36 replies to this topic

[Clement]

So the first draft is here. Some new elements like <footer> should appear, but I let you discover everything by yourself

http://www.w3.org/TR...-diff-20080122/

[Phil]

I'm actually quite happy to see that most of the style elements and attributes are gone from the specification now. I'm not sure if all the new elements were actually needed, but some actually make sense.

[Clement]

Indeed I agree with you.

I don't know what to think about the header, nav, footer tags, but well if they don't have any style properties, it could only be better to organize the code.

[CodeCat]

What about an XHTML specification to go with this?

[Phil]

I think a version of this with XML syntax goes along with it. This would be interpreted when one serves it as application/xhtml+xml. I'm not totally sure about this though.
At the same time, however, the XHTML working group is developing XHTML2 which is quite different from HTML5 (not only because of the XML syntax). From the little I've read, I prefer the XHTML2 approach.
Read more about the comparison in this article: [X/]HTML5 vs. XHTML2.

[Bart]

html 5? i thought xhtml 1 was sort of html 5.

i'm not an expert on these matters. is there any reason to keep html when we have xhtml?

[Phil]

Well, not really. I think the aim of XHTML is really to mix it with XML so that people can actually add custom elements in their sourcecode (thus the name). So it differs from the traditional approach of HTML. XHTML is cleaner, stricter and more future oriented and because of the XML syntax far easier to handle by other parsers. That's why I think HTML is inferior and should not be continued anymore. Obviously some people think differently.
So basically HTML 5 is really just HTML 4 with features everybody was missing, while XHTML 2.0 makes a step towards portability and newer technologies.

[Clement]

Any Element Can Be A Hyperlink

Ooh

iframe Is Gone

That's a good point imo

Anyway thanks for for link DLotS, it's really interesting.

And now we have to wait to see all this new stuff ready to be used. I think that the languages should evoluate, but imo, the big problem today, it's essentially the navigators... that don't read the xhtml/html in the same way, and if something have to change it's the css... and navigators shouldn't be allow to create their own css properties.

So a new version of html and xhtml, ok good. But a new version of css, and a common one is really needed.

[Blodo]

So a new version of html and xhtml, ok good. But a new version of css, and a common one is really needed.

What, like CSS3? Most browsers barely support CSS2.1, and people are still afraid to use it and rightfully so, cause it breaks in browsers like there's no tommorow. It's not the fault of the specification of course, more like browser programmers.

[Phil]

True words.

[Bart]

I blame it all on IE. I won't say that other browsers like Firefox and Opera implement the CSS specification perfectly, but at least a lot better than that crapbox from Microsoft.

Obviously the problem is that 90% of the people use windows and IE is preinstalled on that. Of those people, about 80% are ignorant of other browsers (they think IE is "the internet")

Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-Microsoft, IE is just really bad

[Sûlherokhh]

I'd say the 20year-campaign of M$-stupefication has been quite successful.
A good part of the 80% are willing to be educated though, so don't step on them.

[Clement]

Of those people, about 80% are ignorant of other browsers (they think IE is "the internet")

Indeed, and the problem it's that around 30/40% (even 50% from some sources) ie users are still under IE6 (or inferior), that's really a big problem.

Firefox part in Europe:

Edited by TheDeadPlayer, 24 January 2008 - 05:59 PM.

[Blodo]

The problem with this is that these users have no incentive to upgrade their browser or to be interested in what browser they are using whatsoever. While you can count on corporate HQs to use IE no matter what, the least we could do is stop supporting browsers older than IE7 altogether and optionally display an information on the webpage about why exactly is it not working as well as the user would like it to.

It's the same kind of problem as PHP5 not being installed on all webservers out there still, despite the amount of years that have passed from it's release. The situation is only clarifying now, but earlier the problem simply was that nobody had any incentive to upgrade their servers and the programmers worsened the situation by trying to conform to the market rather than use the perks of the internet and turn away from the market so that the webhosts absolutely have to upgrade.

Taking into account that upgrading a browser or version of php takes no more than a few minutes and is absolutely, utterly free, I as a webdesigner code only in PHP5 and design webpages to support no other browsers than IE7, Opera9, FF2 and Safari 3. If the webpage works somewhat in other browsers than the ones I listed too, that's good - but nobody can expect me to care if it doesn't. Quite frankly I believe the whole webdesign community should stop being squeamish and take on this stance as well. In the end it benefits everyone.

[Mastermind]

Taking into account that upgrading a browser [snip takes no more than a few minutes and is absolutely, utterly free, I as a webdesigner code only in PHP5 and design webpages to support no other browsers than IE7, Opera9, FF2 and Safari 3.

That's hardly true. Among other things, it can require upgrading your operating system. There are still quite a number of people using operating systems older than Windows XP. IE 7 is only supported on XP and above. The web design community is rightly squeamish in not destroying backward compatibility because of things like e-commerce. When you're selling a product, you want to support the absolute widest possible audience. In the case of Revora, I think that our minimum support should be IE 6, FF 1.5, and probably Safari 2. Sure gamers update their systems pretty regularly, but some people either don't want to (don't like IE 7 or FF 2 or whatever), or can't (use Windows 9x or 2000, don't want to buy OS X 10.$$$, etc).

[Solinx]

MM is quite right. There are people who don't want to upgrade, or simply are too lazy, but there are also people who can't upgrade. And he's also right about e-commerce. If you're selling a product, you want it to be seen by as many people as possible, not just the part of the market that upgrades their software regularly.

What I do is write a 'proper' site for IE7, FF 2 and Opera 9. Then when I'm done I check whether it works in IE6. If it doesn't work as it should, which in all likeliness is going to be the case, I make a simplied version of the site, build up with tables and with a fixed layout, to which I redirect IE6 users. That keeps the properly coded site free from IE6 hacks, while it does present these users with a decent site.
Naturally I add the notion they should upgrade whenever possible.

Solinx

[Jeeves]

Also depends on an extent on the target audience. I know a site I'm working on atm is mainly used by IE6 users, so I pay more attention than usual to png hacks, etc. However, if browsers struggle with standards that have been around years, how soon can we expect to use CSS3 (besides me, I like the best and use O9.5), and new markup technologies in play anyway?
Besides the probable wait, I don't like HTML5 because a) its HTML, and b) its aka Web Applications. xml is better than SGML because its extensible. Can I switch a xmlns and start writing in MathML or SVG in HTML? And yes, before anyone points out nobody does this; I actually have. XHTML is also backwards compatible. What the hell is a browser meant to do when suddenly any elements meant to be a link? Or faced with a <footer>?
As for the second point, Web Applications sounds to me like scripting. I know hypertexts interactive, but I like my ML's to markup, not define behaviour; theres scripting for that. Do we need a tag to break all current browsers to save us using an object?

[Phil]

What the hell is a browser meant to do when suddenly any elements meant to be a link?

Actually that's part of the XHTML2 specs, not HTML5.
I pretty much agree with the other points you made.

[CodeCat]

So far I'm liking XHTML2 more than HTML5. I'm a big fan of XML and proper coding, and all that rubbish backward compatibility only muddles the kind of stuff people should be using. If you say 'you should use A, but there's also B for backward compatibility', 90% of novices are going to use B. I advocate a hard standard that is not only well thought out but also promotes proper coding by entirely removing old stuff.

[Jeeves]

You mean like Strict? Don't know if we'll get better than depreciation of crap in strict yet persistance in Transitional because we don't live in a fairyland. As it is, xhtml1 Strict works in just about everything, and if you can keep that, why not? I think theres needs to be more emphasis on microformat development than standards, as they're entirely compatable, and thoroughly extensible. Seen a phone number in a hcard in NN4? Looks like a phone number. Seen it in Safari for iPhones? Still the same, but now you can click it to dial. Nothing gets brokens, markup is clean and semantic, and browsers can impliment additional features without having to make big changes, because big changes don't have a good track record of getting done.