Re: HTML version issue summary?

On Apr 24, 2007, at 7:43 PM, Matthew Raymond wrote:

> David Hyatt wrote:
>> You would still have to worry about older browser versions even when
>> HTML5 support started to emerge.  If you only care about browsers
>> that fully support HTML5, then you'd just use the HTML5 doctype/
>> version and let versions of IE that haven't opted in using the
>> doctype switch get your "older HTML4" version (along with older
>> versions of Safari, Firefox, etc.)
>
>    That's not acceptable. It's the equivalent of opting into "really
> standards mode", except that it only works for one browser version. If
> other browser vendors reach a reasonable level of HTML5 support before
> IE, all pages written for those browsers will have to use the IE  
> opt-in
> switch to get the best rendering for HTML5 rendering available in IE
> even if their pages work fine on other browsers.
>

And that's unacceptable why? As I said before, this is obviously  
hypothetical anyway.  IE might only ship with HTML5 once MSFT could  
safely use the version string.  And if they ship with their own form  
of opt-in and don't honor your HTML5 doctype, so what?  Older  
browsers wouldn't honor it either, so you'd obviously have to be  
prepared to provide a useful rendering anyway.

>
>    A page written correctly for HTML5 that doesn't have an explicit
> opt-in for a particular bug compatibility mode should be rendered with
> the user agent's best attempt at HTML5 standards mode. Otherwise,  
> people
> will be forced to use custom opt-ins (possibly multiple opt-ins)  
> just to
> get their page working on multiple browsers.

Possibly, yes.  Realistically we're only talking about IE though.

dave

Received on Wednesday, 25 April 2007 03:16:48 UTC