Malcolm Nixon wrote... >On Sat, 30 Dec 2006 19:56:04 +0000, Martin Clark ><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> No code bloat for me! I've >>got right into CSS for layout which allows for very lean html code for >>each page. This also makes it easier to pinpoint any errors so that the >>code validates as strict HTML 4.01. This in turn helps to make sure it >>appears properly in a range of browsers. >> >Why not transitional XHTML
Because transitional XHTML is a complete waste of time. It is a backward step from HTML 4.01 as it allows you to get away with all sorts of deprecated stuff that 4.01 wouldn't allow. Partly because of this, transitional documents allow browsers to work in "quirks mode" so results can be unpredictable. >or even strick xhtml - even better. Yes, XHTML strict is better than XHTML transitional, but not necessarily better than HTML 4.01. XHTM itself is a hybrid between HTML and XML. IE cannot parse XHTML so documents have to include a line to tell it to serve it as text/html. Firefox does not render XHTML incrementally, so the page will not display until all the code has downloaded. This can lead to the user staring at a blank screen for several seconds or even to the page timing out before everything has downloaded. I'm sure most of us have experienced that happening! I have read of rendering problems with Safari and Konquerer, too. >- Basic html is on the way out. Hardly! Think of all the millions of websites written in HTML. They will need to be supported into the far future. HTML 4.01 is very similar to XHTML 0.1, so it took me just a couple of minutes to change this page into valid XTML 0.1 http://www.hcanals.demon.co.uk/xhtmlindex.htm Multiple pages over a site can be quickly changed using a batch search and replace facility. At the moment, none of my web pages use anything that needs XML. As far as I can make out, the best option for now is to make sure pages are strict HTML 4.01 and with tags and attributes in lowercase and values in quote marks. Then, at some point in the future, if it becomes necessary to convert them to XHTML, that can be done fairly quickly. There are plenty of people out there who do not think that XHTML is the way to go. There is plenty of interesting reading on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XHTML http://www.spartanicus.utvinternet.ie/no-xhtml.htm http://www.mozilla.org/docs/web-developer/faq.html#accept >OK - we all do things our own way - there is NO right way - just many >good ways (:-) > Plus lots of bad ways? -- Martin Clark Internet Boaters' Database http://www.boaterweb.co.uk Pennine Waterways Website http://www.penninewaterways.co.uk
