XHTML learner

Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2003 2:17 pm (21 years, 1 month ago)

I wish to learn a bit about xhtml. Anyone know any good sites with tutorials etc.

thanks in advance

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

This is probably a good start: http://www.4webhelp.net/tutorials/html/xhtml.php

(I'm assuming you know HTML already Question

)

Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2003 12:00 am (21 years, 1 month ago)

http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/00/50/index2a.html?tw=authoring
http://www.w3schools.com/xhtml/
should be more than enough to get you started.

Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2003 1:10 pm (21 years, 1 month ago)

I've taken a look at those pages. One question I have , is it really worth learning xhtml. Do many people use it? I've heard a claim that it works the same in all browsers - is that true?

I looked at some of those pages which people suggested but some of them weren't even built in xhtml - not exactly a great advert.

Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2003 4:57 pm (21 years, 1 month ago)

In my opinion it is totally worth using XHTML. Not only does it help ensure cross-browser compatibility, but it also helps keep the actual data of your pages separate from all layout and formating. This is good because, for example, it will be easier in the future when you want to change something about your pages. Remember all those bits you thought looked nice in bold? wouldn't it be nice if you could change them all and see what they're like in italic, or perhaps another colour? well you can do that by editing your CSS file. combining CSS and XHTML is a much better, much more modern way of structuring your pages. yes, it is true you can use CSS with plain ol' HTML, but sticking to XHTML stops your code becoming some hideous mess which is impossible to maintain.

Also, I find that XHTML pages load faster...they tend to be less bloated and require less processing.

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

While I agree with most of what adam said, XHTML does not require seperation of content from layout Wink

. That's a whole other story; ALA may be a good place to start learning about it (http://www.alistapart.com/index.html).

XHTML on its own isn't really very hard to learn, it's just an evolution of HTML. If you want to get rid of tables (article by Tara about it at http://climbtothestars.org/coding/tableless/), use CSS extensively, etc... then you're in for a lot more work.

Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2003 5:22 pm (21 years, 1 month ago)

Yes, eXtensible HyperText Markup Language is used by thousands of websites, since I never liked HTML 4.01 I began using it in late 1999.

This year I have noticed many webmasters have finally realised the benefits of converting from HTML 4.01 along with the rise of CSS layout, which is now more practical since there are less version four and five browsers in general operation.

I myself was authoring XHTML in less than 30 minutes: http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/ and basically any browser, which can display HTML 4.01, will render XHTML 1.0.

Vulcanpimp I noticed you wanted to look at some XHTML Strict, well I do have some basic XHTML 1.1 on display: http://www.xhtmlcoder.com/worthvalley/ which is semantically stricter than XHTML 1.0 Strict.

WebHelper Joined: 30 Jul 2002 Posts: 56 Location: UK

Robert Wellock wrote:

Yes, eXtensible HyperText Markup Language is used by thousands of websites, since I never liked HTML 4.01 I began using it in late 1999.

This year I have noticed many webmasters have finally realised the benefits of converting from HTML 4.01 along with the rise of CSS layout, which is now more practical since there are less version four and five browsers in general operation.

I myself was authoring XHTML in less than 30 minutes: http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/ and basically any browser, which can display HTML 4.01, will render XHTML 1.0.

Vulcanpimp I noticed you wanted to look at some XHTML Strict, well I do have some basic XHTML 1.1 on display: http://www.xhtmlcoder.com/worthvalley/ which is semantically stricter than XHTML 1.0 Strict.

Forget HTML and XHTML, XSL-FO is the way forward Wink

Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2003 10:21 am (21 years, 1 month ago)

LOL, nonetheless XSL Flow Objects, is mainly used for outputting PDF files with extreme formatting and pagination control. Plus you have to remember there are still many browsers than don't parse eXtensible Markup Language (XML) correctly and XSL Transformations (XSLT) processing tends to be a slow procedure due to the nature of the mark-up and poor browser support.

Unless you are after "dynamic content generation" then eXtensible Markup Language (XML) in the form of XHTML more than suffices since the XHTML DTD was designed to mimic HTML 4.01 thus there would be less point in writing an XLST document to transform XML and XLS into XHTML which itself is XML just to display on a mainstream web browser.

Perhaps when Micro$oft Explorer 6.0 usage becomes a vague memory much like the version three browsers, I would consider using pure XML and XLST but at the moment PHP is more than capable at doing what I want and probably a lot faster.