Centering Content
Bern
vertically)
<body style="height: 100%; margin: 0; padding: 0;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="100%"
style="height:100%">
<tr>
<td width="100%" height="100%" align="center" valign="middle">
contents....
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
However, this methods fails once the document is declared to be XHTML
transistional 1.0
so is there another way to make content become centered vertically?
Lois
: > the document is declared to be XHTML transistional 1.0
Brucie responded:
: pointless. html is yummier
Why?
I don't know enough to have an opinion about which is better. I'm just
interested in your opinion. (Yes, I know what you're going to do with that.)
Or anyone's opinion.
Thanks,
Lois
Lois
: >: pointless. html is yummier
Lois asked:
: > Why?
:
: 'cause i said.
:
: i don't see the point of authoring html thats pretending to be
xhtml
: thats pretending to be html. much simpler to just author html
pretending
: to be sgml.
Well, there's a reason. You're saying (I think) that there are no
benefits to XHTML over HTML.
I'm working on a site (the one you helped me with the header in AWW)
that someone else started but I continued. It's in XHTML. Would it
make any difference if I changed it to HTML? Is there any reason to
change it? It's just 6 pages so far, but we'll be adding more pages
later.
It probably wouldn't make any difference, but I thought I'd ask.
Other people's opinions are welcome too.
Thanks,
Lois
Mark Parnell
declared in alt.html:
> is there some reason why the markup needs to be html pretending to be
> xhtml?
I think Lois' point is that she inherited the site from someone else,
and it is already using XHTML. She wants to know whether there is really
any point in converting it back to HTML.
I would say no.
--
Mark Parnell
http://www.clarkecomputers.com.au
"Never drink rum&coke whilst reading usenet" - rf 2004
Lois
: >> is there some reason why the markup needs to be html pretending
to be
: >> xhtml?
Mark Parnell responded:
: > She wants to know whether there is really any point in converting
it
: > back to HTML.
Yeah, that's what I meant. At this stage, changes are easy, but the
site is going to grow to a dozen or 2 pages at some point.
I just changed the doctype to HTML strict for the home page, and it
displays the same. The only other difference I see in the code is the
/> instead of just > for closing brackets. Is that all there is?
: it doesn't really matter, women need hobbies to keep them busy when
us
: men are at work. as long as she has dinner on the table on time
there no
: problem.
:
: <runs away and hides/>
Good thing you ran. I need someone to put dinner on the table because
I'm too busy to cook. Hobbies? It's been a couple of years since I
had time for them.
When are you at work, BTW? You're either the most prolific poster
here and in AWW or you're off on a walkabout.
Lois
Lois
: > I just changed the doctype to HTML strict
"brucie" reacted:
: YAY! someone else i've convinced not to believe the hype.
Hype? You never told me about that. I wanna see the hype.
: > for the home page, and it displays the same.
:
: html displays like html. what were you expecting?
Seeing as you're somewhat involved, maybe gooey green.
: > The only other difference I see in the code is the
: > /> instead of just > for closing brackets. Is that all there is?
:
: depends on the markup, just run it through the validator with the
new
: dtd.
It wants a border around the logo (currently border="0"), but that
won't do because the logo is white surrounded by the blue header
except white on the left side where it meets the white body
background. I guess I'll just have to go back to XHTML. Or HTML
loose.
: > I need someone to put dinner on the table because I'm too busy to
cook.
:
: great, i love cooking.
You're welcome to send me food as long as you don't deliver it.
: good to see your husband giving you jobs to keep you busy around
the
: house while hes at work. have you finished the side fence yet?
I think I'll just let you bumble along with foot in mouth.
Lois
Lois
: > It wants a border around the logo (currently border="0"),
Brucie wrote:
: border:0;
What a cool idea. Specify the border (or lack of border) via CSS
instead of in the img tag. Thanks.
: > I guess I'll just have to go back to XHTML. Or HTML loose.
:
: <bangs head on desk/>
I was hoping you'd do that. I like watching your eyes roll.
: > You're welcome to send me food as long as you don't deliver it.
:
: no one loves me
Actually, we're just afraid of you. I didn't say that I'd eat the
food, but the dog will eat anything and it doesn't make him sick.
Lois
Lois
: Hype? You never told me about that. I wanna see the hype.
Does anyone else want to tell me about the hype around XHTML? Think
of what will happen to Brucie's head if we talk about it. But really,
I want to know what it's about.
Lois
NOXweb...@xmbstevensx.com
Well, you should at least do some reading from the mouths of the horses to
decide whether you believe it's hype or not; look for XHTML info on these
sites:
http://www.webstandards.org
http://w3.org
...It could take an hour or two, but will be well worth it.
--
mbstevens
http://www.mbstevens.com
Neal
wrote:
> At this stage, changes are easy, but the
> site is going to grow to a dozen or 2 pages at some point.
I might interject here. Might? I will. Now's the time to change it over to
HTML, in my opinion. While it's still small.
I went through three periods of web design:
1) The Idiot Period - I made frames sites, I used blink. 'Nuff said.
2) The I Think I Get It But I Really Don't Period - I am using XHTML for
misguided reasons, but am developing an understanding of semantic markup
and am using CSS for everything appropriate.
3) The Now I Really Have It I Think Period - I am changing everything over
to HTML 4.01 Strict, am learning about newer server-side ways to save
work, and am drinking quite heavily due to the work savings I've enjoyed.
I'm a happy man, You, you could be a happy woman.
Oh, I love the Sox. Love 'em.
Big Bill
wrote:
>In alt.html Mark Parnell said:
>
>>> is there some reason why the markup needs to be html pretending to be
>>> xhtml?
>
>> She wants to know whether there is really any point in converting it
>> back to HTML.
>
>it already is html. why continue pretending its not.
>
>> I would say no.
>
>it doesn't really matter, women need hobbies to keep them busy when us
>men are at work. as long as she has dinner on the table on time there no
>problem.
>
><runs away and hides/>
Us men? MEN???!!!
BB (on secondement from the SE group)
www.kruse.co.uk
The home of SEO that's shiny!
rf
> I'm a happy man, You, you could be a happy woman.
I wonder if Lois likes martinis?
> Oh, I love the Sox. Love 'em.
Oh, those baseball guys. Did they win that match we were talking about last
week?
--
Cheers
Richard.
Neal
> Neal wrote:
>
>> I'm a happy man, You, you could be a happy woman.
>
> I wonder if Lois likes martinis?
If so, even better. But my girlfriend's back.
>> Oh, I love the Sox. Love 'em.
>
> Oh, those baseball guys. Did they win that match we were talking about
> last
> week?
The game? Oh, yes, they did well. I nearly forgot.
Andy Dingley
>you're already writing html anyway. you're just pretending its xhtml and
>when you send it to the browser you have to pretend its html again.
No, you're writing XHTML and then _when_you_send_it_ you may choose to
pretend that it's HTML. Although there are a whole pile of
(overstated) compatibility problems with getting XHTML out to a
browser , there's no problem with a truly XML authoring process within
your own server farm and content authoring setup.
This has all been chewed over before - Lois, try some searching for
"Appendix C"
My vote - XHTML. Because it has some concrete benefits to me as a
content author, and because the "HTML incompatibility" out with the
browsers just isn't a major problem.
Transitional rather than Strict or 1.1 though. They don't have any
benefits to offer.
--
Smert' spamionam
Toby Inkster
> 2) The I Think I Get It But I Really Don't Period - I am using XHTML for
> misguided reasons, but am developing an understanding of semantic markup
> and am using CSS for everything appropriate.
There are certainly advantages in using XHTML.
e.g. XHTML forces you to quote all attributes and explicitly close all
elements, which are considered generally good practice for HTML as well
as XHTML, and generally makes you think a bit more about the tree
structure of the document.
Of course, you can quote all attribute values and close all (non-empty)
elements in HTML too, but if you *do* forget one, then tha validator won't
complain and you'll never know about it... until some silly browser gets
something wrong. (e.g. Netscape 4.x can go ballistic if you leave out the
closing tags for table cells/rows.)
So there are certain advantages to authoring in XHTML.
Of course that's not to say that the markup language used by the author
has to be the same one served to the client, but -- be honest -- in most
cases it is.
Ideally, I'd use a DTD based on HTML 4.01 Strict, but that forced the
quoting of attributes and the closing of non-empty elements. I may write
one some day.
--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact
Spartanicus
>Ideally, I'd use a DTD based on HTML 4.01 Strict, but that forced the
>quoting of attributes and the closing of non-empty elements. I may write
>one some day.
Editing the existing Strict DTD so that it requires elements to be
closed is easy (took me five minutes). Regarding mandatory quoting of
attributes I haven't managed that, afaics this isn't part of the DTD. If
anyone knows how to do that please share.
--
Spartanicus
Eric B. Bednarz
> Editing the existing Strict DTD so that it requires elements to be
> closed is easy (took me five minutes). Regarding mandatory quoting of
> attributes I haven't managed that, afaics this isn't part of the DTD. If
> anyone knows how to do that please share.
For starters, you will have to have a local validating system to be able
to pass a customized SGML declaration to the parser (theoretically you
could include it in the document entity itself, but let's stop kidding).
Get binaries or source at:
<http://www.jclark.com/sp/howtoget.htm>
Especially if you need to be able to fetch external subsets from virtual
hosts you may prefer to use lq-nsgmls instead:
<http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/validator/offline/>
Grab the SGML declaration of HTML 4.01 and locate under MINIMIZE
SHORTTAG YES
and replace that with
SHORTTAG
STARTTAG
EMPTY NO
UNCLOSED NO
NETENABL NO
ENDTAG
EMPTY NO
UNCLOSED NO
ATTRIB
DEFAULT YES
OMITNAME NO
VALUE NO
Set up a catalog:
SGMLDECL path/to/custom.decl
DOCTYPE HTML path/to/custom.dtd
If you have (X)Emacs (if not, why not?) adjust the initialisation file
for neat integration with PSGML.
--
| ) Più Cabernet,
-( meno Internet.
| ) http://bednarz.nl/
Neal
<usenet...@tobyinkster.co.uk> wrote:
> There are certainly advantages in using XHTML.
>
> e.g. XHTML forces you to quote all attributes and explicitly close all
> elements, which are considered generally good practice for HTML as well
> as XHTML, and generally makes you think a bit more about the tree
> structure of the document.
Well, that aspect of XHTML has carried to my HTML. I am careful to make my
markup well-formed. I'm much more careful with that than I was in the
Idiot Period.
> Of course, you can quote all attribute values and close all (non-empty)
> elements in HTML too, but if you *do* forget one, then tha validator
> won't
> complain and you'll never know about it... until some silly browser gets
> something wrong. (e.g. Netscape 4.x can go ballistic if you leave out the
> closing tags for table cells/rows.)
But I never forget that! I am pretty meticulous in that regard. Where I
trip up is nested divs. I generally comment after every </div> regarding
which div I'm closing.
</div><!--content-->
</div><!--wrapper-->
> Ideally, I'd use a DTD based on HTML 4.01 Strict, but that forced the
> quoting of attributes and the closing of non-empty elements. I may write
> one some day.
Let me know when you do.
Spartanicus
>> Editing the existing Strict DTD so that it requires elements to be
>> closed is easy (took me five minutes). Regarding mandatory quoting of
>> attributes I haven't managed that, afaics this isn't part of the DTD. If
>> anyone knows how to do that please share.
>Grab the SGML declaration of HTML 4.01 and locate under MINIMIZE
[...]
That did the trick, thanks Eric.
For users of Liam Quinn's ARV ("A Real Validator") these files need to
be modified:
HTML4.dcl and html.soc
--
Spartanicus
Andy Dingley
wrote:
>> No, you're writing XHTML
>
>no, you're writing html. this is xhtml: <img/> this is html: <img />
I don't understand what your voices are telling you here.
Why can't the OP write some XHTML, and have it as real, genuine XHTML?
Until the sweet little XHTML pages have to go near those nasty rough
browsers out on the council estate interweb, there's no problem with
them really being XHTML. It's not hard to write XHTML either - you
don't need to compromise anything at the authoring step.
--
Smert' spamionam
Lois
: > : Hype? You never told me about that. I wanna see the hype.
: >
: > Does anyone else want to tell me about the hype around XHTML?
Think
: > of what will happen to Brucie's head if we talk about it. But
really,
: > I want to know what it's about.
mbstevens responded:
: Well, you should at least do some reading from the mouths of the
horses to
: decide whether you believe it's hype or not; look for XHTML info
on these
: sites:
: http://www.webstandards.org
: http://w3.org
: ...It could take an hour or two, but will be well worth it.
Thanks for the suggestion. I still haven't found that hour or 2, but
I'll find it one of these days.
Lois
Lois
: > Why can't the OP write some XHTML, and have it as real, genuine
XHTML?
Brucie responded:
: genuine xhtml is fine. pretend xhtml is not. pretend xhtml is the
one i
: have issues with. theres no point using pretend xhtml when humans
can
: just stick to using html.
What's the difference between pretend XHTML and genuine XHTML?
Thanks for all the responses, everyone, but most of the time I didn't
know enough to be able to jump in. I want to write valid code that
works in all browsers from NN4 up. I can do that with HTML
transitional, and I've done it with this one site so far with XHTML
strict. I check all my pages at validator.w3.org and in all the
browsers I have. They work. What advantages and disadvantages will I
have if I use one doctype over another?
Thanks again,
Lois
Toby Inkster
> this is where we start another thread on the financial viability and
> efforts required to support such and old and broken browser [NN4] with
> anything other than vanilla html.
I can confidently say that my site works in my entire testing suite[1],
apart from those that don't send the HTTP "Host" header.
In some older browsers the XML declaration is displayed, but other than
that, the site is usable and navigable.
____
[1] http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=pan.2004.10.20.07.12.22.138474%40tobyinkster.co.uk
Robert Frost-Bridges
[...]
> it may work but it doesn't display correctly in opera7.54. your main
> content bit overlaps the left menu thingy bit and has as long as i can
> remember.
[...]
Actually I've always noticed that too in firefox (currently using
1.0PR).
--
frostie
http://brightonfixedodds.net
Toby Inkster
> it may work but it doesn't display correctly in opera7.54. your main
> content bit overlaps the left menu thingy bit and has as long as i can
> remember.
'tis a consequence of the "minimum font" setting in your browser.
I have just this minute thought of a nice workaround though. I'll
implement it in a little while...
Michael Fesser
>What's the difference between pretend XHTML
XHTML delivered as text/html
>and genuine XHTML?
application/xhtml+xml
>Thanks for all the responses, everyone, but most of the time I didn't
>know enough to be able to jump in. I want to write valid code that
>works in all browsers from NN4 up. I can do that with HTML
>transitional
Why not Strict?
>What advantages and disadvantages will I
>have if I use one doctype over another?
Sending XHTML as text/html Considered Harmful
http://hixie.ch/advocacy/xhtml
Serving XHTML 1.0
http://www.w3.org/International/articles/serving-xhtml/
Micha
Lois
: > What's the difference between pretend XHTML and genuine XHTML?
:
: genuine xhtml hasn't been fiddled with so browsers think its html.
Fortunately, I may find the answer in the links Michael posted if I
can find time to read those pages.
: you already know i accept cash and/or sexual favors
And you already know how I respond when you say that. You wouldn't
want everyone to respond the same way, would you?
: just make it up as you go, i do.
I'm starting to see where you do that.
: > I want to write valid code that works in all browsers from NN4
up.
:
: this is where we start another thread on the financial viability
and
: efforts required to support such and old and broken browser with
: anything other than vanilla html.
Let's not bother. That's an opinion question, we have different
opinions, and we know what they are. But I'm really surprised that
all your voices are in agreement on this one. I thought the deep,
thoughtful one was different.
: > What advantages and disadvantages will I have if I use one
doctype
: > over another?
:
: http://www.w3.org/International/articles/serving-xhtml/
That looks like too much to take in during a 2-minute skim while I'm
eating dinner. (Such is my life these days.) But I think I'll change
the pages to HTML. I didn't want to hurt the feelings of the designer
who started the site (he has only one voice that I know of), but my
reason is that I don't want to risk messing up the coding later
because I don't really understand XHTML yet. HTML is safer for
someone at my knowledge level. Even the XHTML supporters will
probably agree with that.
Thanks,
Lois
Lois
: I can confidently say that my site works in my entire testing
suite[1],
: apart from those that don't send the HTTP "Host" header.
:
: In some older browsers the XML declaration is displayed, but other
than
: that, the site is usable and navigable.
: ____
: [1]
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=pan.2004.10.20.07.12.22.138474%40tobyinkster.co.uk
: --
: Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
: Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact
I'm impressed with your testing suite, but I'm interested in how you
define "works." Your contact page has no formatting in NN4, and the
"Skip to navigation" link goes nowhere. But at least you care enough
about users of numerous browsers to make the effort for them. :-)
Lois
Lois
: >What's the difference between pretend XHTML
"Michael Fesser" responded:
: XHTML delivered as text/html
:
: >and genuine XHTML?
:
: application/xhtml+xml
What's this? It's what the site I'm working on started with:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html lang="en" xml:lang="en" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
: Why not Strict?
Why strict? I started using transitional and it worked fine, and I
didn't give it much thought until I ended working on a site the an
XHTML doctype.
: >What advantages and disadvantages will I
: >have if I use one doctype over another?
:
: Sending XHTML as text/html Considered Harmful
: http://hixie.ch/advocacy/xhtml
:
: Serving XHTML 1.0
: http://www.w3.org/International/articles/serving-xhtml/
Thanks. I'll try to read those when I have time to think about it.
Lois
Mark Parnell
declared in alt.html:
> What's this? It's what the site I'm working on started with:
Depends on the mime type of the file - nothing to do with the content of
the file.
--
Mark Parnell
http://www.clarkecomputers.com.au
"Never drink rum&coke whilst reading usenet" - rf 2004
Toby Inkster
> I'm impressed with your testing suite, but I'm interested in how you
> define "works."
The content can be read, links to other pages work.
Lois
: : > I'm impressed with your testing suite, but I'm interested in
how you
: > define "works."
"Toby Inkster":
: The content can be read, links to other pages work.
Sounds reasonable. To me, "works" means that the formatting appears
and looks OK, but we all have our preferences.
In case you didn't know, in NN 4.08 (one of the browsers on your
list), the "Skip to navigation" link just brings up "#sidebar" in the
address line but nothing else. The other links don't go anywhere
either.
Thanks everyone for your responses to this thread. I still don't have
time to look into XHTML more, but I will when I have time.
Lois