Re: [WSG] editor
Artemis wrote: I'm confused lol. My personal site is XHTML and I don't get any popup box when viewing in IE. What is this ?xml? used for? Why would the average personal site need it? If you could explain in beginner speak, I would greatly appreciate it :) Information at the end of these links, should answer most questions about 'effects of using the xml declaration'[1] and 'xhtml in general'[2] for most web developers - beginners or advanced... --- Some of us include the 'xml declaration' /consciously/ when serving 'xhtml 1.0' as 'text/html', because we know that IE6 will then treat our pages in old 'quirks mode' (see: [1]). Depending on the task; it may often be easier to make IE6 appear to follow standards when we _do not_ allow that browser to use its 'Strict mode' (which I personally call the 'anything-but-standard mode'). More info about IE6 and its 'quirk/strict code-handling'[3]... --- An added advantage of including the 'xml declaration' is that IE7 won't be triggered by it. IE7 will simply skip it and treat 'xhtml 1.0' in 'Strict mode'. Therefore we have a built-in filter to avoid feeding IE6 styles to IE7, when our IE6 styles are using the old '* html' hack that IE7 will ignore when in 'Strict mode'. All this back and forth is based on 'xhtml 1.0' served as 'text/html' and _treated as_ 'html 4' by every browser on earth. That's how I code and serve 'xhtml 1.0' today, with or without an 'xml declaration', and there are no actual problems involved when done right and assisted by 'HTMLTidy'. Well made and well prepared 'xhtml 1.0' with an 'xml declaration' is also ready for the next step - serving it as 'application/xhtml+xml'. No advantage in that for the general web page/site at the moment, since no browser released (or to be released in the near future) by Microsoft will support 'xhtml 1.0' served as anything but 'text/html'. That will be the status for quite some time to come, but it won't hurt our 'xhtml 1.0' efforts. OTOH: HTML (in any flavor) will stop right there, and will have to be converted and (if necessary) cleaned up before being able to make any browser treat it as anything but 'text/html'. No problems there either, as long as we know what 'text/html' is all about - and its limitations. --- So, we have a choice whether to allow for the less demanding and not future-prepared 'html 4' to affect our coding-practices, or learn how to prepare for the future with well-formed 'xhtml 1.0'. There doesn't have to be many, if any, real differences between these two alternatives (html 4 / xhtml 1.0), providing we take the time to learn present standards and good coding-practices - and follow them. Anyone who say otherwise are just keeping the door open for 'easy access to web development through ignorant coding-practices'. All of us can't be experts on everything in web development, but ignorance should not be a valid option in standard-based web development of today, IMO. regards Georg [1]http://www.w3.org/International/articles/serving-xhtml/ [2]http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/2004/xhtml-faq [3]http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/wrongWithIE/ -- http://www.gunlaug.no ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] XML Declaration (was: Re: editor)
Gunlaug Sørtun wrote: An added advantage of including the 'xml declaration' is that IE7 won't be triggered by it. IE7 will simply skip it and treat 'xhtml 1.0' in 'Strict mode'. Therefore we have a built-in filter to avoid feeding IE6 styles to IE7, when our IE6 styles are using the old '* html' hack that IE7 will ignore when in 'Strict mode'. * html is supported by IE6 in any mode, there is no need to trigger quirks mode for it to be used. In fact, I have found no reason at all to ever intentionally trigger quirks mode in IE, and I'd be interested to know your reasons for doing so. All this back and forth is based on 'xhtml 1.0' served as 'text/html' and _treated as_ 'html 4' by every browser on earth. That's how I code and serve 'xhtml 1.0' today, with or without an 'xml declaration', and there are no actual problems involved when done right and assisted by 'HTMLTidy'. This is one of the myths I've been talking about in this thread. There are significant differences between text/html and application/xhtml+xml when it comes to handling scripts, stylesheets, erroneous markup and encoding information. XHTML *is not* merely HTML 4 in XML syntax, it comes packaged with all the XML handling requirements as well, with great big Fragile and Handle with Care stickers on the front of the box (metaphorically speaking). Well made and well prepared 'xhtml 1.0' with an 'xml declaration' is also ready for the next step - serving it as 'application/xhtml+xml'. That is assuming any scripts and stylesheets have been developed and tested with XHTML rules in mind. No advantage in that for the general web page/site at the moment, since no browser released (or to be released in the near future) by Microsoft will support 'xhtml 1.0' served as anything but 'text/html'. It is expected that IE8 will support XHTML, but the expected release schedule for it is (AFAIK) not publicly known, nor expected any time soon. My estimate is about 3 years away, with IE7 being about 6-12 months away. So, we have a choice whether to allow for the less demanding and not future-prepared 'html 4' to affect our coding-practices, or learn how to prepare for the future with well-formed 'xhtml 1.0'. Could you please explain what future needs to be prepared for with HTML 4? Are you expecting that browsers will drop support for it some time in the future, thus leaving any page not converted to XHTML inaccessible? Are you expecting browsers to start choking on invalid HTML 4? Are you expecting something else about HTML processing to significantly alter the way existing documents are treated and rendered? While I do believe XHTML will play a big part in the future, the future is not here yet and we have a long way to go before then. -- Lachlan Hunt http://lachy.id.au/ ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Newcomers and Web Standards
Matthew Cruickshank wrote: Lachlan Hunt wrote: Yes. Why should we attempt to hide the truth from them, especially when they're just starting out and they need to lose/avoid any bad habits and mistakes as quickly as possible. Yours is a fringe and pedantic opinion, and you're being ridiculously harsh on XHTML. I have not been harsh on XHTML at all, I do like XHTML and it does have a lot of benefits when used properly, but if it's going to be used, it really needs to be done right and fully understood for what it is, or it should not be used at all. HTML is already broken beyond all repair because of all the broken implementations and people doing it wrongly without caring about the consequences, and I don't want that to happen with XHTML. Although with the number of people jumping on the XHTML bandwagon just because it's the latest and greatest standard, believing the myths that it's widely supported, usable and that their doing it correctly, when the vast majority of authors clearly aren't, has already done more damage than good. I might add that my fringe and pedantic opinion is based on fact, and that not one valid technical argument has yet been raised in this thread against any of the technical reasons I've posted. Additionally, a significant portion of the replies against me have been little more than judgements about how appropriate it was or was not for me to give such advice to a newcomer; which is not very constructive at all. I'm glad that people have been speaking up so that hopefully Lori will see that it's not so black and white an issue. I'm happy for people to speak up and challenge my views; in fact I encourage it, that's part of what forums like this are for and opinions that can't stand up to such challenges are not worth retaining. I realise the issue is not so black and white for some people, hence why this topic has been and will rehashed again and again on every forum, newsgroup, mailing lists, blog and whatever else around the world for a very long time. So, let it be discussed, and let the newcomers benefit from such discussion, but lets keep the discussion on the issue, rather than attacking another person's views without backing up your own with valid, technical arguments. -- Lachlan Hunt http://lachy.id.au/ ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] editor
Artemis wrote: I'm confused lol. My personal site is XHTML and I don't get any popup box when viewing in IE. That is because the MIME type sent in the HTTP Content-Type header would be set to text/html. As has been discussed in this thread, the correct MIME type is application/xhtml+xml, but because IE does not recognise that, it offers the user the choice of what to do with the file (save or open with another application). What is this ?xml? used for? Why would the average personal site need it? If you could explain in beginner speak, I would greatly appreciate it :) The XML declaration is supposed to be used to define the version of XML being used (not to be confused with the actual markup language version number, as in XHTML 1.0 or XHTML 1.1), the character encoding of the file and whether or not the it's a standalone document (but I won't go into the details about the standalone attribute, it's rarely needed). The syntax looks like the following and, when present, must occur on the first line of the file with no whitespace or other text before it (except maybe a UTF-8, -16 or -32 Byte Order Mark (BOM)) ?xml version=1.0 encoding=UTF-8? The version number refers to the XML version. There is currently only XML 1.0 and XML 1.1. Most XML that people write (including XHTML, MathML, SVG, etc.) is XML 1.0. There are significant differences between 1.0 and 1.1, but I won't go into detail here. Basically, unless you have a specific need to use XML 1.1, then use 1.0. Be aware that an XML 1.0 parser that was not built for XML 1.1 as well, will fail with a well-formedness error if version=1.1 is encountered in the declaration. For XML 1.0, the XML declaration is optional. The encoding determines the actual character encoding of the file. This can be any encoding name you like, preferably one defined by IANA. The encoding attribute may be omitted, and in the absence of such information from a higher level protocol (e.g. the HTTP Content-Type header), the default for XML is UTF-8 or UTF-16. XML user agents will thus attempt to use either of those, determined by the presence or absence of the BOM. The BOM is a essentially special Unicode character (U+FEFF) used for determining the particular UTF encoding, based on how the character itself is actually encoded within the file. There is also a standalone attribute that can be set to yes or no, but as I said I won't go into the details of what it means, it's quite confusing and you normally just leave it out. Lastly, it is important that the version and encoding attributes appear in that specific order. It is not well-formed to write this: ?xml encoding=UTF-8 version=1.0? As I said, the encoding attribute may be omitted, if the encoding is UTF-8 or UTF-16 (or if it is specified in a higher level protocol), so this is well-formed: ?xml version=1.0? If you are using XHTML and serving it as text/html, it's best to leave it out because anything before the DOCTYPE declaration will trigger quirks mode in IE, which is basically a mode that uses intentionally buggy, backwards compatible parsing and rendering behaviour reversed engineered from obsolete 4.x era (and earlier) browsers. -- Lachlan Hunt http://lachy.id.au/ ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Newcomers and Web Standards
Vlad Alexander (XStandard) wrote: Lachlan, you have been on this list long enough to know that when you make extreme statements such as since you're new, you might want to stick with HTML4 or IE does not support XHTML, that debate will ensue. So be it. If there are still people that don't understand XHTML for what it is, yet blindly attempt to use it, then the issues need to be discussed. This is not what newcomers to Web Standards need. A better approach would have been to ask why this person needs/wants to use XHTML and if he/she has a good reason to do so, give this person advice on how to do it right. Thank you for this very constructive advice, in future I will be more careful about how I phrase such things. But my message still stands: XHTML is not appropriate for an inexperienced HTML author to use, particularly with the current level of browser support. To address your statement that IE does not support XHTML - this is not true. IE does support XHTML 1.0 - you and I just don't like the level of support IE offers. No, the fact is that IE has no native support for XHTML at all. By the same logic you're claiming that it has limited support, then I could invent my own FooML language using similar element names and attributes to HTML, register the MIME type application/fooml+xml for it to use, serve it as text/html and claim that IE has limited support: !DOCTYPE FooML SYSTEM http://example.org/fooml/dtd; fooml xmlns=http://example.org/fooml/namespace; titleThis is a FooML Document/title pIf I serve this as text/html, then IE will seem to support it./p pI can even use scripts with a MIME type it it doesn't normally recognise./p script content-type=application/ecmascript alert(Hello World!); // Since content-type is an non-existent attribute in HTML, // the MIME type is ignored and tag soup browsers assumes it's // JavaScript, even though most current browsers only widely // recognise text/javascript. /script /fooml Would you agree that IE has no support for FooML, or would you claim that it has limited support because the result is acceptable, when served with the wrong MIME type? If you serve valid XHTML as HTML to IE, will there be any data loss? No! If you serve invalid, ill-formed XHTML to any browser as text/html, will there be any data loss? The answer is the same, but that doesn't make it right. Now, I don't want to give Hickson any more of my attention. But I will say that he and his groupies are not interested in teaching people how to use XHTML correctly. I am interested in teaching people to use XHTML correctly, but experience shows that newcomers are far better off sticking with HTML4 until they are confident enough to fully understand the ramifications of using XHTML. If we want to teach XHTML correctly, I'm all for doing so, but *we should actually teach XHTML /correctly/*. Despite any objections to the contrary, that means using the correct MIME type and gaining a full understanding of all the differences between HTML and XHTML, rather than just doing half the job by teaching them the syntax, getting them to throw in a few extra slashes and leaving it at that, thinking the rest is all the same as HTML. That is *not* teaching them correctly, and it's doing much more harm than good. -- Lachlan Hunt http://lachy.id.au/ ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] XML Declaration
Lachlan Hunt wrote: Gunlaug Sørtun wrote: An added advantage of including the 'xml declaration' is that IE7 won't be triggered by it. IE7 will simply skip it and treat 'xhtml 1.0' in 'Strict mode'. Therefore we have a built-in filter to avoid feeding IE6 styles to IE7, when our IE6 styles are using the old '* html' hack that IE7 will ignore when in 'Strict mode'. * html is supported by IE6 in any mode, there is no need to trigger quirks mode for it to be used. In fact, I have found no reason at all to ever intentionally trigger quirks mode in IE, and I'd be interested to know your reasons for doing so. I wrote that in the part you left out... - Depending on the task; it may often be easier to make IE6 appear to follow standards when we _do not_ allow that browser to use its 'Strict mode' (which I personally call the 'anything-but-standard mode'). - I could of course add examples, but they won't do anyone any good since they are based on personal preferences. I am not implying that we can't make 'Strict mode' work just as well in IE6, but why bother to work around problems in a dead and pretty predictable browser when it doesn't help it perform any better? IE6 is dead in development-terms, and its replacement won't suffer when we keep IE6 styles out of its reach. I don't even bother to use 'conditional comments' for serving corrective stylesheets to IE/win, since there is - and should not be - any need for those anyway. All this back and forth is based on 'xhtml 1.0' served as 'text/html' and _treated as_ 'html 4' by every browser on earth. That's how I code and serve 'xhtml 1.0' today, with or without an 'xml declaration', and there are no actual problems involved when done right and assisted by 'HTMLTidy'. This is one of the myths I've been talking about in this thread. There are significant differences between text/html and application/xhtml+xml when it comes to handling scripts, stylesheets, erroneous markup and encoding information. It is not a myth that 'xhtml 1.0' served as 'text/html' is treated as 'html'. How browsers are supposed to treat scripts and css when we serve proper 'xhtml' as 'application/xhtml+xml' is known to me, but it's a completely different matter since we're talking 'text/html' here - and will be for a long time to come. Well made and well prepared 'xhtml 1.0' with an 'xml declaration' is also ready for the next step - serving it as 'application/xhtml+xml'. That is assuming any scripts and stylesheets have been developed and tested with XHTML rules in mind. Of course. We have to play by the rules. No advantage in that for the general web page/site at the moment, since no browser released (or to be released in the near future) by Microsoft will support 'xhtml 1.0' served as anything but 'text/html'. It is expected that IE8 will support XHTML, but the expected release schedule for it is (AFAIK) not publicly known, nor expected any time soon. My estimate is about 3 years away, with IE7 being about 6-12 months away. Let us hope the final IE7 is at least up to the task when served 'text/html' and _standard_ CSS. I wonder what will happen to the different 'script-standards' (quirk/Strict) though. We may use the time from now until the arrival of a 'functional xhtml-support' in a future version of IE, to prepare our skills so we can serve 'proper xhtml' as 'proper xhtml' and expect it to be treated as such by the majority of browsers. Would be nice - even if it breaks a few times while trimming. So, we have a choice whether to allow for the less demanding and not future-prepared 'html 4' to affect our coding-practices, or learn how to prepare for the future with well-formed 'xhtml 1.0'. Could you please explain what future needs to be prepared for with HTML 4? Are you expecting that browsers will drop support for it some time in the future, thus leaving any page not converted to XHTML inaccessible? No. I didn't write 'not future-proof' - I wrote 'not future-prepared'. There is more than 'html' in that future, and 'html' can by definition *not* perform well outside its defined boundaries. So either 'html' has to be reformulated (which it already is through 'xml' into 'xhtml'), or some hybrids will have to add performance to 'html'. Are you expecting browsers to start choking on invalid HTML 4? No, browsers still swallow old 'non-standard html' every day, and won't drop support for 'garbage' until there's nothing left of that stuff on the web (which will probably never happen). So no problems with 'html 4' - apart from that browsers will still eat that and any other 'text/html' almost regardless of how bad it is created. Don't lead me into temptations might be a good reason for not promoting 'html 4' to anyone new to this game, although I'm extremely well aware of the fact that one can mess up 'xhtml' just as bad when serving it as 'text/html'. We will just have to counteract that in this transitional period, if we
Re: [WSG] Newcomers and Web Standards
[Lachlan wrote: IE has no native support for XHTML at all.] So it's not native support but there _is_ support. How can you tell if there is support, well, you do test-cases. If one can produce a test-case of valid XHTML served as HTML to IE and IE parses it correctly, then there is support. Why should we care if IE use an SGML or an XML parser to process the markup? The main thing is that markup is parsed correctly and there is no data loss. How can IE do this reliably? Because valid XHTML markup written to comparability guidelines is a sub-set of HTML. [Lachlan wrote: If you serve invalid, ill-formed XHTML to any browser as text/html, will there be any data loss? The answer is the same [No].] That's not strictly the case, because whenever you write any markup not to specification, there is a chance of it being parsed incorrectly, resulting in data loss or incorrect association of data. I speak as a software engineer who has written parsers, but don't take my word for it. Try this test: take a bunch of real use Word documents, save them out as HTML and then run HTML Tidy on them. I bet there will be some data loss. That is not to say that Tidy has a bad parser (on the contrary); but markup not written to specification is at risk for data loss. Even WCAG 2.0 recognizes it in Guideline 4.1. http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-WCAG20-20051123/complete.html#use-spec As far as MIME types are concerned, we live in the real world, and until IE natively supports XHTML, we need to serve XHTML 1.0 as HTML to IE. We should not throw the baby (XHTML) out with the bathwater (IE 6). User agents come and go, so how one browser parses markup is so trivial in the larger scheme of things. What is really important is content. If people write content in HTML they are creating legacy data because it is not easily parsable from a content management perspective. Content written in HTML cannot easily be re-purposed. If you have 1,000 documents and you want to change some markup in all of them, it is very difficult to do this if these documents are in HTML. If the documents are in XML (XHTML), then this is a trivial task using off-the-shelf technologies like DOM/SAX parsers or XSLT. So we need to start writing content in XML and if it's content destined for the Web, then XHTML is perfect. The next step is: if you write it in XHTML, then why not serve it in XHTML (even if right now it's still processed by some current browsers as HTML). Regards, -Vlad http://xstandard.com Original Message From: Lachlan Hunt Date: 12/3/2005 5:50 AM Vlad Alexander (XStandard) wrote: Lachlan, you have been on this list long enough to know that when you make extreme statements such as since you're new, you might want to stick with HTML4 or IE does not support XHTML, that debate will ensue. So be it. If there are still people that don't understand XHTML for what it is, yet blindly attempt to use it, then the issues need to be discussed. This is not what newcomers to Web Standards need. A better approach would have been to ask why this person needs/wants to use XHTML and if he/she has a good reason to do so, give this person advice on how to do it right. Thank you for this very constructive advice, in future I will be more careful about how I phrase such things. But my message still stands: XHTML is not appropriate for an inexperienced HTML author to use, particularly with the current level of browser support. To address your statement that IE does not support XHTML - this is not true. IE does support XHTML 1.0 - you and I just don't like the level of support IE offers. No, the fact is that IE has no native support for XHTML at all. By the same logic you're claiming that it has limited support, then I could invent my own FooML language using similar element names and attributes to HTML, register the MIME type application/fooml+xml for it to use, serve it as text/html and claim that IE has limited support: !DOCTYPE FooML SYSTEM http://example.org/fooml/dtd; fooml xmlns=http://example.org/fooml/namespace; titleThis is a FooML Document/title pIf I serve this as text/html, then IE will seem to support it./p pI can even use scripts with a MIME type it it doesn't normally recognise./p script content-type=application/ecmascript alert(Hello World!); // Since content-type is an non-existent attribute in HTML, // the MIME type is ignored and tag soup browsers assumes it's // JavaScript, even though most current browsers only widely // recognise text/javascript. /script /fooml Would you agree that IE has no support for FooML, or would you claim that it has limited support because the result is acceptable, when served with the wrong MIME type? If you serve valid XHTML as HTML to IE, will there be any data loss? No! If you serve invalid, ill-formed XHTML to any browser as text/html, will there be any data loss? The answer is the same, but that doesn't make it
RE: [WSG] Newcomers and Web Standards
Lachlan, I was a science major in college and went into biotech which is dominated by men. Your advice to me as a newcomer to just stick with HTML4 rather than to try to learn the right way to use XHTML right off the bat reminded me of the experiences I have had in science that I believe have been sexist. Lots of grown men behave like middle school boys that don't want to share their toys with the girls. Maybe you are wondering why I am not making quilts with the girls instead of trying to construct a web page? I think I will start attending a local user group rather than using this list as I think people behave differently face to face and maybe some women will be there. Thanks for those of you that have commented constructively about IE and tidy. I took an HTML II online course with HWG and they do not even mention text editors exist and would have saved me a lot of time. I am just using Notepad now to write SCRICT code and rather than reaching for a reference book to remember a small detail or rather than running it through a validator, I thought a text editor might help. I can certainly research text editors myself but thought my question would be interesting for this list to address in terms of trying to stick to standards. Lori -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Lachlan Hunt Sent: Saturday, December 03, 2005 5:50 AM To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] Newcomers and Web Standards Matthew Cruickshank wrote: Lachlan Hunt wrote: Yes. Why should we attempt to hide the truth from them, especially when they're just starting out and they need to lose/avoid any bad habits and mistakes as quickly as possible. Yours is a fringe and pedantic opinion, and you're being ridiculously harsh on XHTML. I have not been harsh on XHTML at all, I do like XHTML and it does have a lot of benefits when used properly, but if it's going to be used, it really needs to be done right and fully understood for what it is, or it should not be used at all. HTML is already broken beyond all repair because of all the broken implementations and people doing it wrongly without caring about the consequences, and I don't want that to happen with XHTML. Although with the number of people jumping on the XHTML bandwagon just because it's the latest and greatest standard, believing the myths that it's widely supported, usable and that their doing it correctly, when the vast majority of authors clearly aren't, has already done more damage than good. I might add that my fringe and pedantic opinion is based on fact, and that not one valid technical argument has yet been raised in this thread against any of the technical reasons I've posted. Additionally, a significant portion of the replies against me have been little more than judgements about how appropriate it was or was not for me to give such advice to a newcomer; which is not very constructive at all. I'm glad that people have been speaking up so that hopefully Lori will see that it's not so black and white an issue. I'm happy for people to speak up and challenge my views; in fact I encourage it, that's part of what forums like this are for and opinions that can't stand up to such challenges are not worth retaining. I realise the issue is not so black and white for some people, hence why this topic has been and will rehashed again and again on every forum, newsgroup, mailing lists, blog and whatever else around the world for a very long time. So, let it be discussed, and let the newcomers benefit from such discussion, but lets keep the discussion on the issue, rather than attacking another person's views without backing up your own with valid, technical arguments. -- Lachlan Hunt http://lachy.id.au/ ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
RE: [WSG] Newcomers and Web Standards
I'm trying to use TSWebEditor (www.tswebeditor.tk) at the moment. It has a few annoying features but that is offset by a host of good things (including PHP script debugging - if you need it :) and CSS Editing dialogs) I'm a bit of a fundamentalist when it comes to editors and use SCITE because what it does, it does well. HTH Stephen -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Lori Cole Sent: 03 December 2005 15:24 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: RE: [WSG] Newcomers and Web Standards Lachlan, I was a science major in college and went into biotech which is dominated by men. Your advice to me as a newcomer to just stick with HTML4 rather than to try to learn the right way to use XHTML right off the bat reminded me of the experiences I have had in science that I believe have been sexist. Lots of grown men behave like middle school boys that don't want to share their toys with the girls. Maybe you are wondering why I am not making quilts with the girls instead of trying to construct a web page? I think I will start attending a local user group rather than using this list as I think people behave differently face to face and maybe some women will be there. Thanks for those of you that have commented constructively about IE and tidy. I took an HTML II online course with HWG and they do not even mention text editors exist and would have saved me a lot of time. I am just using Notepad now to write SCRICT code and rather than reaching for a reference book to remember a small detail or rather than running it through a validator, I thought a text editor might help. I can certainly research text editors myself but thought my question would be interesting for this list to address in terms of trying to stick to standards. Lori -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Lachlan Hunt Sent: Saturday, December 03, 2005 5:50 AM To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] Newcomers and Web Standards Matthew Cruickshank wrote: Lachlan Hunt wrote: Yes. Why should we attempt to hide the truth from them, especially when they're just starting out and they need to lose/avoid any bad habits and mistakes as quickly as possible. Yours is a fringe and pedantic opinion, and you're being ridiculously harsh on XHTML. I have not been harsh on XHTML at all, I do like XHTML and it does have a lot of benefits when used properly, but if it's going to be used, it really needs to be done right and fully understood for what it is, or it should not be used at all. HTML is already broken beyond all repair because of all the broken implementations and people doing it wrongly without caring about the consequences, and I don't want that to happen with XHTML. Although with the number of people jumping on the XHTML bandwagon just because it's the latest and greatest standard, believing the myths that it's widely supported, usable and that their doing it correctly, when the vast majority of authors clearly aren't, has already done more damage than good. I might add that my fringe and pedantic opinion is based on fact, and that not one valid technical argument has yet been raised in this thread against any of the technical reasons I've posted. Additionally, a significant portion of the replies against me have been little more than judgements about how appropriate it was or was not for me to give such advice to a newcomer; which is not very constructive at all. I'm glad that people have been speaking up so that hopefully Lori will see that it's not so black and white an issue. I'm happy for people to speak up and challenge my views; in fact I encourage it, that's part of what forums like this are for and opinions that can't stand up to such challenges are not worth retaining. I realise the issue is not so black and white for some people, hence why this topic has been and will rehashed again and again on every forum, newsgroup, mailing lists, blog and whatever else around the world for a very long time. So, let it be discussed, and let the newcomers benefit from such discussion, but lets keep the discussion on the issue, rather than attacking another person's views without backing up your own with valid, technical arguments. -- Lachlan Hunt http://lachy.id.au/ ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** ** The discussion list for
Re: [WSG] Site check and review please
Thank you rob, I'm not sure is it the weekend of my message wasn't clear, its the first time this list return with only one response Regards Jad madi Blog http://jadmadi.net/ Web standards Planet http://W3planet.net/ ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Newcomers and Web Standards
Rimantas Liubertas wrote: The main thing is, that if parsed correctly by HTML parser XTHML would even produce more data, or to say it more exact, browsers would show more. I mean an extra popping up for every br / and img .../. Those compatibility guidelines rely solely on browsers failing to implement SHORTTAG in correct way. So standards are created in a real world environment, and take advantage of weaknesses created in the past. Nothing gets broken because of it - probably because the old rendering is already FUBAR[1] by design. Now, let us try to prevent that happening in the future, and let the past take care of its own problems. No need to drag it along or drag it out. We have more than enough real world problems in need of solutions in order to get our efforts through in a constantly changing and pretty buggy set of environments across browser-land. Let us focus on solving those, and make sure newcomers get it right also - preferably from the very beginning. regards Georg [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fubar -- http://www.gunlaug.no ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Newcomers and Web Standards
Lori Cole wrote: I think I will start attending a local user group rather than using this list as I think people behave differently face to face[...] Lowri, I agree that people sometimes behave differently face to face. My impression is that the response you received was not due to any sexism - there are many women who participate in this list. Your impression may be due to what some might style arrogance but I would simply call it impoliteness. Taking the time to construct thoughtful responses in language that will most benefit the audience rather than the reputation of the writer is something we all need a reminder on now and again I think. What I would say is that after many years of participating in mailing lists etc. what's often lacking is courtesy and social skills rather than willingness to share knowledge. In fact it's the opposite; knowledge is often shared willingly for a price which can sometimes include an impolite tone to the language. I do not relate this to the WSG list specifically, IMO it is a symptom of online communities generally and perhaps egos specifically. There are many contributors to this mailing list that are worth listening to even if some of the language gives the impression of lacking in graciousness. I'd say that any lapse only relects on the person writing not the audience reading, nor the list in general from my observations. So don't miss out on the important bit regardless of anything else: The knowledge. I am just using Notepad now to write SCRICT code and rather than reaching for a reference book to remember a small detail or rather than running it through a validator, I thought a text editor might help. I can certainly research text editors myself but thought my question would be interesting for this list to address in terms of trying to stick to standards. Other have advised on specific tools. My advice would be that colour highlighting of code will help you immensly as you learn and many free editors either support standards / xhtml etc or have user-contributed plug-ins to do so. Cheking your code with the a validator will also help you along the way. In any case, you can definitely do better than notepad. Good luck. Jon Tan www.gr0w.com ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Newcomers and Web Standards
On 12/3/05, Lori Cole [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Lachlan, I was a science major in college and went into biotech which is dominated by men. Your advice to me as a newcomer to just stick with HTML4 rather than to try to learn the right way to use XHTML right off the bat reminded me of the experiences I have had in science that I believe have been sexist. Lots of grown men behave like middle school boys that don't want to share their toys with the girls. Maybe you are wondering why I am not making quilts with the girls instead of trying to construct a web page? I think I will start attending a local user group rather than using this list as I think people behave differently face to face and maybe some women will be there. Thanks for those of you that have commented constructively about IE and tidy. I took an HTML II online course with HWG and they do not even mention text editors exist and would have saved me a lot of time. Lori, don't give up on us so fast. I can assure you that Lachlan's comments were not meant to be sexist, and I think the discussion that ensued has been helpful for us all. Even if someone on this list does say something you don't like, don't let it discourage you, because there are still a couple thousand other people that can be useful in answering your questions. And yes, there are women here. As far as editors go, I still use Notepad and Wordpad... maybe I should look into something new too. -- -- Christian Montoya christianmontoya.com ... rdpdesign.com ... cssliquid.com ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] editor
On 12/3/05, Lachlan Hunt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Be aware that an XML 1.0 parser that was not built for XML 1.1 as well, will fail with a well-formedness error if version=1.1 is encountered in the declaration. For XML 1.0, the XML declaration is optional. Wait, so you are saying that I could serve application/xhtml+xml to modern browsers without the xml declaration? What about declaring the stylesheets in xml declarations at the top of the document? I thought that was required. -- -- Christian Montoya christianmontoya.com ... rdpdesign.com ... cssliquid.com ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Newcomers and Web Standards
Lori Cole wrote: I think I will start attending a local user group rather than using this list as I think people behave differently face to face and maybe some women will be there. Thanks for those of you that have commented constructively about IE and tidy. I took an HTML II online course with HWG and they do not even mention text editors exist and would have saved me a lot of time. I am just using Notepad now to write SCRICT code and rather than reaching for a reference book to remember a small detail or rather than running it through a validator, I thought a text editor might help. I can certainly research text editors myself but thought my question would be interesting for this list to address in terms of trying to stick to standards. Lori Lori I would try to find an editor that can offer you some enhanced features for editing and managing code as well as to increase the speed with which you can develop code. I mentioned earlier on this list that I use HTML-Kit (http://www.chami.com/html-kit/). I also use NotePad++ (http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm) both of these programs offer line numbering and code colorization. These are the two most important features you can have over notepad. If you need to debug or are validating you need to know what line numbers you have. Other features that are a benefit are element folding/collapsing which Notepad++ has so if you are only wanting to look at parent elements and not their child elements it makes this easier. I suppose this would help lost in DOM scripting, though I am only learning about this. The reason I use HTML-Kit is that it is highly customizable and that it allows for me to default to whatever DTD I want. In addition, there are hundreds of plug ins and addons. The other and the main reason I use it is that I can file manage from the application and it allows for local or FTP file editing. There are all sorts of free text editors though and I would try as many of them as possible. They mostly all just be text editors but some people swear by them. Hope this helps. All the best, Jay ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
RE: [WSG] liquid widths
You may want to check this in 800 x 600 you have horiz scroll bar. The original doesn’t. thanks -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of kvnmcwebn Sent: 03 December 2005 00:10 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: [WSG] liquid widths Im only starting to play around with liquid layouts. I like this 3 column example that uses min widths. For non-mozilla browsers it uses horizontal rules to set the min scaling of the boxes. It then hides these from browser that support min width, it seems a bit reduntant to me but. http://www.saila.com/usage/layouts/saila_layout.html Anyway i started modifying the layout to have a fixed width left column. So far it looks allright in ff but im not sure about it because i set the widths visually and they dont really add up to 100%. Is this ok? http://www.mcmonagle.biz/finaloti/index3.html http://www.mcmonagle.biz/finaloti/finalstyle.css ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.362 / Virus Database: 267.13.11/191 - Release Date: 02/12/2005 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.362 / Virus Database: 267.13.11/191 - Release Date: 02/12/2005 ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] XML Declaration
Could someone please spell the appropriate markup on the XHTML versus HTML issue? In other words, instead of the following: !DOCTYPE html PUBLIC -//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd; html xmlns=http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml; xml:lang=en lang=en head meta http-equiv=content-type content=text/html;charset=utf-8 / is it more proper to write the following? !DOCTYPE html PUBLIC -//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd; html xmlns=http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml; xml:lang=en lang=en head meta http-equiv=content-type content=application/xhtml+xml;charset=utf-8 / Put another way, is the value for 'content' the key for determing MIME type? The reason I am puzzled is that the latter example (which, *if* I have understood what has been written should not work in IE because it is XHTML) appears to be identical to the former example when viewed in IE. Based on what has been written, I figure I must be misunderstanding something. TIA. -- T. R. Valentine Use a decent browser: Safari, Firefox, Mozilla, Opera (Avoid IE like the plague it is) ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] XML Declaration
On 12/3/05, T. R. Valentine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Put another way, is the value for 'content' the key for determing MIME type? The reason I am puzzled is that the latter example (which, *if* I have understood what has been written should not work in IE because it is XHTML) appears to be identical to the former example when viewed in IE. Based on what has been written, I figure I must be misunderstanding something. If your server is sending the MIME type text/html, then the META doesn't do anything. You need to change the MIME type being sent out in the headers, and that is done server side. -- -- Christian Montoya christianmontoya.com ... rdpdesign.com ... cssliquid.com ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] XML Declaration
On 03/12/05, Christian Montoya [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If your server is sending the MIME type text/html, then the META doesn't do anything. You need to change the MIME type being sent out in the headers, and that is done server side. Thanks for that explanation. But what about when simply opening the .html file in a browser, no server involved? Even there I do not see a difference in IE between the two forms. -- T. R. Valentine Use a decent browser: Safari, Firefox, Mozilla, Opera (Avoid IE like the plague it is) ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] XML Declaration
2005/12/3, T. R. Valentine [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On 03/12/05, Christian Montoya [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If your server is sending the MIME type text/html, then the META doesn't do anything. You need to change the MIME type being sent out in the headers, and that is done server side. Thanks for that explanation. But what about when simply opening the .html file in a browser, no server involved? Even there I do not see a difference in IE between the two forms. Why should you? application/xhtml+xml MIME type is not known to IE, so it uses text/html. You may want to check this: http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/networking/moniker/overview/appendix_a.asp Regards, Rimantas -- http://rimantas.com/ ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] editor
Christian Montoya wrote: Wait, so you are saying that I could serve application/xhtml+xml to modern browsers without the xml declaration? What about declaring the stylesheets in xml declarations at the top of the document? I thought that was required. As we're talking about xhtml (rather than any other implementation of xml), what would be the advantage of calling the stylesheet in the xml declaration if the link rel=stylesheet .../ mechanism is still allowed? -- Patrick H. Lauke __ re·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively [latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.] www.splintered.co.uk | www.photographia.co.uk http://redux.deviantart.com __ Web Standards Project (WaSP) Accessibility Task Force http://webstandards.org/ __ ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] editor
On 12/3/05, Patrick H. Lauke [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Christian Montoya wrote: Wait, so you are saying that I could serve application/xhtml+xml to modern browsers without the xml declaration? What about declaring the stylesheets in xml declarations at the top of the document? I thought that was required. As we're talking about xhtml (rather than any other implementation of xml), what would be the advantage of calling the stylesheet in the xml declaration if the link rel=stylesheet .../ mechanism is still allowed? There was this note once from the W3C which said that the XML Style Sheet PI should be used when the media type of the XHTML file is application/xhtml+xml[1]. And as should is similar to a must... On the other hand, W3C NOTEs are best ignored. [1]http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/NOTE-xhtml-media-types-20020801/#application-xhtml-xml -- Anne van Kesteren http://annevankesteren.nl/ ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Newcomers and Web Standards
Christian Montoya wrote: Lori, don't give up on us so fast. I can assure you that Lachlan's comments were not meant to be sexist, and I think the discussion that ensued has been helpful for us all. Even if someone on this list does say something you don't like, don't let it discourage you, because there are still a couple thousand other people that can be useful in answering your questions. And yes, there are women here. As far as editors go, I still use Notepad and Wordpad... maybe I should look into something new too. -- -- Christian Montoya I second these comments, and although debate sometimes ensues, generally, everyone is trying to be helpful and contribute, and quite often there are valid points on both sides (if that makes sense). Other text editors to look at; http://www.vim.org/ and http://webstandardsgroup.org/go/resourcecat30.cfm TopStyle Lite is the free cut down version of TopStyle Pro (http://www.bradsoft.com/topstyle/tslite/) Geoff Deering ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] editor
Anne van Kesteren wrote: There was this note once from the W3C which said that the XML Style Sheet PI should be used when the media type of the XHTML file is application/xhtml+xml[1]. And as should is similar to a must... Ah, I see, cheers Anne. On the should issue: from http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt 3. SHOULD This word, or the adjective RECOMMENDED, mean that there may exist valid reasons in particular circumstances to ignore a particular item, but the full implications must be understood and carefully weighed before choosing a different course. Backwards compatibility with not fully (or even partially) XHML aware browsers seems a valid enough reason to me, personally. -- Patrick H. Lauke __ re·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively [latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.] www.splintered.co.uk | www.photographia.co.uk http://redux.deviantart.com __ Web Standards Project (WaSP) Accessibility Task Force http://webstandards.org/ __ ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Newcomers and Web Standards
and http://webstandardsgroup.org/go/resourcecat30.cfm Or http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=CssEditors I personally use BBEdit on OSX and PSPad on WXP (+ jEdit and Eclipse on both). -- Jan Brasna aka JohnyB :: www.alphanumeric.cz | www.janbrasna.com ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Newcomers and Web Standards
Lachlan Hunt wrote: I might add that my fringe and pedantic opinion is based on fact, and that not one valid technical argument has yet been raised in this thread against any of the technical reasons I've posted. Ah, but the argument is not strictly one of technicalities -- it's a matter of opinion about what is sufficient support and what compliance means. You've arbitrarily decided that IE has sufficient support for HTML but not XHTML, that the internal rendering engine affects XHTML compliance, and that IE doesn't even have limited support for XHTML is an appropriate way of describing the situation. None of these opinions is based on W3C standards, and so it's difficult to refute your ideas. We can only rely on common sense prevailing and hopefully people will see that your opinions are on the fringe. This is not another opportunity for you to derail this thread with more technical references. No one disagrees with that -- this thread is about how it's best to teach people web standards. And you fail it. .Matthew Cruickshank http://holloway.co.nz/ ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] editor
Christian Montoya wrote: On 12/3/05, Lachlan Hunt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Be aware that an XML 1.0 parser that was not built for XML 1.1 as well, will fail with a well-formedness error if version=1.1 is encountered in the declaration. For XML 1.0, the XML declaration is optional. Wait, so you are saying that I could serve application/xhtml+xml to modern browsers without the xml declaration? What about declaring the stylesheets in xml declarations at the top of the document? I thought that was required. There is a difference between the XML declaration and other processing instructions, although they do look similar as they begin with ? and end with ?, but their similarities end there. For XHTML, the xml-stylesheet PI you're referring to: ?xml-stylesheet href=foo.css type=text/css ... ? is only useful for a generic XML user agent that is not aware of the XHTML NS, and thus doesn't recognise the style element or a link element that refers to a stylesheet. In which case, the UA won't even have a default UA stylesheet for it and your styles designed for (X)HTML with such a stylesheet in mind, may not look any good under such conditions anyway. Such a UA probably wouldn't recognise the ID attribute as being of type ID (unless it read the DTD), in which case the example [1] given in Appendix C is quite useless. It might have a better chance if xml:id were used instead, but would still require an xml:id implementation. [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#C_14 -- Lachlan Hunt http://lachy.id.au/ ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Newcomers and Web Standards
Matthew Cruickshank wrote: Lachlan Hunt wrote: I might add that my fringe and pedantic opinion is based on fact, and that not one valid technical argument has yet been raised in this thread against any of the technical reasons I've posted. Ah, but the argument is not strictly one of technicalities -- it's a matter of opinion about what is sufficient support and what compliance means. You've arbitrarily decided that IE has sufficient support for HTML but not XHTML, That's because IE's parsing and rendering engines were not built with XHTML processing in mind at all, they were only built HTML in mind. The fact that XHTML is compatible with such broken HTML parsers is irrelvant to the fact that it doesn't actually support it at all. MIME types are what matters, DOCTYPEs don't (except insofar as quirks/standards mode are concerned). Regardless of what the DOCTYPE says and the syntax used, if it's labelled as text/html, it's HTML, albeit very likely invalid HTML that relies on the undefined and reverse engineered error handling behaviour of browsers to support it. that the internal rendering engine affects XHTML compliance The rendering engine itself doesn't affect the compliance of the document, the MIME type it's delivered with, however, does; and the idea of using the wrong MIME type to trick some ancient browser into doing something useful with the document is ludicrous. How many XHTML as text/html documents out there do you think actually conform 100% to the guidelines set forth in Appendix C? Virtually nil! None of these opinions is based on W3C standards, and so it's difficult to refute your ideas. There are no W3C standards on this matter, or at least none that can be taken seriously. XHTML 1.0, section 5.1 Internet Media Type states: | XHTML Documents which follow the guidelines set forth in Appendix C, | HTML Compatibility Guidelines may be labeled with the Internet Media | Type text/html [RFC2854], as they are compatible with most HTML | browsers. Those documents, and any other document conforming to this | specification, may also be labeled with the Internet Media Type | application/xhtml+xml as defined in [RFC3236]. For further | information on using media types with XHTML, see the informative note | [XHTMLMIME]. Although that section claims to be normative, it references an *informative* appendix and *informative* note. Appendix C has been successfully disputed many times and because it's informative, it can't be normatively referenced anyway. So, while technically serving XHTML as text/html is allowed, that doesn't make it a good idea. All the purported benefits of XHTML are nothing short of meaningless in a text/html environment, so why bother teaching it to newcomers, when there is sufficient evidence to show that the vast majority learn it wrongly? This is not another opportunity for you to derail this thread with more technical references. No one disagrees with that -- this thread is about how it's best to teach people web standards. And you fail it. It is about both. They are not mutually exclusive topics, you can't talk about the reasons for teaching XHTML without talking about and satisfying the technical reasons for using it in the first place. -- Lachlan Hunt http://lachy.id.au/ ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
[WSG] Learning asp.net with standards
Dear List: A pending graduate IT student asked my opinion on .net technologies. My understating, less than a month old, designing UI's for .net applications, is that the need for standards within this framework is without question. Having approached the list last month with issues regarding CSS implementation in the .net framework, leaves me with the question how best to guide this student on utilizing web standards with .net technology? A great opportunity exists to usher someone into best practices. Respectfully, Chris ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] XML Declaration
T. R. Valentine wrote: On 03/12/05, Christian Montoya [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If your server is sending the MIME type text/html, then the META doesn't do anything. You need to change the MIME type being sent out in the headers, and that is done server side. The only reason the meta element contains text/html, is so that it conforms with the syntax of an HTTP header. Since at least the Content-Type needs to be sent with the HTTP headers (or other higher level protocol), the MIME type specified in the meta element is essentially meaningless. Theoretically, the meta element is supposed to be able to be read by a server prior to sending the file to determine the HTTP headers to be sent, but I don't believe any servers in existence, or at least in use, actually do so. Browsers will try to determine the encoding from the meta element, if it's not specified in the HTTP headers, but the HTTP headers must always take precedence. Thanks for that explanation. But what about when simply opening the .html file in a browser, no server involved? Even there I do not see a difference in IE between the two forms. When opening from the local file system, browsers typically using the file extension to determine the MIME type. .html is generally associated with text/html, and that is the MIME type used. This is a summary of file extensions and their commonly associated MIME types: .xml application/xml (preferred) or text/xml (not recommended) .xht .xhtml application/xhtml+xml .htm .html text/html If you create some files with these extensions and open them up in Firefox. Then go to Tools Page Info, and notice where it says 'Type:' followed by the MIME type used. This info is also available in Opera and possibly other browsers too, I just can't remember where to find it. If you create an ill-formed XHTML document, save it as two separate files: one with .html and the other with .xhtml, and open the up in IE and Firefox. The results will be something like this: .html opens normally in any browser .xhtml Firefox will report well-formedness errors, page info dialog will typically show application/xhtml+xml. IE will either offer a save as dialog or cause it to open in your default browser (it opens it with Firefox for me, because that's my default browser, your system may be different) -- Lachlan Hunt http://lachy.id.au/ ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Learning asp.net with standards
Some reading: http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200511/no_xhtml_10_strict_in_aspnet_20/ http://aspnetresources.com/blog/aspnet_for_designers.aspx http://aspnetresources.com/blog/aspnet_and_xhtml.aspx http://www.aspnetresources.com/blog/xhtml10_transitional_in_aspnet20.aspx http://www.aspnetresources.com/articles/HttpFilters.aspx http://www.riderdesign.com/products/ http://aspnet.4guysfromrolla.com/articles/050504-1.aspx -- Jan Brasna aka JohnyB :: www.alphanumeric.cz | www.janbrasna.com ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Newcomers and Web Standards
Lori Cole wrote: I was a science major in college and went into biotech which is dominated by men. Your advice to me as a newcomer to just stick with HTML4 rather than to try to learn the right way to use XHTML right off the bat reminded me of the experiences I have had in science that I believe have been sexist. I have no idea how you could have interpreted my advice as being sexist in any way. In fact, I had no idea whether you were really male or female; because experience tells me that guessing a persons gender in an online community based on their name, when I know nothing of their culture or country of origin, is often an incorrect guess, so I assure you my comment was not meant as discriminatory in any way whatsoever. My advice comes purely from my experience. Evidenced by the fact that the vast majority of people who attempt XHTML, often fail miserably to grasp the differences between HTML and XHTML. Not only are most sites claiming to be XHTML served as text/html not even well-formed, they often suffer from any number of other problems I have mentioned in this thread, and any future attempt at simply changing the MIME type will fail miserably. If you choose to learn XHTML, I strongly advise you to gain a very good understanding of valid, semantic, non-presentational HTML first; you can't even begin to grasp the differences between HTML and XHTML if you don't know HTML first, let alone gain any serious benefit at all from using XHTML. I urge you to prove me wrong, and show that you can learn XHTML correctly as a beginner without much HTML experience, but please understand that you are not the first to try, nor will you be the last, and the odds are not in your favour. If you must go ahead with XHTML, then please at least develop and test your pages in an XML environment, even if you end up serving your pages to the world as text/html. Learning and developing XHTML in a text/html environment is a recipe for disaster. -- Lachlan Hunt http://lachy.id.au/ ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Learning asp.net with standards
On 12/4/05, Chris Kennon [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dear List: A pending graduate IT student asked my opinion on .net technologies. My understating, less than a month old, designing UI's for .net applications, is that the need for standards within this framework is without question. Having approached the list last month with issues regarding CSS implementation in the .net framework, leaves me with the question how best to guide this student on utilizing web standards with .net technology? A great opportunity exists to usher someone into best practices. My advice for making web standards compliant ASP.NET site from my own experience... * Understand (X)HTML and CSS and how to make a web standards compliant web site without ASP.NET * Understand how ASP.NET web controls are render (X)HTML i.e., asp:datagrid - table, asp:label - span * If the ASP.NET web controls don't render standards compliant (X)HTML then learn how to make your own custom controls Basically, understand how ASP.NET generates the code for the web page and if it doesn't do it properly be prepared to hack it into doing it properly. Ben Wong e: [EMAIL PROTECTED] w: http://blog.onehero.net ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
