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Jeff,<br>
<br>
Perhaps the quickest way to tell what content type the server uses when
sending a page is to use firebug and examine the response. For the site
in question, it shows 'application/html' instead of
'application/xhtml+xml' as would be required to trigger the XML parser
XHTML is supposed to use. The content-type sent by the server is what
most major browsers (Firefox, Opera, Safari, and possibly IE) use to
determine how to interpret the content - not the DTD. <br>
<br>
As long as your browser is treating the site as application/html, it's
just tag soup, and you don't get to take advantage of any of the
functionality unique to XHTML. In short - your document is parsed as
normal HTML, not XHTML.<br>
<br>
XHTML does have some validation issues that can be a pain, including
the escaping you need to do in certain circumstances, such as when
dealing with arguments in linked URLs. <br>
<br>
XHTML, when parsed as XHTML instead of HTML, is not tolerant of
mistakes in the 'well-formedness' of the document. Any mistakes, such
as mismatched tags, invalid elements or invalid usage, will cause the
parser to fail with an error message to the screen. Now, just wait
until a client edit his own content and tries to wrap a <h1> with
<strong> tags. Suddenly, the page they were working on only shows
a big nasty error message.<br>
<br>
Internet Explorer does not support XHTML without some nasty
non-standard hacks. I am not sure whether IE8 handles this correctly -
it would surprise me if they did. There is a
semi-functional workaround: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/2004/xhtml-faq#ie">http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/2004/xhtml-faq#ie</a><br>
<br>
I think <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.webdevout.net/articles/beware-of-xhtml">http://www.webdevout.net/articles/beware-of-xhtml</a> is a very
good read for any web developer considering writing a page in XHTML. It
does a good job of describing both the benefits and pitfalls of using
XHTML.<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
<br>
Brian<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Jeff wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:CB2A81F8-C86E-4AC6-A9C4-7967F4F8D506@marmaladesoul.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Did either of you actually turn Javascript off and reload the site?
I'd have thought it fairly common knowledge that Superfish menus
degrade without JS, relying on the semantic and validating <ul>
foundations of the underlying menu markup to do the work when only CSS
is available.
George, if you can put together a site like the demo in 10 minutes or
so, please get in touch with me asap, we can make you rich :)
I'm not saying this demo site or the theme are earth shattering and I
have no connection with fordrupal themes whatsoever (never heard of
them or their founders before), nor do I have the need to ever buy a
theme, but honestly George, it feels like you have other reasons for
being harsh on this.
Anyway, of more interest to me is Brian's xhtml comment — is this a
server config issue? How do you know it's not sending it as
application/xhtml+xml? I thought the browser looked at the doctype in
the markup?
"Future validation headaches" — are you refering to html 5? Isn't it
realistic to think that xhtml is going to be supported until half the
people on this list have retired, given the ongoing infestation of
Internet Explorer and its associated lack of speed of improvement? In
other words, isn't the web moving so slowly (because of IE and the
w3c) that xhtml is going to be around for many years yet? Drupal.org
and Garland are both xhtml.
Jeff
On 09/03/2009, at 11:46 PM, Brian Vuyk wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">That is a fairly attractive theme visually. However, George makes some
good points about it w.r.t the JS menus.
Why XHTML? Your server isn't sending the site as application/xhtml
+xml,
so the user is getting none of the benefits of XHTML with all the
future
validation headaches.
Brian
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