Re: sugggestion: HTML 4.01 as default

On Saturday, October 21, 2000 at 16:17, bertilow@hem.passagen.se (Bertilo Wennergren) wrote:

> Excellent idea, except for the last few words. XHTML _is_ the latest
> HTML standard (recommendation). You meant:
> 
>   "If there are no XML hints then validate against HTML 4.01."

Fine, whatever ;-)

> > 1) Provide a method (via a popup) that allows the user to specify a
> > doctype to validate the document against. 
> 
> Also a good idea.
>  
> > 2) There should also be an option (via a checkbox which defaults to on) to
> > have a doctype in the document overide the selected value in the popup.
> 
> I'm not sure I understand this last one.

If there is a popup that lists DTDs there needs to be an option by which
the user selects to have a DICTYPE in the document override the DTD chosen
from the popup. Selecting this option means

	Use the DOCTYPE in the document but if there is no DOCTYPE use the
	one selected in the popup.

This is useful when the user only wants to specify a default DTD for when
there is no DOCTYPE.

But, you also want the user to be able to choose a set of options that
translate to

	Use the DOCTYPE selected in the popup regardless of the DOCTYPE in
	the document.

so that the user can easily see (without having to edit the documents) how
close to compliancy with a specific version the pages are. This would be
useful for instance when validating HTML 4.0 Transitional documents to see
how much work it will be to make them compliant with 4.01 Strict.

> > As I said, I'm not convinced that either of these are better than just
> > reporting a single error re the missing doctype and a note that no further
> > parsing will be done.
> 
> I'm not completely sure either. But if there is going to be any supposing
> of DOCTYPE, then it's valid to discuss which one it should be.

Actually, I recind my earlier statement. I can see cases where allowing
the user to specify or override the DTD used to validate will be useful.

-- 
Christian Smith  |  csmith@barebones.com  |  http://web.barebones.com
PGP Fingerprint  -  60E5 2216 97D2 1D1A B923 F036 00A9 CEC0 D411 FA89

Received on Saturday, 21 October 2000 14:27:58 UTC