I was going to ask this question anyway, but then this thread started about the place of doctypes...
Patrick H. Lauke wrote: > > If you know for sure that the markup is going to be invalid, why bother > > with a doctype at all? ... OK, Consider this very simple HTML document: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd";> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-15"> <title>Table CSS test: Doctype HTML4 transitional</title> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="styles.css"> </head> <body> <p>Paragraph</p> <table cellpadding=5 cellspacing=0 border=1> <tbody> <tr> <td>Top-left</td> <td>Top-right</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Bottom-left</td> <td>Bottom-right</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </body> </html> With this extremely simple stylesheet (styles.css): body { font-family: arial,verdana,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: .7em; } In Safari, Firefox & IE5.2Mac, this page appears as expected: the text in the paragraph and the table are the same size. Increase/decrease the browser font size and they grow/shrink together. Now delete the <!DOCTYPE ...> declaration and try again. This time, only the paragraph text follows the "body" style; the table text defaults to the browser's "normal" setting. To save you from having to create the documents, here are the 2 versions: http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/sub/dev/doctype_test/doctype.html http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/sub/dev/doctype_test/no_doctype.html How could leaving out the doctype make such a definite difference to such a simple page? Regards, Jonathan Cooper Manager of Information / Website Art Gallery of New South Wales Sydney, Australia http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 02/10/2004 12:04:24 AM: > > I've settled with using the XHTML Transitional doctype, but that's only for > new documents. For your older documents which don't have correct syntax, I > agree with the other posts. I wouldn't use a doctype at all and let the > browser go into quirks mode and do it's best to render. Slapping an XHTML > doctype on those documents won't make them more forward compatible, only > fixing the HTML would. It could actually make those documents less > compatible because you are in essence lying to the browser about the > content, and then hoping the browser doesn't mess up the rendering. > > ... under what cases should one use > an XHTML doctype - practically speaking ... > > I would say simply, you should use XHTML doctype if you actually have valid > XHTML code in your document. > > With that said here's some resources I find helpful, if you'd like to dig > more. > > http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/validator/doctype.html > http://www.quirksmode.org/about/quirksmode.html > http://www.alistapart.com/articles/betterliving/ > http://www.alistapart.com/articles/doctype/ > http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?DOCTYPE > > Chris > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of Nando > Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2004 8:12 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: [WSG] doctypes, quirks/standards mode and positioning > > I'll be reworking the markup and the layout approach they've used ... > it's just that i anticipate they'll have a reason for using the > doctype ... cuz it doesn't jump up there by itself, that i'll need to > intelligently and authoritively discuss with them. Much of the code is > actually generated out of a Struts jsp app. So i'm looking for > resources and experienced opinions ... under what cases should one use > an XHTML doctype - practically speaking ... > > On Thu, 30 Sep 2004 22:40:43 +0100, Patrick H. Lauke > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Neerav wrote: > > > > > so go for html 4 transitional validation if the clients tables will > > > always be invalid > > > > If you know for sure that the markup is going to be invalid, why bother > > with a doctype at all? It's a bit like putting a "may contain nuts" > > sticker on a bag of peanuts... > > > > Patrick H. 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