Do you HTML 4.0?

Jason_Batten

I was looking through my HTML Goodies book just now and went to the site hoping to look up a JavaScript example but I was confronted with a nice 404 error, very professional Joe 😉 cough Any way... I found my self just cruzing the web site and I found the "new" HTML 4.0 commands. I have the second edition of his book yet Mr Phd just stuffed the new commands in the back of the book with out teaching them.

Now for the point. I am just wondering if anyone even uses the commands, I know I don't! Is it because most of the effects can be done with CSS? I look at source code from time to time and it appears no one else does either. I write all my code in TextPad, you won't catch me using Dreamweaver :glare: so another question is do the programs support the commands? The only "new" commands I see is RARELY table header and footer.

I looked through the pages and some of the commands seem some what useful but nothing exciting. Although the HTML+Time-Shift thing was cool.

Probably the only one I will use is the FRAME thingo for Tables. With maybe the rules thingy but the same effect can be done with CSS.

The source of my rant: http://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutorials/html_401/

Skull

I occasionally use the table header tags...thats really all :p

goldbug

"New" hehe. Definitely fresh, since HTML 4.0 has been around for about 8 years. :p

If by "commands" you mean tags, specifically those introduced in HTML 4.0 (ABBR, ACRONYM, BDO, BUTTON, COL, COLGROUP, DEL, FIELDSET, FRAME, FRAMESET, IFRAME, INS, LABEL, LEGEND, NOFRAMES, NOSCRIPT, OBJECT, OPTGROUP, PARAM, S (deprecated), SPAN, TBODY, TFOOT, THEAD, and Q) then yes, I use a good number of those on a regular basis (abbr, acronym, col, colgroup, fieldset, label, legend, object, optgroup, span, tbody, tfoot). The rest I just never have a need for, or are deprecated/disallowed in the flavor markup I happen to be working in (usually XHTML 1.0 Strict).

Weedpacket

...and XHTML 1.0 for five...

I write HTML4.0.1 Transitional at minimum, XHTML 1.0 Strict when I can.

Here's a question: let's say my (HTML401-compliant) document is perfectly valid HTML 2.0: would there be any advantage to using an HTML 2.0 doctype? Or should I stick with the 4.0.1 imprimatur?

Weedpacket

Originally posted by NetNerd85
The source of my rant:http://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutorials/html_401/

I wish I knew when those were written. A couple of gems from the Time-shift article:

<STYLE>
.time { behavior: url(#default#time2);}
</STYLE>

SPAN is an MSIE-only command that allows Style Sheet commands to be carried along and applied against the text without any other modification like a P or BR. [emphasis mine]

dalecosp

Originally posted by Weedpacket
...and XHTML 1.0 for five...

I write HTML4.0.1 Transitional at minimum, XHTML 1.0 Strict when I can.

Kudos to you, as always ...

Here's a question: let's say my (HTML401-compliant) document is perfectly valid HTML 2.0: would there be any advantage to using an HTML 2.0 doctype? Or should I stick with the 4.0.1 imprimatur?

If history repeats itself, most likely this is a good idea (using the more advanced DOCTYPE). I'd speculate that the downside would be the handling of the code by various browsers....

I'm sure everyone has seen this, or something similar.

I am really trying to make pages compliant. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. I also have a whole boatload of rather non-compliant code that I can't just /dev/null yet.... 🙁

Jason_Batten

We are Internet Explorer 6 you will be assimilated, resistance is futile.

:glare:

Built for, don't have it, get it, if not, no looky :evilgrin:

You've got to slap your users into doing what you want them to do and then getting them to thank you for it.

Weedpacket

Originally posted by dalecosp
If history repeats itself, most likely this is a good idea (using the more advanced DOCTYPE). I'd speculate that the downside would be the handling of the code by various browsers....

Okay; so then I throw this together:

<html>
<head>
<title>Just a generic title</title>
<meta name="keywords" content="Something to say on the subject, here.">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
</head>
<body>
<!-- content -->
<h1><a name="No name">A level 1 header</a></h1>
<hr>
<pre>
  Preformatted text
  Because you just can.
</pre>
<pre>
  [mailed and posted]
</pre>
<hr>
<p>And this is a paragraph text that winds up with a comment matching the one above. <!-- /content -->
</p>
</body>
</html>

That validates under every HTML doctype going (barring 4.0 Frameset). It fails to be XHTML because of the unclosed empty tags and the space in the name attribute. So what do I call it? 2.0 or 4.01 Strict? After all, you can expect XHTML 2 to be the current standard before too long, but you'd expect UAs to still honour the XHTML 1 doctype.