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XHTML
X A Whoza What?

By
Wingnut
Pornn Palace

I saw a question or two posted recently about XHTML and its use and how concerned today's Webmaster should be about it. Up until now this has only been on my list of "stuff to check out later". I was doing some additional work researching for the DFN and the possible use of XML and RSS feeds when I started to see the connection between the two.

This stuff can get really really boring so I will try not to get to detailed on this and just give you're the "sizzle". To put this in an overly simplistic frameset: "development of HTML has stopped", and "XHTML is the new language replacement for HTML". XHTML will work hand in hand with XML (which is a whole other topic for later), which basically works on separating content from presentation (along with CSS).

Now you can stop running around the room screaming thinking that you have to learn this whole "other" language to continue creating websites that fill your mailbox full of checks. As you will see the further we go XHTML is like the first cousin of HTML. So yes, at some point in the future you will need to know how to code pages in XHTML. It will be a long time before your plain ole HTML pages won't work though, because of the need to support older out dated browsers (Netscape 4.7 etc). So you can return to normal breathing, as your current skills will still be valid for the near term.

What you can do is use the multiple flavors of XHTML to slowly learn how to convert your pages and how to create new ones from scratch. I amazed myself at just how much my HTML pages already conformed to the new standard. Transitioning will not be that difficult as time goes by. XHTML is stricter for tag structures and removes some of the sloppiness that HTML allowed (depending on the browser).

There are three flavors of XHTML, strict, transitional and frameset. Strict is just what it sounds like, you must follow the rules or "no soup for you" when it comes time to render your pages. Frameset is also just like it sounds, if you want to use frames on your site then you must use the frameset doc type. Now the transitional doc type is what I have and, what most of you will use at this point. It is a little more forgiving and keeps some of the familiar HTML within its DTD.

 
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You can start to create XHTML pages today and don't need any new software or special goodies to get started. The only thing that you must do (and one of the new rules of XHTML) is to first declare the doc type of the page.

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Frameset//EN" "DTD/xhtml1-frameset.dtd">

That was hard huh? Now for the good parts, sharpen your pencils.

All elements must now be in lowercase. So no longer will you be able to code elements like <BODY> but must be done as <body>. Your shaking in you boots now, huh?

All elements must be properly nested. So no longer will your code look like <B><I>Bold Italic</B></I> but now required to be nested as <b><i>Bold Italic</i></b>. Call the doctor I need some stress pills! This was something I had thought was part of HTML so my pages are already coded this way.

All elements must now be closed. This one is a slight bit different than you might be used to. For example all <p> elements must now have a corresponding closing element </p>. Beyond that empty elements must also be closed, for example <br> must now include the closing element. So the proper format will now be <br />, yes that is a space before the "/" in order to be compatible with today's browsers. This also applies to elements such as <hr /> and <img src="file.gif" />. Also notice that the attribute of "file.gif" is contained in quotes, another must in XHTML.

Documents must be well formed. Meaning the proper base page elements must be included and have the proper closing elements.

<html>
<head> <title></title> </head>
<body> ... </body>
</html>

That is the basics of how you can get started learning and implementing XHTML in your web pages. Not too much of a jump from where you are today. Here is the link to answer all of your other questions (W3) about XHTML and it's progress.

Wingnut

The DFN Weekly Staff
Wingnut ... Chief Editor
VNWR Staff
Voltar ... President - Old Tom ... Vice President
Jojasa ... Vice President - LadyB ... Vice President
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