[WSG] DTD syntax [WAS] Opening links in new window with XHTML
Chris Stratford wrote: You can use this DTD: !DOCTYPE html PUBLIC XHTML 1.0 Strict http://www.neester.com/DTD/xhtml-target.dtd; I made it myself from a tutorial. It is XHTML 1.0 Strict. Are you sure that the Formal Public Identifier part of the DTD can really look like that? I thought that FPIs had a formal syntax which took the form: [ISO Registration]//[Organisation]//[Class] [Description]//[Language] Where.. [ISO Registration] of the resource as indicated by either a plus or minus sign. [Organisation] is a unique identifier of the owner of the resource. [Class] is a keyword identifying the type of object being referenced. [Description] is a unique descriptive name for the resource being referenced. and lastly The ISO language code for the language of the markup defined by the resource. (ie what natural language is used in the tags) eg., !DOCTYPE html PUBLIC -//NEESTER//DTD ChrisML 1.0 (XHTML plus TARGET)//EN http://www.neester.com/DTD/xhtml-target.dtd; Also there are some specific naming rules for FPIs have to meet to conform with XHTMLMOD http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-modularization/ conformance.html#s_conform_naming_rules Cheers, 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] colgroup alignment issue
Mike,
Comes a bit late as I'm sure you've move on, but I think you would
still find this interesting.
http://ln.hixie.ch/?start=1070385285count=1
Cheers,
Chris.
On 12/11/2004, at 3:15 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
We have encountered alignment issues between our target browsers.
The code example below only works within IE, all other browsers
default to standard left alignment.
#datatable col.dt_currency { /* Use for columns containing currency
values only. */
text-align: right;
}
snip /
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Re: [WSG] Is XHTML harmful?
Geoff; But still, strictly speaking, an XML based document is bound to be more semantically correct because it is well formed. Why? Are the semantics of the following deferent? ul liIce cream/li liSprinkles/li /ul ... ul liIce cream liSprinkles /ul SGML and XML are metalanguage facilities for defining markup languages. Markup languages defined by SGML and XML declare formal features for syntax, but have no mechanisms for formally expressing semantics. http://xml.coverpages.org/semantics.html ASFAIK the semantics of both HTML4.01 and XHTML1.0 are described here: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/. e.g. A heading element briefly describes the topic of the section it introduces. http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/struct/global.html#h -7.5.5 XHTML is designed to be as much like HTML as possible. It has the same 'semantics' as HTML http://www.westciv.com/style_master/house/good_oil/xhtml/ This means that the CSS can be applied without fear of the parser misunderstanding where a declaration could have finished. There is no possibility of any guess work in xhtml as it is well formed. This may or may not be an obvious problem. But I would not be surprised to see complex designs misrendered when transformed from xhtml to html4 with all optional ending tags taken out. Why would you want to take them out? What I am saying is that with XHTML the designers knows this won't happen, given the correctness of the parser. You appear to be saying that CSS is not compatible with HTML4 because HTML parsers can only guess at its structure if optional end tags are not used and therefore parsers are likely to render CSS rules incorrectly even though the document may be valid. I assume that what you mean by guess is: Apply error correcting algorithms to ambiguous markup. Does this correctly summarise what you are saying ? Now go into the area of accessibility, how are you going to tell all sorts of user agents and devices the full semantic meaning of the markup. What about when aural.css becomes mature? Will complex document in HTML4 be as exact as those following XML syntax? Yes, if you write it against the DTD and follow accessibility guidelines. There is no difference between the semantics or the accessibility of HTML4.1 and XHTML1.0. You may be right, but I don't agree. It's only a small difference, but it is there. Where is this difference defined, is there a term for it? In my view, you cannot fully mark up documents with a trusted explicit semantic fullness without and XML definition. The border here might be small, but it's small enough for one definition to allow for best of interpretation and the other an explicit interpretation. Well-formedness has nothing to do with semantics. You're missing the point. Closing tags is being completely accurate with punctuation, where markup is the punctuation. Not closing tags CAN lead to ambiguity. In XHTML there is no syntax ambiguity, in HTML4 there are possibilities. It may not happen when validating against the doctype. That is not the problem. The problem is the CSS container, it's boundaries are often not certain. If you think you need this punctuation then use it. I've stated before, optional end tags are optional, use them to your heart's content (most people do). However absent optional end tags are implied - closed by the following or enclosing block as defined here http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/intro/sgmltut.html#h-3.2.1 and elsewhere. If you have written HTML well, there is no ambiguity and no guessing is required by conforming HTML parsers. Valid, well written HTML is not tag soup. It's probably worth naming the elements in question: HTML, HEAD, BODY, P, LI, DT, DD, OPTION, COLGROUP, THEAD, TFOOT, TBODY, TR, TH, TD. Four of those elements have optional Start Tags as well as optional End Tags (and go straight to punctuation hell presumably :). To see how your browser's parser handles a TBODY element with an omitted Start Tag and an omitted End Tag point it here. (you need a browser with DOM scripting to see its parsed code - latest IE, Moz, Safari Op should be fine) http://www.webx.com.au/code/tbodycount/ For good measure I've applied a background colour (baby blue) to this element (the one with no start tag or end tag) using CSS. Lucky guess or just applying rules defined by HTML4? Except for the reasons give by Peter Ottrey the only technical reason for using XHTML is that you need the XML (this being the only technical difference between HTML4.1 and XHTML 1.0 ). Any other reason simply comes done to a matter of personal preference. I don't agree with that. This is the same as HTML 4 Strict except for changes due to the differences between XML and SGML. http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd aslo http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-frameset.dtd
Re: [WSG] Is XHTML harmful?
Dean; Then there is the whole Web Applications trend. Again, HTML and XHTML are pretty much the same in functionality here, but if I'm using an application on the Web then I want to make sure it is well-formed and well-structured. I don't want a typo by a web developer (such as leaving off an end tag) to cause my credit card to be debited twice. This company would need to work on their coding standards enforcement and QA test and deployment procedures before they re-code that app, I don't think XHTML will save them :) To ask the question the other way around, what are the real benefits of using HTML over XHTML? I'm interested to hear the reasons (and I'm sure they are valid). My environment can't output XML. Dean, can I ask you why hasn't the W3C depreciated HTML? Do they intend too? Why/Why not? Should we also be asking the question: Why has XHTML take-up been so sluggish. http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/200407/msg00061.html 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] Is XHTML harmful?
Every modern browser, including Mozilla and Safari, is much worse at XHTML than at HTML. People tend to foolishly gloss over the transition from one to the other, thinking that code you write for one will just work when you switch to XHTML. That simply isnt true. If you look at XHTML in both Mozilla and Safari and compare it to HTML, youll see that its slower, non-incremental, and generally buggier than HTML. David Hyatt http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/hyatt/archives/2004_07.html#005928 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] Is XHTML harmful?
On 07/10/2004, at 9:45 AM, Peter Firminger wrote: (and it's debateable whether HTML 3.2 is either... By version do they mean the language or the subset? HTML 3.2 is the latest version of HTML 3) I suspect that they mean HTML4. From the HTML 4 rec W3C recommends that authors produce HTML 4 documents instead of HTML 3.2 documents http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/(under Status of this document) Also as HTML 3 did not include these elements: ABBR, ACRONYM, BDO, COL, COLGROUP, FIELDSET LABEL, LEGEND, NOFRAMES, OPTGROUP, TBODY, TFOOT, THEAD and the attributes SUMMARY and LONGDESC and extension of the TITLE attribute, it is unlikely that WAI would be happy with its use. (although I'm just guessing) http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/appendix/changes.html#h-A.3 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] Is XHTML harmful?
On 07/10/2004, at 10:07 AM, Geoff Deering wrote: The reason being that if you are not closing all your tags it can become a guessing game for the parser where the CSS declaration may end in various parts of the document. It always strikes me that when using HTML4 you are at the mercy of the arbitoriness of the parser. There is nothing to stop us writing well-formed HTML. Elements which have optional closing tags are just that - optional. It also strikes me that if you are writing HTML 4 against the DTD then Parsers will have no difficulty guessing where blocks end, optional end tags or not. Have you have ever pulled the render tree out of IE6 and seen what happens to lovely well-formed XHTML?.. It's parser strips out the optional closing tags and changes elements to upper case. The CSS still renders as expected. (as expected on IE not by the rec :) David Hyatt (quoted in my previous post) seems to say that current browsers can render HTML faster and have fewer problems rendering it than with XML. While I'd prefer him to fix it, there it is. Brendan Eich also seems to support Hayatt's assertions about this in this interview, http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail156.html Are there references with some authority which support the other case; That XHTML parsing is better and faster? Cheers, 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] Is XHTML harmful?
Are there any parsers out there you explicitly trust to get it right every time? I don't. I know of one, http://validator.w3.org/. Are you say though that User Agents are generally better/fast at parsing/rendering valid XHTML than they are valid HTML? They may well do, but they are still guessing if there are no end tags. I'm much more happy to explicitly declare my design than have parsers guessing at what I've designed, the performance trade off is not so great. I like to write valid markup too, and if your HTML is valid (written against the DTD) then the parser doesn't have to guess anything, I don't see your point as to why valid XHTML is technically better than than valid HTML. Now go into the area of accessibility, how are you going to tell all sorts of user agents and devices the full semantic meaning of the markup. What about when aural.css becomes mature? Will complex document in HTML4 be as exact as those following XML syntax? Yes, if you write it against the DTD and follow accessibility guidelines. There is no difference between the semantics or the accessibility of HTML4.1 and XHTML1.0. In my view, you cannot fully mark up documents with a trusted explicit semantic fullness without and XML definition. The border here might be small, but it's small enough for one definition to allow for best of interpretation and the other an explicit interpretation. Well-formedness has nothing to do with semantics. Except for the reasons give by Peter Ottrey the only technical reason for using XHTML is that you need the XML (this being the only technical difference between HTML4.1 and XHTML 1.0 ). Any other reason simply comes done to a matter of personal preference. 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 **
[WSG] XML Prolog rant [WAS] Site breaking in Mozilla
It seems that whenever I try to fix a problem in Mozilla, then IE breaks. There's a very good reason for that... Because you are using the xml prolog, and I'm betting that if you remove the xml prolog, IE will start breaking too. and many more.. XML declaration is the correct name of the entity referred to.. XHTML always has a prolog -- the DTD, which is required. You can't leave it out and still have a conforming XHTML document. I've written a brief rant about this here... http://blog.webx.com.au/?/2004/06/the_xml_prolog_whats_in_a_name Cheers, 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] Re: digest for wsg@webstandardsgroup.org
I'm opposed to forking the list. I second j.neen's suggestion for a tread-based forum. This list is threaded.. http://www.mail-archive.com/wsg%40webstandardsgroup.org/ That is how my mail reader displays it it too. Maybe you could try mail software which threads. Also, I prefer an RSS feed of the thread as my way to review. The RSS format is not threaded its flat? 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] CSS support table?
Here is Safari's http://developer.apple.com/internet/safari/safari_css.html Cheers, 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] XHTML transitional is a half-way house
I thought XHTML transitional _is_ XML. In what way is XHTML transitional is a less strict data format? It's a transition. It's a half-way house between HTML 4 and XHTML as it is intended (XHTML Strict). No its not. There is no such thing as a half-way house between HTML 4 and XHTML. Sure there is. That's what it's meant to be anyway. What else does 'Transitional' mean? - It's a bridge between what people were used to to something newer. Which is why it's the same as XHTML Strict, just with a generous helping of 'old' elements to ease the transition. What ever XHTML transitional it is, it is not a bridge or a half-way house between HTML4 and XHTML. I just googled Choosing a doctype and got this[1] excellent article - here's a quote. There seems to be a common misconception that the XHTML Transitional DOCTYPE is for developers to make a transition from HTML 4.01 to XHTML 1.0. It's utter nonsense, as the HTML 4.01 DTD and the XHTML 1.0 DTD are very similar in the rules they apply. The only difference is the well-formed issues that any XML application must adhere to, whether it's Transitional or Strict. So which is the better DOCTYPE? HTML 4.01 Strict, or XHTML 1.0 Transitional? Without a shadow of a doubt, the HTML 4.01 Strict DOCTYPE is a far better than XHTML Transitional, as it deprecates presentation elements such as font, and presentation attributes such as align. XHTML Transitional merely means you've ensured it's well formed. [1 ]http://www.juicystudio.com/choosing-doctype/ XHTML defines a reformulation of HTML 4 as an XML 1.0 application, and three DTDs corresponding to the ones defined by HTML 4 http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/REC-xhtml1-20020801/#abstract The difference between a strict and a transitionl DTD (eg HTML4.01 Strict and HTML4.01 Transitional) is that the strict DTD has depreciated elements and attributes removed.. There you go. Cheers, 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] Trouble with safari
Not sure what's happening. but when I delete the border-top property
from this rule the page behaves as expected in Safari.
#c {
height: 400px;
margin-left: 224px;
background-color: #fff;
/* border-top: 1px solid #537B8D; */
}
Cheers,
chris
On 06/05/2004, at 5:15 PM, simon wrote:
Well the nav bar in ie and firefox works fine .. However in safari the
nav elements seem to be overlapping each other ... and i dont
understand why.
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Re: [WSG] Re: Ten questions for Anne van Kesteren
Tim Lucas wrote: If you don't need to serve valid XML, and you can not systematically serve well formed XML documents, then I recommend sticking with a less strict data format (such as XHTML transitional). XML is a strict data format and, like most, can't reliably be written by hand without some level of QA. Tim, I thought XHTML transitional _is_ XML. In what way is XHTML transitional is a less strict data format? Cheers, 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] Re: Ten questions for Anne van Kesteren
On 05/05/2004, at 10:09 PM, Patrick Griffiths wrote: I thought XHTML transitional _is_ XML. In what way is XHTML transitional is a less strict data format? It's a transition. It's a half-way house between HTML 4 and XHTML as it is intended (XHTML Strict). Are you saying that XHTML transitional is a less strict data format than XML too or are you off on some tangent? If the the former then please explain in it more detail, I really am under the impression that XHTML transitional is XML - that being so, in what way can it (XHTML transitional) be a less strict data format (than XML)? http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/REC-xhtml1-20020801/#normative Cheers, 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 *
[WSG] XHTML transitional is a half-way house [WAS] Ten questions for Anne van Kesteren
On 05/05/2004, at 10:09 PM, Patrick Griffiths wrote: I thought XHTML transitional _is_ XML. In what way is XHTML transitional is a less strict data format? It's a transition. It's a half-way house between HTML 4 and XHTML as it is intended (XHTML Strict). No its not. There is no such thing as a half-way house between HTML 4 and XHTML. XHTML defines a reformulation of HTML 4 as an XML 1.0 application, and three DTDs corresponding to the ones defined by HTML 4 http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/REC-xhtml1-20020801/#abstract The difference between a strict and a transitionl DTD (eg HTML4.01 Strict and HTML4.01 Transitional) is that the strict DTD has depreciated elements and attributes removed.. Extensible HTML version 1.0 Transitional DTD - This is the same as HTML 4 Transitional except for changes due to the differences between XML and SGML. http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/REC-xhtml1-20020801/dtds.html#a_dtd_XHTML -1.0-Transitional Cheers, 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] SVG (was: Org Charts)
So where is SVG in regard to Web Standards ? http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/ Besides the current recommendation there is a 1.2 revision currently in working draft http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG12/. Are many people using it for anything useful ? I believe it has been adopted widely in the cartography space. The Web Stats package Urchin version 5 uses it to great effect for their stats charting. http://www.urchin.com/products/urchin5_samples.html I've only used it for simple business graphics in xsl:fo tranforms but quite like it for this. Are there any other SVG plug-in viewers other than Adobe ? Not that I am aware of but there are several standalone SVG viewers. Are any browsers supporting SVG natively (e.g. through a DTD for example) ? The most recent incarnations of Mozilla have some rudimentary built in support. There is a SVG Wiki http://www.protocol7.com/svg-wiki/ and also a mailing list Cheers, 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] Trying to add a back to top link
Have you considered using a href=#top.../a ? Yes and that goes back to the root index page - as mentioned these pages are dynamic! Are you using the BASE element? #top is a reference to a local fragment, the page shouldn't reload or load another page unless you have set a base URI. ...or am I missing something? 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] Trimming the fat from CSS
Hugh, I always put in the trailing semicolon and would ask that this practice be adopted by any team I work in even though it is not required. When I wasn't particular about putting it in, I found that when the CSS was later edited by either myself or other maintainers that inevitably a bug in the CSS would be introduced because someone would add several new properties at the end of a rule but overlook terminating the previous property with a semicolon -- irritating. Getting in the habit of always adding the trailing semicolon has pretty much eliminated that ever happening. As Lindsay mentioned earlier, either you or someone else will have to read/edit/debug your code sooner or later and its important that it is readable and easy to follow. Following widely used coding practices just causes less pain and leaves less to trip over for whoever has to work with your code after you've left the building. Cheers, chris On 15/04/2004, at 4:13 PM, Hugh Todd wrote: theGrafixGuy said, You do not need the ; after the last attribute in each style I know this is technically true (browsers will accept it) but I understood that good coding practice is to put the semicolon even after the last attribute. Anyone else know anything about this? -Hugh Todd * 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] Valid Flash...
The imitable Ian Hickson has some valid HTML to embed Macromedia Flash files using only the OBJECT tag... http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator/2004Apr/0071.html Cheers, 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 *
[WSG] XSL stinks: was [OT] XSL [Virus checkedAU]
I've used XSLT (and XSL:FO) to build small/medium/large 3rd party web applications and the odd website since 2000. My experience is completely opposite to yours; my brushes with XSLT have all been happy ones. I recently asked a company for which I worked on 3 such applications in 2001/2002 if they were still glad they went with that technology -- the answer was an overwhelmingly positive yes. They have built several more apps this way since. I had asked the question of them specifically because I had seen the language bad mouthed in many places recently where comments were at odds with my experience or simply unexplained. What problem/s did you have? Cheers, Chris. On 27/11/2003, at 5:34 PM, Brendan Smith wrote: Now run and hide! 'Cause XSL never leaves you alone... it hangs around for years like a bad smell. I'll never use XSL again for the generation of a dynamic site. I might use it in passing here and there, but it makes for such a legacy item. I'm really keen to hear from others in the field, if only to see if the bad taste was just my orange juice and toothpaste again. Brendan * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ *
Re: [WSG]Interesting comments about using DL to mark up forms
Simon Jessey wrote: Interestingly, Ian Hickson says that styling a DL is difficult, and that he is having trouble coming up with solutions for dealing with it in CSS3. I'm not entirely sure what he means by that, since I have no more trouble styling a DL than I do any other element. Great! I could use your help; This[1] glossary of terms and definitions is in the style required for the Example Corps' intranet. It is marked up in a table, and although accessible, it is without any doubt, simply a Definition List. Both the Example Corps' Intranet Manager and the Creative Director insist that page must render in the current style and look identical on IE6 Windows and Mozilla 1.x based Browsers. It may degrade gracefully on other browsers. Here[2]is my attempt, I'm stumped (as you can see) by the condition shown in the 4th row of key/value pairs. Can this visual style be implemented simply using a Definition List and CSS, be valid and hack free? [1] http://www.webx.com.au/code/dl/table.html [2] http://www.webx.com.au/code/dl/list.html cheers, Chris. * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ *
Re: [WSG]list-o-matic-o-rama-o-thingy
ul li {...} /* top level */
ul li ul li {...} /* second level */
and you could also reduce that to..
ul li {...}
ul ul li {...}
...etc
I recently did markup design for a large intranet with a four level
nested list for the secondary navigation menu and this method worked
for us just fine.
Cheers,
Chris Bentley
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