Re: "alt" attribute required by XHTML 1.0

Peter, your advise was sound. But I do have problems such as I want to
include elements in places way they can't appear according to XHTML DTDs.
For example <a name="something"> that doesn't reside in a <p> element, due
to the way browsers format the <p> "box" my page designs wont work. Check
http://www.3ld.co.uk and see my designs. Careful display of images is always
the key to these designs, not always using tables. I do not want to use
<img> tags and other inline elements within <p> elements all the time.

I suppose the best alternitive is use xml compliant documents, without the
doctype declaration so no validation gets performed, but still point the
<html> tag at the XML namespace.

Any comments are welcomed!

 - Matt

----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Foti (PeterF)" <PeterF@SystolicNetworks.com>
To: "'Matt Brooks'" <matt@mbjlp.com>
Cc: <www-html@w3.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2001 7:22 PM
Subject: RE: "alt" attribute required by XHTML 1.0


> It sounds as though your beef is not with XHTML, but rather with CSS
> (and the lack of support by older browsers).  XHTML pages should display
> just as nicely as HTML 4 across all browsers, and should not cause
> backwards compatibility issues.  However, you will notice differences
> between how the browsers handle CSS.
>
> My suggestion is this:
>
> Code your pages as XHTML.  This will get all of your *content* into the
> page.  Next you could go back through and add in classes and IDs for the
> different elements of your page (once you have identified the different
> objects in your page).  This is harmless since you have no CSS to
> implement yet.  Next, I would create the CSS that you would like to use.
> Sounds like your goal is to control the presentation.  So check how your
> pages look in version 4 browsers.  Anything older than that is obsolete.
> If your XHTML is structured correctly, then older browsers should still
> be able to view the content, even if they don't get the nice
> presentational attributes of CSS.  Note that Netscape 4 blows royally,
> so a purely CSS approach may not be 100% effective for you.  This does
> not prevent you from adding in some presentation HTML tags, like <font>,
> <b>, or <i>.  Just make sure you close all of those tags so you can keep
> your document well formed.
>
> At the end of the day, your pages should validate as XHTML, without the
> need to create a new DTD.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> Peter
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Matt Brooks [mailto:matt@mbjlp.com]
> > Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2001 1:56 PM
> > To: Philip TAYLOR; www-html
> > Cc: Peter Foti (PeterF)
> > Subject: Re: "alt" attribute required by XHTML 1.0
> >
> >
> > You are quite right, it does not. I had always thought it did
> > do this. Maybe
> > it did in an earlier version, or maybe I had viewed alt=" "
> > by mistake.
> >
> > Unfortunately there are other issues about the XHTML 1.0 Transitional
> > document structure that do not work well with the type of
> > page designs I
> > use.
> >
> > I like the XHTML/XML idea of marking up data and then
> > employing stylesheets
> > to render a document for viewing. The trouble is, this
> > doesn't work well
> > across browsers, and is not very backwards compatible (for
> > example, older
> > browsers don't understand stylesheets).
> >
> > My primary goal is this:
> > Have pages that can be read on the server as XML but
> > displayed to the client
> > as HTML.
> >
> > The solutions I think I have:
> > Use a version of XHTML and comply to that absolutely within
> > my documents
> > (idealy).
> >
> > Develop my own DTD by removing the aspects of XHTML 1.0 that
> > do not work
> > with my page designs.
> >
> > Use HTML files that include content from XML 1.0 compliant files.
> >
> > Use a version of XHTML (Probably 1.0 Transitional - basically
> > well formed
> > HTML) but do not validate the XHTML file when parsing server side.
> >
> > I do not currently know which solution to use. Please email
> > me with your
> > comments and suggestions.
> >
> >  - Matt
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Philip TAYLOR" <P.Taylor@rhul.ac.uk>
> > To: "Matt Brooks" <matt@mbjlp.com>
> > Cc: "www-html" <www-html@w3.org>
> > Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2001 6:10 PM
> > Subject: Re: "alt" attribute required by XHTML 1.0
> >
> >
> > > It was my understanding that whilst 'ALT=" "' can
> > > produce such artifacts, 'ALT=""' does not; is there
> > > a counter-example at which you can point me, please ?
> > >
> > > ** Phil.
> > > --------
> > > Matt Brooks wrote:
> > > >
> > > > No, because "" produces an empty (but displayed) tooltip in some
> > browsers.
> > > > This is unacceptable.
> > > > Thank you for your reply.
> > > >  - Matt
> > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > From: "Philip TAYLOR" <P.Taylor@rhul.ac.uk>
> > > > To: "Matt Brooks" <matt@mbjlp.com>
> > > > Cc: "www-html" <www-html@w3.org>
> > > > Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2001 6:06 PM
> > > > Subject: Re: "alt" attribute required by XHTML 1.0
> > > >
> > > > > Surely if ALT is not semantically required (e.g., for a
> > spacer image),
> > > > > 'ALT=""' is a perfectly acceptable compromise, is it not?
> > > > >
> > > > > Philip Taylor, RHBNC
> > > > > --------
> > > > > Matt Brooks wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I was surprised to see that the ALT attribrute is
> > required by the
> > XHTML
> > > > 1.0 Transitional DTD. I was going to use XHTML 1.0
> > Transitional in a web
> > > > development project, but have now changed my mind because the ALT
> > attributes
> > > > are not needed on every image.
> > > > > >
> > > > > >  - Matt
> > >
> >
> >

Received on Wednesday, 5 September 2001 14:37:37 UTC