Okay, boys and girls, here it is, the W3C thread. I'm sure a mod will move this or delete this, but I've noticed a few other threads going off topic to talk about the W3C, so why not start here? What do you like least/most about w3c standards and their coding styles? I like the uniformity and cleanliness of it, and especially the accessibility. Well, I say especially accessibility, but actually, the fact that I designed a page that looks good in IE, Netscape, Mozilla, and Opera is why I really love the standards! I'm planning on writing a book soon, so as many conflicts or solutions that you may have to writing good standards-compliant pages would help out a great deal! I can't remember the specifics, but I do know that Opera puts a default page border in my pages in spite of the margin of 0. I remember Opera looking good when I went with non-standard code, so doest that make Opera not a real standards-compliant browser (this is version 7 I'm talking about) or is my design not standards-compliant?
Well, the browsers. All browsers suck, they all suck differently. You'll probably get a buzz (haw haw) from this: http://www.webstandards.org/
New example for everyone who might be interested in this. I guess I'm a boring geek... this stanards stuff and css really interest me, I can't wait to start studying php to do that cool stuff linear does so well with his stylesheets. Anyway, new problem, if you have netscape/mozilla and internet explorer, open this page in both windows: http://www.unm.edu/~cjadams/hr/ For some reason my #leftmenu renders differently in each browser... extreemly differently. Any ideas? EDIT:: I'm trying to change this page to the above page, for standards/accessibility reasons. I just want to finish it before I propose it, so I can say, look, it looks the same, is easier to modify, and works in all new browsers!
Thats because opera uses padding instead of margin. use: Code: body{margin:0;padding:0} to cater for both cheers alastair
Didn't have time to read this thread really cause I've got a computing exam in half an hour but... I think that standards are a very good idea, and they work very well when they do, lol, if you get me. I think the main problem lies with the web authors. If HTMLers took the time to code properly, then the browsers wouldn't need to ajust away from the standards to support bad coding. Because so many people code badly, or dont even bother learning HMTL, the majority of site's code is a joke that needs a browser which isn't standards compliant in order to view the site properly. Although, in the position that the web is in now, I think the browsers need to become strict standards compliant so that people will be forced to code properly.
I don't think that's the main problem at all (although 'web designers' with Dreamweaver do have a lot to answer for). There are a few problems with W3C definitions (esp CSS) in that they're missing one or two bits that really should be a basic attributes, imo (and that of a lot of others). But the biggest problem is without doubt the seemingly complete and utter random manner in which browsers implement various technologies. My main gripe at the moment is with layout and dimensions in CSS (but again, half of this is down to browser implementation). If I want to do something as straightforward as centre an element, I can't. I have to hack around it (yet this is achievable with just two words using a table). If I want to define the width of an element, then define some padding and maybe even some borders, does that element appear the same in various browsers? No, of course not. Where's the fun in that? I could dynamically define which of several stylesheets to use using javascript, but now we're introducing something which could easily knacker the entire site just by disabling javascript. And why should I get lumbered with the extra work (admitedly, not that much) because browsers don't know their ass from their elbow? There's a great (and rather devious) hack that worked around that problem, then IE6 came along and spoilt that party. So now I'm exposed to the equally random manner in which the DOM is implemented. WHY, GOD? WHY!?!?! I think that's all. For now...
Hey, watch what you say about dreamweaver!! http://www.unm.edu/~cjadams/nmrid Dremweaver MX all-the-way baby! Dreamweaver doubles as a decent text editor, and lets you choose how to write your code. I have it use xhtml compliant code with CSS I define myself. (granted, I don't do the point-and-click dreamweaving, but still, not a bad program when you use it properly!) Anyway, I'm going to code all my future pages complaint and let people upgrade, or view text-only pages. (so there )
lol, I think you're kind of missing the point of being a web designer. You're not just designing pages the way you want. Ultimately, you serve your clients who in turn serve their clients. You're not designing pure pieces of art that people should feel privileged to look at. You're designing something that is there to present information, and if the end viewer has to upgrade their browser to view the page when they have no desire to do so, then I'm afraid you're doing it wrong. (Admitedly, people using browsers like NS4 can like it or lump it ) Sorry, but that's the bones of it On another note, what is the point of spending a bunch of good money on Dreamweaver just to use it as a text editor?
Ah, but right now I'm not a freelance web designer, I'm a student employee who has a copy of MX from work! Ah, site-licensing! (Fully legit, I just can't be at home and at work with dreamweaver open at the same time! yay for reading the contract!) Bradford... first off, BAH to the end user who does not feel priveledge to view my piece of art! (point taken, when my server is working, php scripts will throw a non-compliant page to old browsers) But for now, until I learn good server-side scripting (for those who disable javascript) it will be a while until I choose to support netscape 4 over all the standards-compliant browser. I might be changing my ways soon anyway, this new site is really stumping me (the /hr site I linked to above) It just won't load in netscape.
Okay, so I've figured out why netscape was rendering differently, and I'd like to remind anyone who uses the float tag that overflow: none; is your best friend! Anyway, browser conflicts among "compliant" browsers... First off, is IE standards comliant? Because it renders borders on the inside of divs, and netscapes pushes divs over however far needed to put the border on the outside. I prefer outside borders. An example is the same http://www.unm.edu/~cjadams/hr page, and the thing to look at is the main area's picture in the top-left corner. It has a 2px white border in netscape, but the 2 px border covers it in IE. kind of annoying, but I'll survive.
I think it's time you learned how to toggle quirk-mode. http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...op/author/dhtml/reference/objects/doctype.asp http://mozilla.org/docs/web-developer/quirks/doctypes.html http://www.opera.com/docs/specs/doctype/ I didn't wanna bring this up earlier, you seemed to be getting bewildered by all the CSS madness, and I figured this would just completely boggle you, but your work seems to indicate you need to know this.
Linear, I'm a bit confused with this, is this to say I need to change to xhtml basic instead of xhtml transitional? (opera says that xhtml basic is the only dtd supported in standard mode?) So, is the advice for my instance to change to: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML Basic 1.0//EN" "xhtml-basic10.dtd"> Or to stay away from xhtml altogether? (I kind of wanted to go strict later on....) I plan on validating my CSS & xhtml after finishing the layout. (so I know what I can and cannot do in the end) The first three lines of my code currently are: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> Should I change this? I'm a bit confused... do we want to use quirks mode, or work with standards mode? (I'm thinking standards, but does this mean my code needs to change?) bah, you were right... I'm a bit bewildered, but at least my pages don't have frames (although I'm still designing as though I do, which I need to break)
First off, remove the first line. It causes IE 6 to revert to "quirks mode", even with the right DTD. You don't need it, so my advice is to take it out. ALWAYS use standards mode. ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS! XHTML + CSS is definitely the way to go, IMHO. With a few hacks and tricks, we can get around the browser deficiencies (for the most part), and produce well structured, accessible, more portable mark-up. My Recommended Further Reading (Very Short Version): http://www.glish.com/css/ (further links + tips) http://www.alistapart.com (IMHO, required reading) http://css-discuss.org (home to an excellent mailing list) http://www.bluerobot.com (a couple of sample layouts + tips)
CSS sometimes angers me. Mainly the fact that we're supposed to be moving away from any formatting in the HTML itself and using CSS. That's fine, it's good, it's how it should always have been. But then there's glaring things missing from CSS2, like being able to alignyour content in a block in the center of the page vertically. The only way to do it is using ugly hacks that can mess up any advanced CSS inside the block in most browsers
Nihilist, I think the problem is those creating the standards are hoping for a more pure internet where data and information come before design and looking good. While I agree with their ideas, I hate them at the same time. (the ideas, not the w3c) I just spent about three hours straight trying to make tabs for my web page using nothing but CSS. The idea started from seeing www.editize.com but then I checked the page in Netscape, Mozilla, Opera, and IE, and got different result. It is obvious conforming to the new standards will be a process involving less pre-planning and more tweaking/hacking. Although I'm not a big fan of it, I've learned it isn't too bad. At least in the end my pages work cross browser... right? right? Anyway, here is the latest of my CSS driven sites: http://www.woventhorns.com It is nowhere near finished, but you can get the idea. The tabs took Forever and I wish to never do them again! If you want to talk about that page, I started another "flame my new site" thread too. (but feel free to talk about the CSS of it all in here)
I feel I have to disagree somewhat with this statement. Whilst you could see it that way I think they are just trying to seperate the data from the design as much as possible as was originally intended. Think back to original HTML, your browser had an option for the background colour before it was included into the HTML standard. What W3C are trying to standardise is a way to send the raw data (much like original HTML code) to the browser along with an instruction set in the form of CSS telling it how to display the data. There still needs to be a lot of work done on things like XHTML and CSS though, and I think that by the time they are viable an powerful cross-platform standards that they will be supersceded (spelling?) by something more alike to Flash with the ever-increasing usage of broadband. Something more multi-media orientated like Flash seems the logical way forward, but obviously in a more structured codable format perhaps with HTML style syntax?
Ahh, point taken. I still love a good CSS page over a flash page sometimes, but then again, it is all in the coding. You can have clean, fast running flash sometimes, and horrible, incopatable CSS others. For example: www.jasongarfield.com the worst flash site ever (although the videos are great!) Anyway, point taken, and I personally will probably get more into flash, but still be primarily CSS driven for accessibility purposes. (I know your point wasn't that we should move to flash, but it just got me onto that topic... and I don't let people know when I change topics!) I really like what the w3c are doing, I just wish people were listening!
Yeah, as you said, I just mean that things more like Flash will become more popular since the web is getting more multi-media all the time. I would be getting excited about CSS3, but that's just daft because we all know that the browser compatibilty will be absolutely terrible, even though some of the new features are quite stunning. Can anyone else spot the potential power that Ruby elements will have?
