Re: What is "DOCTYPE"

On Tue, 08 Jul 2003 10:33:40 +0200, Matthias Gutfeldt <worte (AT) gmx (DOT) at>
wrote:

What's more, the same HTML4.01 Transitional document will be rendered
differently depending on how you write the Doctype Declaration. Of
course this is all completely bogus (the Doctype has nothing to do with
layout), but there you have it.

I think the above statement could be misleading. The Internet Explorer
box model bug can certainly affect layout as illustrated at
http://apptools.com/newsgroup/boxbug.html. Note that you'll need IE6
to really see the difference.


Gary

Gary White wrote:

On Tue, 08 Jul 2003 10:33:40 +0200, Matthias Gutfeldt <worte (AT) gmx (DOT) at
wrote:


What's more, the same HTML4.01 Transitional document will be rendered
differently depending on how you write the Doctype Declaration. Of
course this is all completely bogus (the Doctype has nothing to do with
layout), but there you have it.


I think the above statement could be misleading. The Internet Explorer
box model bug can certainly affect layout as illustrated at
http://apptools.com/newsgroup/boxbug.html. Note that you'll need IE6
to really see the difference.

I would have thought my posting is clear enough, but apparently not. Of
course the Internet Explorer 5 bugs affect the layout, that's why they
invented the switch in the first place!

The whole Doctype switching thing is very unfortunate, because people
obviously believe that Doctypes are layout devices. This is wrong.
Neither the Doctype Declaration nor the referenced Doctype Definition
know anything about layout. They should not affect the layout, this is
the domain of CSS.


Matthias

On Wed, 09 Jul 2003 10:04:00 +0200, Matthias Gutfeldt <worte (AT) gmx (DOT) at>
wrote:

I would have thought my posting is clear enough, but apparently not. Of
course the Internet Explorer 5 bugs affect the layout, that's why they
invented the switch in the first place!

The whole Doctype switching thing is very unfortunate, because people
obviously believe that Doctypes are layout devices. This is wrong.
Neither the Doctype Declaration nor the referenced Doctype Definition
know anything about layout. They should not affect the layout, this is
the domain of CSS.

I was sure that you understood, but was afraid that someone less
knowledgable might not. I agree that the DOCTYPE is not a layout tool,
but it can affect the way that the page will be laid out, depending on
the browser.


Gary