- From: Nir Dagan <nir@nirdagan.com>
- Date: Tue, 09 Nov 1999 16:56:10 -0500
- To: "Suzanne Topping" <stopping@rochester.rr.com>, "www" <www-international@w3.org>
At 10:53 AM 11/9/99 -0500, Suzanne Topping wrote: >> Apologies if this is simplistic question, but I am wondering if a >> compatibility >> list exists somewhere which shows which HTML versions work "properly" >> with which browsers and versions? (Properly in this context meaning with >> the fewest bugs.) A simplistic answer is that HTML2.0 and HTML3.2 work with almost all browsers. And that the following features of HTML4.0 are un-evenly supported: 1. i18n: transforming bytes into characters, understansing character entities, BiDi... 2. the <object> element. 3. accessibility features: special attributes to tables and forms, among other features. What you'd realy need to localize a site is to have a very detailed list of the particular requirements of your "local language" that are in HTML4.0 are actually supported in browsers. You almost have to go script by script, browser by browser, to give a practical answer. >> >> Also, (and I'm sure this is another simplistic question) if a site is >> developed >> using one version of HTML, is it possible to change that version during >> localization to ensure wider character support? The simplistic answer is yes. To ensure wider character support in the HTML version, you have to change the SGML declaration to allow for more characters. This doesn't require any change in the SGML DTD of the HTML version in question. You may also define in the DTD more entities if you want those to refer to characters, rather than using numerical references. This clearly doesn't ensure anything about what browsers will do with your HTML. It will only ensure that an SGML parser that uses your SGML declaration and DTD will parse the document correctly. If I were to write a site not in in the Latin script I'd use HTML4.0, but may trim it down to exclude <object> and possibly other poorly supported features. Just one more thing, the character reference – mentioned below is not defined in HTML and should not be used. As opposed to what Otto Stolz is implying, it cannot be used even if one is encoding his pages in "a proprietary codepage." The "proprietary codepage" only defines how bytes are transformed into characters. And there is no 150th character in HTML. en-dash can be written in HTML as – or – or – Regards, Nir. >> >> Thanks for your tolerance and replies. >> >> Suzanne Topping >> Localization Unlimited >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: Otto Stolz <Otto.Stolz@uni-konstanz.de> >> To: Unicode List <unicode@unicode.org> >> Cc: Unicode List <unicode@unicode.org> >> Sent: Tuesday, November 09, 1999 10:01 AM >> Subject: Re: Non-breaking hyphens and web browsers >> >> >> > Am 1999-11-06 um 19:41 h hat Ben Yenko-Martinka geschrieben: >> > > While the en-dash "–" [...] appears to work fine in Netscape, >> > > it allows wrapping in Microsoft Internet Explorer. >> > >> > This is a character from a proprietary codepage, cf. >> > <http://czyborra.com/charsets/codepages.html#CP1252>. >> > Most probably, it will be understood only in MS-Windows systems -- >> > not in Unix boxes, not on Macs, probably not even on PCs running DOS, >> > Linux, or OS/2 (I haven't tried these latter, though). >> > >> >> > =================================== Nir Dagan Assistant Professor of Economics Brown University Providence, RI USA http://www.nirdagan.com mailto:nir@nirdagan.com tel:+1-401-863-2145
Received on Tuesday, 9 November 1999 16:54:28 UTC