Re: results: HTML 4.0 tags

I wouldn't go as far to list browser support, but I would provide 
warnings about buggy features that can break browsers, like OBJECT.
(If it just didn't work, you were lucky).

HTML4.0 should be the default HTML level of the guidelines. 
Other versions are authoring-wise obsolete. HTML4.0 is a recomendation 
almost a year now. That's more than the period that HTML3.2 was.

Things like THEAD, COLGROUP, or LABEL, that have no effect on 
(non supporting) browsers, the guidelines shouldn't mention that 
this is a new HTML4.0 feature since authors will say "we're not 
going to use it as only few browsers support it." 

Only new things that do not degrade gracefully to HTML3.2
(TFOOT, BUTTON) or have buggy implementation (OBJECT), authors 
should be warned that they are new.

I can't see a reason to mention that IMG is available 
in HTML2.0 and HTML3.2 when these HTML versions are 
obsolete. 

 > It is difficult for page authors to know whether they have implemented
> advice correctly because they cannot get the tag to work. 

The guidelines should be clear in their advice and have good examples. 
This way it will be clear from the guidelines if they were implemented
correctly.

Also the guidelines should emphasize that browsers are not validators.
Authors should be advised to validate their work in a validator,
read guidelines, the HTML spec, and some other good reference, and only 
after they implemented guidelines correctly according to documentation, 
check if the browsers implemented it correctly.

Regards,
Nir Dagan
http://www.nirdagan.com

Received on Thursday, 5 November 1998 16:17:47 UTC