the official xhtml thread

i'm reading xhtml for dummies. this is the thread for discussing anythind xhtml. if u don't use it 4 yo site, use it

 

will someone help me understand what makes it better than html

 

Using XHTML makes your site a Well-Formed XML Document, which means it can be parsed and understood by XML Readers and browsers.

¤Night

 

^whoa.... english please
i think i kinda get that... but what is an XML browser? whats the actual advantage to that?

 

an xml browser is a browser that displays documents written in the computer language called xml

 

yeah, i assumed that, ok, fine, question answered....

but whats the point of that? why isnt html just as good?

 

with html you have to make multiple webpages for the same webpage so it can be shown on different browser (one version for computers, another for PDA's, another for web TV). In XHTML you can create style sheets so one webpage can be displayed on multiple browsers. XHTML descrides content, but not layout. HTML describes content and layout. That makes XHTML more extensible (which is what the X stands for). You can use style steets to control the size and color of headings. It's hard to explain. Read XHTML for Dummies, it can explain things better. I'll try harder if you want.

 

ok, i get it now, just was wondering....

 

XML is used a lot for databases, and if your website is XHTML compliant, it can be converted to a database much easier. (because technically, it already is a database.)

I believe that using XHTML you can define your own tags also, which, using stylesheets as mentioned, you can make display things the way you want them to be displayed.

¤Night

 

XHTML is stricter than HTML, it's case sensitive for one thing

 

It also requires that all tags be closed, and must be nested properly, as with regular XML.

While I can understand the advantages, I don't think they'll benefit my site enough at the moment to warrant changing it.

 

While I can understand the advantages, I don't think they'll benefit my site enough at the moment to warrant changing it.
y not

 

Can't explain it much more than I already did: none of the advantages would benefit my site.

I haven't heard any demand from people wanting to browse on PDAs or mobile phones, and I know most of the regular members personally. They'd most likely express their annoyance at not being able to get the site on those mediums if they'd ever tried.

I've got a lot of code to validate, remarkably little free time to do it in, and nothing to gain from doing it.

 

You may wish to consider it in the future for handicapped or blind users. Most likely they aren't complaining because they can't make any sense out of your site at all. XHTML is much more friendly for text-to-speech devices and so forth.

 

You may wish to consider it in the future for handicapped or blind users. Most likely they aren't complaining because they can't make any sense out of your site at all. XHTML is much more friendly for text-to-speech devices and so forth.
how

 

please explain the http-equiv attribute of the <meta /> element

 

I read in XHTML for dummies that the <object> element won't be in the next version of XHTML, how are multimedia files supposed to be embeded, wouldn't that mean anyone using multimedia wouldn't use it

 

Well maybe the book didn't include the latest info. XHTML v. 1.1 does include the object tag.

Here is the official definition of the http-equiv, which is actually clearer with the4 example:

The http-equiv attribute can be used in place of the name attribute and has a special significance when documents are retrieved via the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). HTTP servers may use the property name specified by the http-equiv attribute to create an [RFC822]-style header in the HTTP response. Please see the HTTP specification ([RFC2616]) for details on valid HTTP headers.

The following sample META declaration:

<META http-equiv="Expires" content="Tue, 20 Aug 1996 14:25:27 GMT">

will result in the HTTP header:

Expires: Tue, 20 Aug 1996 14:25:27 GMT

This can be used by caches to determine when to fetch a fresh copy of the associated document.

 

were can I get the latest info on wut's in XHTML v.1.1

 

http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/

¤Night

 

i don't see th <script> or <applet> elements

EDIT: my eyes overlooked the script element