I'm using XHTML 1.0 Transitional. I don't have a percentage defined in
the markup. It's defined in the CSS as width: 65% and I left the cols
attribute unspecified. What I want to understand is why is cols
required by the W3C standard, if the width can be defined in CSS? Is
there a specific purpose to that, that can't be served by the width
attribute in CSS?
The reason I'm questioning this is when you have a layout with a form
inside a container with a percentage width defined in CSS, but you have
cols hard coded in the markup, couldn't that create a problem with the
way a UA renders a page, particularly when "cols" is effectively wider
than the containing area on a page?
For example, say I've got a form with a textarea, cols at 80. I have a
container for that form that is set to 60% width (in the CSS). Now, if
I have a small screen, the container will take up 75% of the screen
width...could cols, set at 80, break that layout or will it still render
acceptably?
I am just respectfully asking for help in understanding why cols is
required by the W3C standard if a width attribute could be set in CSS
for textarea.
Thanks,
Leslie Riggs
"cols" is used to define the number of characters on a line. That is
percent is giving you an error. The default for this in html 4.01 is
80.
I believe in xhtml it is required to be defined.
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