On May 15, 10:43 pm, anthyon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> well... i'm new to this group and correct me if i'm wrong, but...
>
> by using the acronym HTML does that include XHTML?
For the purpose of this discussion, there is no difference between
HTML and XHTML. In any case, the vast majority of XHMTL on the web is
served as HTML, even to those UAs that identify as being able to
handle XHTML, so the only relevant specification is HTML 4.01.
If you want a detailed discussion of HTML vs XHTML, search the
archives at comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html[1]. Don't jump in
with a general question as it has been asked many, many times before,
however feel free to ask about specific details if you've searched for
relevant threads and haven't found an answer.
> if so than XHTML was designed to be eXtendable by third parties using
> both own tags and attributes.
The purpose of XHTML 1.0 is to be HTML written to conform to XML
syntax (the specification is sub-titled "A Reformulation of HTML 4 in
XML 1.0"). The X does stand for "extensible", but is intended as a
reference XML, it does not infer that XHTML is extensible and HTML
isn't. There is nothing in the HTML 4 specification to prohibit custom
attributes, this is not an issue of conformance.
> And me myself use this advantage of
> this, when eg. I have a small code that deals with specific attribute
> pairs on different built-in tags, and implement some dynamism
> independently of the page itself, using prototype.js' power. (Though i
> have to admit, that I'm guilty of placing these attributes into the
> xhtml namespace instead of my own one, but i'm already working on
> it. :) )
"the XHTML namespace"? One result of custom attributes is that your
document will not validate using a standard DTD, however that is of
little consequence provided it is valid otherwise. You might consider
a custom DTD that includes your attributes, but I don't think any
browser in popular use (and probably no browser at all) will take any
notice of it. A custom DTD may give you peace of mind, but in
practice it doesn't change anything.
> If your terms of HTML does not include XHTML ( as i think the
> situation is ), i haven't gone through the HTML5 specification,
HTML 5 is currently a working draft, it has not reached the status of
recommendation and likely wont for some time. The section on element
attributes seems to be primarily concerned with clarifying the
relationship between element attributes and related DOM object
properties. Whatever it says, it won't have any practical effect on
the web for quite some time (let's say 5 years) after it becomes a
recommendation.
> but in
> the past though i could use my own attributes, i always had to be
> aware of not using special ones ( and that's not so hard to achieve )
The issue is that you don't know all the special attributes of all the
UAs that may be parsing your pages. Adding custom attributes to
elements is similar to the issue in scripting of adding properties to
the global object.
> so all in all, i don't see a point why it should be avoided to use my
> own attributes.
It is a matter of risk management. There is a chance that your custom
attributes will cause conflict with proprietary browser custom
attributes. The chance of conflict is relative to the number of
attributes introduced, the variety of user agents parsing your code
and the scripts that may be operating.
The risk can be mitigated using strategies such as prefixes (e.g. foo-
show="ByDefault"), but can be almost entirely avoided using standard
HTML attributes, e.g. class="foo-show&byDefault" or similar.
Ultimately it is your decision how you go about it, I have not doubt
that you will continue to use custom attributes. Hopefully this
discussion provides enlightenment on issues and strategies to deal
with them.
1. Here are a couple of threads:
<URL:
http://groups.google.com.au/group/comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html/browse_frm/thread/f2f54a73906b8317/9b55d756557e1835?hl=en&lnk=gst&q=custom+attributes#9b55d756557e1835
>
<URL:
http://groups.google.com.au/group/comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html/browse_frm/thread/9a63384f3eceab4/ebc9bf5b71072106?hl=en&lnk=gst&q=custom+attributes#ebc9bf5b71072106
>
--
Rob
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