Re: <plaintext> tag obsolete? I think not!

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

>I've read a few websites that said the <plaintext> tag has become obsolete
>now that we have the <pre> tag.  And that it is no longer supported.

It has been deprecated since at least HTML 2.0.  This means its use is not
recommended and that browsers may not support it.  This doesn't mean that
they *won't* support it.  In any case, it shouldn't be used in new documents.

>Now there seems to be no way to print out html code with converting all the
>< and > characters to their ascii equivalent (&#060; &#062;).

&lt; and &gt; are preferred, but other than that, you are correct.

>This isn't
>always possible when creating dynamic pages.  (Especially when using the
>STDOUT routine in PERL...but that's a whole other mailing list..)

perl handles &lt; and &gt; just fine.

>Can anyone please explain to me WHY the <plaintext> tag has been
forgotten?!?!

http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html32.html

<![ %HTML.Deprecated [

<!ENTITY % literal "CDATA"
        -- historical, non-conforming parsing mode where
           the only markup signal is the end tag
           in full
        -->

<!ELEMENT (XMP|LISTING) - -  %literal>
<!ELEMENT PLAINTEXT - O %literal>

]]>

These are obsolete tags for preformatted text that predate the introduction
of PRE. User agents may support these for backwards compatibility. Authors
should avoid using them in new documents! 

- --
Greg Marr
gregm@alum.wpi.edu
"We thought you were dead." 
"I was, but I'm better now." - Sheridan, "The Summoning"

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGPfreeware 5.5.3 for non-commercial use <http://www.pgp.com>

iQA/AwUBNLZN+AtYMjJ37cDeEQKcqgCePgjBJnLqFq/PfvjO2F7gyuqcLDsAnRqJ
AEnS3SjZkX//KtSPdbSBZx1S
=2bFF
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Received on Friday, 9 January 1998 11:19:26 UTC