Re: XHTML/XML some constructive comments required.

Hi Tina,

At 14:30 27/06/2003, you wrote:
>   (...) Let's list a few alternatives with their content type,
>   the effect on WCAG, the result in browsers, and consequences for
>   standards compliance:
>
>   Markup      Content                 WAI (11.1)  UA     Standard
>    HTML 4.01   text/html               Ok          Yes    Yes
>    XHTML 1.0   text/html               Not ok      Yes    Yes
>    XHTML 1.0   application/xhtml+xml   Not ok      No     Yes
>    XHTML 1.1   text/html               Ok          Yes    No
>    XHTML 1.1   application/xhtml+xml   Ok          No     Yes
>
>   (The 11.1 interpretation is my own, but I'm fairly confident about it)

According to the W3C Note "XHTML Media Types" 
(http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-media-types/) you can distiguish between XHTML 
1.0 documents that follow the HTML Compatibilty Guidelines 
(http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-xhtml1-20000126/#guidelines) and XHTML 
documents that don't. The first type 'may' use 'text/html', the second type 
'should not'. Can you explain why your list does not take this distinction 
into account?

My interpretation of WCAG 11.1 differs from yours (which does not mean your 
interpretation is wrong). If using XHTML 1.1 with one of the appropriate 
media types causes problems in a number of browsers that are in use today, 
can XHTML 1.1 be considered as "appropriate" for the task? WCAG 11.1 also 
says "use the latest versions *when supported*" (my emphasis). (For the 
sake of the argument I disregard the possiblity to serve different content 
& media types to different browsers, because not everyone can configure the 
server that hosts their websites.)

Finally, why do you consider both HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.1 "the latest 
versions"?

Best regards,
Christophe


--
Christophe Strobbe
K.U.Leuven - Departement of Electrical Engineering - Research Group 
on  Document Architectures
Kasteelpark Arenberg 10 - 3001 Leuven-Heverlee - BELGIUM
tel: +32 16 32 85 51
http://www.docarch.be/

Received on Friday, 27 June 2003 10:28:04 UTC