Re: Language settings meta tag and doctype

"Timmermans" <steventimmermans (AT) yahoo (DOT) co.uk> wrote:

"John Bokma" <john (AT) castleamber (DOT) com> wrote in message

....

Is there a good reason why you want to use XHTML?

Any reason why not?

Yup, a few.
<http://www.hixie.ch/advocacy/xhtml>

I think in short it's: XHTML doesn't add anything for most purposes, and
it has some disadvantages over HTML 4.01 strict in some situations.

It's basicly plain HTML, give or take a few
differences

Then I recommend using HTML 4.01 strict ;-)

--
John Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/
Perl SEO tools: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
NEW ----> Textpad reference card (pdf): http://johnbokma.com/textpad/

On Thu, 12 Jan 2006 19:14:55 +0800, "Timmermans"
<steventimmermans (AT) yahoo (DOT) co.uk> wrote:

Thanks Borek,

This would mean my pages are no good at all then? Can I minimize the damage
somehow or do I need to fall back on HTML, perhaps I can move on to... what?

Also, you only mention IE, is this a problem that would excist in all
browsers?

You should be testing at least in FF anyway.

BB
http://www.crystal-liaison.com/david...ges/index.html kruse (AT) crystal-liaison (DOT) com
Gifty! Shiny! BB!

On Thu, 12 Jan 2006 12:14:55 +0100, Timmermans
<steventimmermans (AT) yahoo (DOT) co.uk> wrote:

This would mean my pages are no good at all then? Can I minimize the
damage
somehow or do I need to fall back on HTML, perhaps I can move on to...
what?

I don't think there is any serious damage done, but you may want to
clean things up. Either revert to HTML, or switch entirely to XHTML -
in the second case you'll have to do some tricks to support IE.

My page (php) does the trick this way:

<?
// check if the client supports XHTML
if (strpos($_SERVER[HTTP_ACCEPT],'application/xhtml+xml') !== false)
// it does - inform it we will be serving XHTML
header("Content-type: application/xhtml+xml");
else
// it doesn't - lie that we will serve HTML
header("Content-type: text/html");
?>

Then I am sending XHTML - and it works OK.

What I like in XHTML is that page MUST validate, othervise it will
be not displayed (by decent browser, IE tries to display everything),
that's why I am doing the trick. Also at the moment we started doing
our pages, we were not aware of the IE limitation, later there was
no time to convert all XHTML to HTML (things like /> tag closing).

Also, you only mention IE, is this a problem that would excist in all
browsers?

No, AFAIK other browsers support XHTML correctly.

And how do searchengines react to this? The appear to be able to read my
pages without a problem. Can I assume (and I will keep this simple, but
I know it is not) that searchengines by default discard the bulk of all
code between '<' and '>' so they are able index the content?

More or less. Most pages out there are so called tag soup, so search
engines have to be able to deal with it.

How worried should I be?

None at all. If in doubt - look at the sources of Cat pages

Why is XHTML still out there if the language is incompatible withmost
browsers?

The problem is not in XHTML, the problem is in one browser
incompatible with everything else All other browsers support
it correctly. IE knows how to display XHTML pages, it just doesn't
know it knows

Best,
Borek
--
http://www.chembuddy.com/?left=pH-ca...right=pH-scale
http://www.chembuddy.com/?left=pH-ca...=pH-definition

"Big Bill" <kruse (AT) cityscape (DOT) co.uk> wrote

On Thu, 12 Jan 2006 19:14:55 +0800, "Timmermans"
steventimmermans (AT) yahoo (DOT) co.uk> wrote:

Thanks Borek,

This would mean my pages are no good at all then? Can I minimize the
damage
somehow or do I need to fall back on HTML, perhaps I can move on to...
what?

Also, you only mention IE, is this a problem that would excist in all
browsers?

You should be testing at least in FF anyway.

BB
http://www.crystal-liaison.com/david...ges/index.html
kruse (AT) crystal-liaison (DOT) com
Gifty! Shiny! BB!

Will do, thanks for the advice.

Steven

"Borek" <m.borkowski (AT) delete (DOT) chembuddy.these.com.parts> wrote

On Thu, 12 Jan 2006 12:14:55 +0100, Timmermans
steventimmermans (AT) yahoo (DOT) co.uk> wrote:

This would mean my pages are no good at all then? Can I minimize the
damage
somehow or do I need to fall back on HTML, perhaps I can move on to...
what?

I don't think there is any serious damage done, but you may want to
clean things up. Either revert to HTML, or switch entirely to XHTML -
in the second case you'll have to do some tricks to support IE.

What you mean switch entirely to XHTML, you mean strickt?

My page (php) does the trick this way:

?
// check if the client supports XHTML
if (strpos($_SERVER[HTTP_ACCEPT],'application/xhtml+xml') !== false)
// it does - inform it we will be serving XHTML
header("Content-type: application/xhtml+xml");
else
// it doesn't - lie that we will serve HTML
header("Content-type: text/html");
?

Then I am sending XHTML - and it works OK.

It doesn't change the typical XHTML tags within the body of the document
though, does XHTML validate without question as HTML at all times then?

I do not use php (?)... could I still copy and paste the above, is it
standard? My page (www.maleisie.be/index.html) how much work does this page
need to get it to display completely in XHTML? Dare I ask for a corrected
copy (pretty please with sugar on top)?

Being unfamiliar with the term php, could you explain this?

What I like in XHTML is that page MUST validate, othervise it will
be not displayed (by decent browser, IE tries to display everything),
that's why I am doing the trick. Also at the moment we started doing
our pages, we were not aware of the IE limitation, later there was
no time to convert all XHTML to HTML (things like /> tag closing).

Also, you only mention IE, is this a problem that would excist in all
browsers?

No, AFAIK other browsers support XHTML correctly.

Curse MS!!!

And how do searchengines react to this? The appear to be able to read
my
pages without a problem. Can I assume (and I will keep this simple, but
I know it is not) that searchengines by default discard the bulk of all
code between '<' and '>' so they are able index the content?

More or less. Most pages out there are so called tag soup, so search
engines have to be able to deal with it.

How worried should I be?

None at all. If in doubt - look at the sources of Cat pages

I can find these where?

Why is XHTML still out there if the language is incompatible withmost
browsers?

The problem is not in XHTML, the problem is in one browser
incompatible with everything else All other browsers support
it correctly. IE knows how to display XHTML pages, it just doesn't
know it knows

How practical. So what arguments I have not to give IE the boot?

Best,
Borek
--
http://www.chembuddy.com/?left=pH-ca...right=pH-scale
http://www.chembuddy.com/?left=pH-ca...=pH-definition

Thanks again.

Steven

On Thu, 12 Jan 2006 16:18:27 +0100, Timmermans
<steventimmermans (AT) yahoo (DOT) co.uk> wrote:

What you mean switch entirely to XHTML, you mean strickt?

Yes, that's what I meant. However, after looking at your page my
current advice is - don't touch anything After reading your previous
my assesment of the situation was wrong, some misunderstanding.

?
// check if the client supports XHTML
if (strpos($_SERVER[HTTP_ACCEPT],'application/xhtml+xml') !== false)
// it does - inform it we will be serving XHTML
header("Content-type: application/xhtml+xml");
else
// it doesn't - lie that we will serve HTML
header("Content-type: text/html");
?

Then I am sending XHTML - and it works OK.

It doesn't change the typical XHTML tags within the body of the document
though, does XHTML validate without question as HTML at all times then?

No, all XHTML tags (like <br/>) are left.

I have just checked and validator accepts XHTML document even if HTTP
header states html/txt. Always thought they should be identical...

I do not use php (?)... could I still copy and paste the above, is it
standard? My page (www.maleisie.be/index.html) how much work does this
page need to get it to display completely in XHTML? Dare I ask for a
corrected copy (pretty please with sugar on top)?

Your page validates as it is - as we say in Poland "better is enemy of
good". Your coding is OK and improving it doesn't make SEO sense (even
if I am against using tables for formatting )

Being unfamiliar with the term php, could you explain this?

php is a scripting language used for pages generation.

How worried should I be?

None at all. If in doubt - look at the sources of Cat pages

I can find these where?

http://www.luckymojo.com/

Cat is known to produce badly coded pages, yet she generates great
content - and that's enough to occupy very high positions for such
competitive keywords like "sex" - something like #12.

How practical. So what arguments I have not to give IE the boot?

None. Switch to Opera or FireFox.

Best,
Borek
--
http://www.chembuddy.com/?left=pH-ca...right=pH-scale
http://www.chembuddy.com/?left=pH-ca...=pH-definition

"Timmermans" <steventimmermans (AT) yahoo (DOT) co.uk> wrote:

Thanks Borek,

This would mean my pages are no good at all then? Can I minimize the
damage somehow or do I need to fall back on HTML, perhaps I can move
on to... what?

I (again) recommend to just replace the DOCTYPE to HTML 4.01 strict. And
fix the things like <br /> and <img ... /> where needed. It's way easier.
Like I said, XHTML has no advantages I can think off (other then more
strictness, which browsers don't follow anyway afaik).

Also, you only mention IE, is this a problem that would excist in all
browsers?

AFAIK, only IE, and hence you have to do sniffing and serve out the right
Content-Type. It can be done, but why all the hassle? (See the link I
posted earlier).

And how do searchengines react to this? The appear to be able to read
my pages without a problem. Can I assume (and I will keep this
simple, but I know it is not) that searchengines by default discard
the bulk of all code between '<' and '>' so they are able index the
content?

SEs are probably fine. But because everything looks fine on the outside is
not a reason to switch to XHTML. XHTML is halfway between HTML and XML and
relies on browsers not being strict when it comes to handling HTML, which
shouldn't be supported, also since in parsing XML this is *not* right
according to the specs.

How worried should I be? Why is XHTML still out there if the language
is incompatible with most browsers?

Why are so many things still out there while clearly badly designed?

Why XHTML is used often is just because most people don't understand the
ins and outs, and just use it because it looks newer compared to HTML
4.01. If you ask why they use XHTML they don't have a good answer, and are
not aware of the disadvantages.

Bottomline is that for most uses XHTML adds nothing, and most of the time
is used wrongly, for the wrong purposes.

I used (maybe still have one or two pages) XHTML because I did knew the
advantages, but I didn't knew all disadvantages at that time :-) Hence, I
am now using HTML 4.01 strict.

--
John Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/
Perl SEO tools: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
NEW ----> Textpad reference card (pdf): http://johnbokma.com/textpad/

Borek <m.borkowski (AT) delete (DOT) chembuddy.these.com.parts> wrote:

What I like in XHTML is that page MUST validate, othervise it will
be not displayed (by decent browser, IE tries to display everything),

I think you got it wrong. It must be well-formed, which is not the same as
validated. (A page that is not well-formed shouldn't validate, however).

that's why I am doing the trick.

The thing is that IE doesn't stop parsing if the document is not well-
formed. No idea if Firefox does it, but the thing is, it will not happen.
Ages ago Netscape gave up when the HTML was not well formed or if it
encountered a syntax error. People ended up with a blank page. No such
problem with IE, so you can guess what got the blame.

So in short, giving up when a page is not well-formed (or well-formed, but
doesn't validate), is only ok if each and every browser has this
behaviour.

Why is XHTML still out there if the language is incompatible withmost
browsers?

The problem is not in XHTML, the problem is in one browser
incompatible with everything else

No, the problem is also XHTML, at least the 1.0 version, which relies on
tag soup and "incompatible" browsers :-D-

All other browsers support
it correctly. IE knows how to display XHTML pages, it just doesn't
know it knows

That's because XHTML was designed this way (1.0 that is), which *should*
make you wonder ;-)

--
John Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/
Perl SEO tools: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
NEW ----> Textpad reference card (pdf): http://johnbokma.com/textpad/

On Thu, 12 Jan 2006 17:38:35 +0100, Borek
<m.borkowski (AT) delete (DOT) chembuddy.these.com.parts> wrote:

On Thu, 12 Jan 2006 16:18:27 +0100, Timmermans
steventimmermans (AT) yahoo (DOT) co.uk> wrote:

I do not use php (?)... could I still copy and paste the above, is it
standard? My page (www.maleisie.be/index.html) how much work does this
page need to get it to display completely in XHTML? Dare I ask for a
corrected copy (pretty please with sugar on top)?

Your page validates as it is - as we say in Poland "better is enemy of
good". Your coding is OK and improving it doesn't make SEO sense (even
if I am against using tables for formatting )

Being unfamiliar with the term php, could you explain this?

php is a scripting language used for pages generation.

How worried should I be?

None at all. If in doubt - look at the sources of Cat pages

I can find these where?

http://www.luckymojo.com/

Cat is known to produce badly coded pages, yet she generates great
content - and that's enough to occupy very high positions for such
competitive keywords like "sex" - something like #12.

I'm wondering at this point what her rank might be if her site were
made to validate. Say, by CW, who we know could do it.

BB
http://www.crystal-liaison.com/david...ges/index.html kruse (AT) crystal-liaison (DOT) com
Gifty! Shiny! BB!

On Thu, 12 Jan 2006 19:52:37 +0100, Big Bill <kruse (AT) cityscape (DOT) co.uk> wrote:

Cat is known to produce badly coded pages, yet she generates great
content - and that's enough to occupy very high positions for such
competitive keywords like "sex" - something like #12.

I'm wondering at this point what her rank might be if her site were
made to validate. Say, by CW, who we know could do it.

I have modified one of her pages to validate on Christmas Eve -
if it helped, she should know about atm.

Best,
Borek
--
http://www.chembuddy.com/?left=pH-ca...right=pH-scale
http://www.chembuddy.com/?left=pH-ca...=pH-definition