RE: Tidy becomes less forgiving

Hi Allen,

You are not the first to raise this sensible point.  However, Tidy strikes a
sometimes uneasy balance between the HTML specs -plural- and what browsers
actually do.  If there is a general rule, it might be stated, "1) Parse any
and all markup to the degree possible.  2) Emit spec compliant HTML that
renders the same on most browsers as the non-compliant input."  A bit messy,
yes.  But I think that's what makes Tidy useful.

Further, the spec does not directly address nesting <form> tags within
various table tags (<table>, <tr>, <td>).  According to the HTML 3.2 DTD,
<form> tags are not allowed at all within a table.  Only <tr>'s are allowed
within <table>'s and only text elements are allowed within a <td>.  <form>
is a block level tag.  HTML 4 requires an additional intervening TBODY tag.
So we are already playing fast and loose w/ the spec.  My only suggestion
was to move the line over one notch - you've got to draw it somewhere.

In hindsight, it appears that the W3C is losing the battle against layout
tables, even if they are winning the style war.

take it easy,
Charlie


-----Original Message-----
From: Allan Clark [mailto:allanc@caldera.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 5:18 PM
To: Reitzel, Charlie
Cc: 'Patrick Lok'; html-tidy@w3.org
Subject: Re: Tidy becomes less forgiving


Charlie;

> crossing cells is OK for IE and NS...

I think you're looking at the wrong authority for HTML.  The question should
be whether the HTML specifications allow crossing cell boundaries with a
form.

Allan

Received on Thursday, 13 September 2001 17:49:16 UTC