr/P/TD
/TR
/table
...and yet is valid html 4.01.
It seems to me that aside from the technical discussions, from the
perspective of churning out web pages the consistency of markup is a
large part of what the standards are all about. It's a lot like an
application development team deciding their standard will be tabs
instead of spaces or...
function whatever()
{
...
}
rather than...
function whatever() {
...
}
Anyway, just thought I'd throw that in as a thought for anyone else
getting the feeling they're walking the wrong way on an escalator!
Nick
On Sunday, Jan 4, 2004, at 19:21 Australia/Sydney, Peter Firminger
wrote:
It may be a good time to repost this from Russ on 5th July 2003:
repost
Peter and I have been (endlessly) discussing the pro's and cons of
XHTML
over HTML4.01. We made the move from HTML4.01 transitional to XHTML 1.0
transitional mid last year, and while the transition was quick, we
have been
aware of two major issues with XHTML that make it not-so-good choice.
WORRIES ABOUT XHTML
1. Some people say that if you are using XHTML you should be serving
application/xml as a mime type rather than text/html. Here are some
articles on the subject: http://www.hixie.ch/advocacy/xhtml
http://www.goer.org/Journal/2003/Apr/index.html#20
http://www.goer.org/Journal/2003/Apr/index.html#29
http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/~distler/blog/archives/000150.html
2. The verity search engine (shipped with ColdFusion and used
extensively by
us) seems to have trouble correctly indexing XHTML documents, and
requires
filters to be applied to the results to remove characters that
have been
escaped by the preceding / (this is likely to be a mime type issue).
ON THE OTHER HAND
There have been many people putting forward reasons for making the
switch to
XHTML such as Zeldman and Tantek:
http://tantek.com/log/2003/01.html#L20030114t1345
QUESTION
So, the question is, (keeping in mind the mime type issue especially)
can
anyone provide me with a good solid reason (no warm and fuzzy ones) why
XHTML 1.0 is better than HTML 4.01?
Thanks
Russ
/repost
Peter
I don't believe you have to do anything in ColdFusion for
XHTML. You just
put the appropriate Doctype at the top of the page, just as
you would with a
static page. CF will output XHTML out of the box with no
modifications or
special handling at all. You just tell it what you want, as
you do with
html.
*
The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/
*
*
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*
Re: [WSG] XHTML Repost
Anyone else confused? As to the purpose of this being resent - yes. I read through the WSG thread that came from and followed up a lot of the links and if like me you're making the transition to stronger use of CSS based development the xhtml v's html issue seems to be summarised like this: The issue seems to be whether you are using this... meta http-equiv=Content-Type content=text/html ...as opposed to this... meta http-equiv=Content-Type content=application/xhtml+xml (or text/xml) ...in an xhtml document. No, this will not do. See here: http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2003/03/19/dive-into-xml.html Especially the last comment on the page. And, especially... the whole thing :) M. * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ *
Re: [WSG] XHTML Repost
Hello The Moose, Anyone else confused? As to the purpose of this being resent - yes. Not sure what you mean by that, where does the suggestion of resent come in? I read through the WSG thread that came from and followed up a lot of the links and if like me you're making the transition to stronger use of CSS based development the xhtml v's html issue seems to be summarised like this: The issue seems to be whether you are using this... meta http-equiv=Content-Type content=text/html ...as opposed to this... meta http-equiv=Content-Type content=application/xhtml+xml (or text/xml) ...in an xhtml document. No, this will not do. See here: http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2003/03/19/dive-into-xml.html That's a good article but the paragraph I followed with... The latter is telling the end user agent it's an xml document and therefore apply xml procedures while the former tells it to apply html procedures. therefore an xhtml document with content=text/html will be treated like an html document which negates some of the benefits of using xml in the first place. ...is essentially what it says. The thing I was bringing up for consideration, was that whether or not the user agent treats the xhtml document as xml or html, the xhtml guidelines are more consistent with regard to actually sitting typing out pages of mark-up. It was merely an added thought for anyone, like myself, trying to make a decision on what to do. Nick * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ *
Re: [WSG] XHTML Repost
Hi Peter, Moose meant re-sent (reposted)... Unfortunate that the word can be read two ways. Aha... re-sent / resent of course ...sorry Moose, although I'm sure you understand my bemusement at the latter meaning. As I re-posted it, I'll say why I did. There have been a lot of new members lately and this topic is worth knowing about and I believe that Mark's post was right on the money. I think it was relevant and if you'd posted it a little earlier you'd have saved me going through the threads as well ;-) The advice I was seeing given on the list gave the impression that converting a site to xhtml was a simple procedure of closing empty elements (br / img... / hr / meta... / etc.) making all tags lowercase, escaping ampersands and a few other simple things, and that there were benefits in doing it. For presentational mark-up, there are NO benefits over HTML 4.01 and there are significant problems caused by the change in some circumstances. I agree with regards to how it appears to the end user on the other hand I think there are benefits to the production side. One example is that the mark-up is almost legitimate xml which means that tools intended for xml can be used on xhtml page. I use jEdit and with a click it's indent xml plugin can quickly format messed up source (e.g. from designers that have different Dreamweaver indentation settings). As someone that has gone down this road and come back, I felt it worth pointing out again with links to the details. My advice remains, if you don't need the XML component for data reasons, then it is safer to stick with HTML 4.01. At no stage did I suggest using a meta tag for content type. Not sure where that came from. Ah ok... so the type must be sent in the headers before the page is even generated (i.e. by the web server). So how would the presence of meta http-equiv=Content-Type content=text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 / or the xml prolog affect the process afterwards? Presumably by then they are too late to matter? To summarise again (mostly for my own benefit) it seems that if you are intending your page to be being received as xml rather than html, but your web server is not serving it as such, then you're wasting your time with xhtml. However, it seems to me that if that was a real and necessary objective then you'd have figured that anyway. For the rest of us who aren't overly concerned how the user agent processes it (just so long as it looks pretty!), it seems like it's just a personal needs, processes, etc... issue. There doesn't seem to be any necessary reason to convert html 4.01 sites to xhtml, or interrupt any established processes (e.g. a CMS you're using) to make the transition. However, if you're starting any new stuff and like the xhtml guidelines (like I do) then it seems fine to use xhtml. Thankfully in the end it doesn't look as much of a drama as it first appeared. Nick * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ *
RE: [WSG] XHTML Repost
Hi Nick, Ah ok... so the type must be sent in the headers before the page is even generated (i.e. by the web server). So how would the presence of meta http-equiv=Content-Type content=text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 / or the xml prolog affect the process afterwards? Presumably by then they are too late to matter? I believe this is the case. In fact I think this may even cause a warning on the validator (though I haven't tested this). I know that ColdFusion 6.1 Server sends the charset utf-8 in the header by default and if you simply put meta http-equiv=Content-Type content=text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 on the page the W3 validator shows a charset conflict. In this case you need to tell ColdFusion to send the correct (non-default) charset in the header as well. E.g. cfcontent type=text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1. (Consult your server documentation. This is an example only, relating to a W3C validator behaviour, yet bordering on being off topic.) I'm not trying to talk anyone out of using XHTML, I just want them to know the whole story and that there are more issues than it seems on the surface (and this is a very appropriate place for the discussion). My final words on the topic as it seems to irritate people: XHTML is not a new version of HTML. It's an entirely different beast with different appropriate uses and requirements. Otherwise it would be called HTML 5.0. If you are just doing presentational mark-up, then HTML is the more appropriate language to use and the current version is 4.01. XHTML 1.0 Transitional will also cope with this (sent as text/html) as it has been left open enough to be a transition between the languages, but there is no real advantage in using it for presentational mark-up alone. Anything more strict (1.0 Strict, 1.1 or 2.0) needs a lot more work for valid implementation and (at the moment) some minor hacking or code forking to get around browser mime type requirements correctly. P * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ *
[WSG] Sydney WSG meeting 15 January
The next Sydney WSG meeting is set for Thursday 15 January 7.00pm - 7.30pm: Lindsay Evans, Interface Developer, Red Square XXX - An introduction to XSLT, XPath XML 7.40pm - 8.10pm: Russ Weakley Coloured boxes - the process of building a CSS layout 8.10pm Informal stuff (site demos, questions, discussions) More information: http://webstandardsgroup.org/go/event5.cfm If you can come, please RSVP as this will help us with catering - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note, the cost has gone up to $7.00. Still almost the cheapest drinks and nibbles in town. If you have ideas for other presentations, please feel free to contact Peter and I offlist - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thanks Russ * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ *
