OT: Need HTML Help

JF Mezei wrote:[color=blue]
>
> David J Dachtera wrote:
>[color=green]
> > Hhmmm... interesting ... however, "Tidy" makes some brash and not
> > necessarily valid assumptions. For all of the complaints from Validator,
> > I'd have to go back and clean up Tidy's "mess".[/color]
>
> Would you put into production for mission critical code that doesn't
> compile cleanly ?[/color]

Not the same. If it doesn't "compile", you either won't get a binary or
it won't be usable.

The code I have up is entirely compliant with the older standard. Much
of it was cut-and-paste-and-edit from Adobe PageMaker output, and some
other was from Netscape Composer, in fact. After Jeff clued me in, I
used the GUI code generators to show me the rest of the "tricks".
[color=blue]
> If your HTML doesn't pass through the validator, it shouldn't be put
> into production.[/color]

I can't take something as gospel if it flags perfectly valid code as
non-compliant. If I get the result I want/expect in both current and
older browsers, my confidence level is high.

D.J.D.

David J Dachtera wrote:
[color=blue]
> The code I have up is entirely compliant with the older standard.[/color]

Your initial DTD lines at the top are designed to define what standard
of HTML you are using. If your code is compliant with standard X, then
make sure the DTD reflects you are using standard X.

On May 2, 2:36*am, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spam...@vaxination.ca> wrote:[color=blue]
> David J Dachtera wrote:[color=green]
> > The code I have up is entirely compliant with the older standard.[/color]
>
> Your initial DTD lines at the top are designed to define what standard
> of HTML you are using. If your code is compliant with standard X, then
> make sure the DTD reflects you are using standard X.[/color]

This is 100% correct but let me add three points. IE6 incorrectly
ignores the DTD while the validator does not. IE7 pays attention to
the DTD but is still not 100% compliant. IE8 (which is already
available as a beta download from MS) is meant to be the most
standards-compliant browser ever produced although I don't know how MS
expects to catch up to other compliant browsers like Firefox.

Many people think "it works with my browser so why care about all
this?" but these people should put themselves in the shoes of big web
retailers like eBay or Amazon who want to support all customers.

p.s. I attended a really neat JavaScript course last month where the
instructor went over the history of DOM (document object model) and
BOM (browser object model) then told the class about all the non-
compliant stuff added by both Netscape and Microsoft during the
browser wars. MS shut out NS eleven years ago but we progammers are
still dealing with the fallout. Thank god for the [url]www.w3.org[/url]

Neil Rieck
Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge,
Ontario, Canada.
[url]http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/[/url]

Neil Rieck wrote:
[color=blue]
> Many people think "it works with my browser so why care about all
> this?" but these people should put themselves in the shoes of big web
> retailers like eBay or Amazon who want to support all customers.[/color]

Or look at Mr Rieck's employer who had their web designers add specific
code to prevent users of non Microsoft browsers from accessing this
monopoly telco's web sites. (that monopoly telco has some sort of
marketing arrangement with microsoft).

It is one thing to write non compliant code, but another thing
alltogether to actively refuse access to those who don't have the
browser you want. And of course, that monopoly telco could them produce
statistcis that over 95% of users were using Microsoft browsers so there
was no point in supporting other browsers. (of course, those statistics
would show that since you prevent other browsers from accessing your web
site).


[color=blue]
>
> p.s. I attended a really neat JavaScript course last month[/color]

You're an evil doer :-) :-)


I still remember the Air Canada web site using Microsoft-only code for a
submit button. So even tough you AC wouldn't shut you out, you couldn't
get very far on their main page becaus ethe most important button to
move on to other pages couldn't be made to work on non MS browsers.
(they've since reduced that MS dependancy). But a simple 2 paragraph
press release on the AC web site generated over 700 validation errors on
the w3.org validator. (because that page was bloated with megabytes of
javascript)

On May 2, 6:05*pm, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spam...@vaxination.ca> wrote:[color=blue]
> Neil Rieck wrote:
>[/color]
[...snip...][color=blue]
>
> I still remember the Air Canada web site using Microsoft-only code for a
> submit button. So even tough you AC wouldn't shut you out, you couldn't
> get very far on their main page becaus ethe most important button to
> move on to other pages couldn't be made to work on non MS browsers.
> (they've since reduced that MS dependancy). But a simple 2 paragraph
> press release on the AC web site generated over 700 validation errors on
> the w3.org validator. (because that page was bloated with megabytes of
> javascript)
>[/color]

For a good example of bloat, create a document using MS-Word then save
it as HTML.

Neil Rieck
Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge,
Ontario, Canada.
[url]http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/[/url]

On May 2, 6:05*pm, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spam...@vaxination.ca> wrote:
[...snip...][color=blue]
>
> Or look at Mr Rieck's employer who had their web designers add specific
> code to prevent users of non Microsoft browsers from accessing this
> monopoly telco's web sites. (that monopoly telco has some sort of
> marketing arrangement with microsoft).
>
> It is one thing to write non compliant code, but another thing
> alltogether to actively refuse access to those who don't have the
> browser you want. And of course, that monopoly telco could them produce
> statistcis that over 95% of users were using Microsoft browsers so there
> was no point in supporting other browsers. (of course, those statistics
> would show that since you prevent other browsers from accessing your web
> site).
>[/color]

You have no idea how bad it is. Last month I received an email from
corporate security commanding me to uninstall Firefox from my PC (they
watch everyone with Tivoli). I told them to get lost because I needed
the Firefox web-developer plugins to make sure my pages were
compliant. I'm not sure if they are planing to leave me alone or get a
bigger stick. (I'm not sure what they think when they see me using the
HTML validator all the time at [url]www.w3.org[/url])

A few weeks back I noticed one of out internal web sites was now
supporting .NET plugins which means the proprietary invasion has begun
in ernest.

Last week I went to our HR web site with IE7 and was redirected to a
failure page informing me to try again with IE6.

NSR

In article <e8554599-6cd5-4a30-9a92-9131c1e2581b@i76g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, Neil Rieck <n.rieck@sympatico.ca> writes:[color=blue]
>
> You have no idea how bad it is. Last month I received an email from
> corporate security commanding me to uninstall Firefox from my PC (they
> watch everyone with Tivoli). I told them to get lost because I needed
> the Firefox web-developer plugins to make sure my pages were
> compliant. I'm not sure if they are planing to leave me alone or get a
> bigger stick. (I'm not sure what they think when they see me using the
> HTML validator all the time at [url]www.w3.org[/url])
>
> A few weeks back I noticed one of out internal web sites was now
> supporting .NET plugins which means the proprietary invasion has begun
> in ernest.
>
> Last week I went to our HR web site with IE7 and was redirected to a
> failure page informing me to try again with IE6.[/color]

Our customers have told us do not load IE7, remove Netscape as it
is no longer supported, and use IE only for sites which won't work
without it.

And I keep dinging our web site developers for using MS only HTML.

On May 5, 9:37*am, koeh...@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob
Koehler) wrote:[color=blue]
> In article <e8554599-6cd5-4a30-9a92-9131c1e25...@i76g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, Neil Rieck <n.ri...@sympatico.ca> writes:
>
>
>[color=green]
> > You have no idea how bad it is. Last month I received an email from
> > corporate security commanding me to uninstall Firefox from my PC (they
> > watch everyone with Tivoli). I told them to get lost because I needed
> > the Firefox web-developer plugins to make sure my pages were
> > compliant. I'm not sure if they are planing to leave me alone or get a
> > bigger stick. (I'm not sure what they think when they see me using the
> > HTML validator all the time atwww.w3.org)[/color]
>[color=green]
> > A few weeks back I noticed one of out internal web sites was now
> > supporting .NET plugins which means the proprietary invasion has begun
> > in ernest.[/color]
>[color=green]
> > Last week I went to our HR web site with IE7 and was redirected to a
> > failure page informing me to try again with IE6.[/color]
>
> * *Our customers have told us do not load IE7, remove Netscape as it
> * *is no longer supported, and use IE only for sites which won't work
> * *without it.
>
> * *And I keep dinging our web site developers for using MS only HTML.[/color]

If you believe the hype, 50% of all users in Europe use Firefox. It is
fast and compliant.

Neil Rieck
Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge,
Ontario, Canada.
[url]http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/[/url]

Neil Rieck wrote:[color=blue]
> If you believe the hype, 50% of all users in Europe use Firefox. It is
> fast and compliant.[/color]

Not quite.

But some countries in Europe are heavy users of FF.

There are different statistics. Xiti usually have
relative high numbers for FF compared with others,
but I believe at least the differences between countries
are real.

[url]http://www.xitimonitor.com/en-us/browsers-barometer/firefox-march-2008/index-1-2-3-127.html[/url]

Also note that besides country then IT skills also influence
browser choice a lot.

Expect 60-80% FF users among IT professionals.

Arne

On Mon, 05 May 2008 14:40:00 -0700, Neil Rieck <n.rieck@sympatico.ca>
wrote:
[color=blue]
> If you believe the hype, 50% of all users in Europe use Firefox. It is
> fast and compliant.[/color]

I use IE7 for Hotmail, Firefox as my default and Opera for News and filling
out forms. Googling is best with the latter 2. Google desktop is a far
better
way to locate things on your own PC.

--
PL/I for OpenVMS
[url]www.kednos.com[/url]

On May 5, 6:24*pm, Arne Vajhøj <a...@vajhoej.dk> wrote:[color=blue]
> Neil Rieck wrote:[color=green]
> > If you believe the hype, 50% of all users in Europe use Firefox. It is
> > fast and compliant.[/color]
>
> Not quite.
>
> But some countries in Europe are heavy users of FF.
>
> There are different statistics. Xiti usually have
> relative high numbers for FF compared with others,
> but I believe at least the differences between countries
> are real.
>
> [url]http://www.xitimonitor.com/en-us/browsers-barometer/firefox-march-200[/url]...
>
> Also note that besides country then IT skills also influence
> browser choice a lot.
>
> Expect 60-80% FF users among IT professionals.
>
> Arne[/color]

I guess I should read the articles more carefully. The headline from
ARStechnica reads "Month by month, Firefox continues to make gains in
Europe, where the browser approaches a 50 percent market share in some
countries."

Neil Rieck
Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge,
Ontario, Canada.
[url]http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/[/url]

On May 5, 7:22*pm, "Tom Linden" <t...@kednos.company> wrote:[color=blue]
> On Mon, 05 May 2008 14:40:00 -0700, Neil Rieck <n.ri...@sympatico.ca> *
> wrote:
>[color=green]
> > If you believe the hype, 50% of all users in Europe use Firefox. It is
> > fast and compliant.[/color]
>
> I use IE7 for Hotmail, Firefox as my default and Opera for News and filling
> out forms. *Googling is best with the latter 2. *Google desktop is a far *
> better
> way to locate things on your own PC.
>
> --
> PL/I for OpenVMSwww.kednos.com[/color]

I suspect the reason for for Firefox's popularity is two fold:
1) Many IT people run LINUX and IE was never ported there
2) Many people are pissed off at Microsoft's business practices

In the JavaScript course I attended last month, the instructor was
fairly open about the monkey business by all participants. In the case
of MS he said the following:

MS stole JavaScript then renamed it JScript. Next they extended
JScript then added features to IE5 to take advantage of those
(JScript) extensions hoping they could dominate businesses with it.

MS stole JAVA then reanamed it C# (just checkout similar JAVA and C#
progams side-by-side; some function names have been changed but that
is all) while the idea of the JVM became the .NET framework. Like
before, .NET was only supported on IE6 and later. MS's intention to
support C# and .NET on other platforms didn't amount to very much.

There were other examples mentioned but the main thesis was that while
MS was trying to protect their investment in Windows, a world wide
army of programmers was trying to support online retailers where the
biggest problems were caused by non-compliant browsers (where IE was
the biggest offender).

In today's world MS wants to beat Google. This is such a joke because
MS is the biggest purveyor of proprietary technology while Google is
one of the biggest promoters of Open technology. For example, many of
the Web 2.0 example technologies are based upon AJAX. For an example
of AJAX, surf over to "maps.google.com". As you drag the map around,
AJAX fills in the new missing blank areas.

Neil Rieck
Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge,
Ontario, Canada.
[url]http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/[/url]

Neil Rieck wrote:[color=blue]
> MS stole JavaScript then renamed it JScript.[/color]

NetScape submitted the language for standardization. Usually
the intention of standardizing a language is to have more than one
implementation.

(it was standardized as ECMA-262 and ISO/IEC 16262)
[color=blue]
> Next they extended
> JScript then added features to IE5 to take advantage of those
> (JScript) extensions hoping they could dominate businesses with it.[/color]

True. But they are not the only one. Which is why JavaScript
is a maintenance nightmare.
[color=blue]
> MS stole JAVA then reanamed it C# (just checkout similar JAVA and C#
> progams side-by-side; some function names have been changed but that
> is all) while the idea of the JVM became the .NET framework.[/color]

Yep.

On the other hand Java and JVM stole a few ideas from C++ and
USCD Pascal. And C++ stole from C which stole from Algol. I am too
young to know where Algol stole from.
[color=blue]
> Like
> before, .NET was only supported on IE6 and later.[/color]

..NET is not browser dependent. Libraries, compilers and
IDE's usually are not.
[color=blue]
> MS's intention to
> support C# and .NET on other platforms didn't amount to very much.[/color]

True.

The open source implementation Mono is 3-4 years behind MS.
[color=blue]
> There were other examples mentioned but the main thesis was that while
> MS was trying to protect their investment in Windows, a world wide
> army of programmers was trying to support online retailers where the
> biggest problems were caused by non-compliant browsers (where IE was
> the biggest offender).
>
> In today's world MS wants to beat Google. This is such a joke because
> MS is the biggest purveyor of proprietary technology while Google is
> one of the biggest promoters of Open technology. For example, many of
> the Web 2.0 example technologies are based upon AJAX. For an example
> of AJAX, surf over to "maps.google.com". As you drag the map around,
> AJAX fills in the new missing blank areas.[/color]

Google promotes:
- web based software
- free software
and they use open source software. But only a small portion of their
own stuff is open source.

Arne

Arne Vajhøj wrote:[color=blue]
> Neil Rieck wrote:[color=green]
>> MS stole JavaScript then renamed it JScript.[/color]
>
> NetScape submitted the language for standardization. Usually
> the intention of standardizing a language is to have more than one
> implementation.
>
> (it was standardized as ECMA-262 and ISO/IEC 16262)
>[color=green]
>> Next they extended
>> JScript then added features to IE5 to take advantage of those
>> (JScript) extensions hoping they could dominate businesses with it.[/color]
>
> True. But they are not the only one. Which is why JavaScript
> is a maintenance nightmare.
>[color=green]
>> MS stole JAVA then reanamed it C# (just checkout similar JAVA and C#
>> progams side-by-side; some function names have been changed but that
>> is all) while the idea of the JVM became the .NET framework.[/color]
>
> Yep.
>
> On the other hand Java and JVM stole a few ideas from C++ and
> USCD Pascal. And C++ stole from C which stole from Algol. I am too
> young to know where Algol stole from.[/color]

Algol is so old that there wasn't a lot to steal FROM.

On May 5, 7:22*pm, "Tom Linden" <t...@kednos.company> wrote:[color=blue]
> On Mon, 05 May 2008 14:40:00 -0700, Neil Rieck <n.ri...@sympatico.ca> *
> wrote:
>[color=green]
> > If you believe the hype, 50% of all users in Europe use Firefox. It is
> > fast and compliant.[/color]
>
> I use IE7 for Hotmail, Firefox as my default and Opera for News and filling
> out forms. *Googling is best with the latter 2. *Google desktop is a far *
> better
> way to locate things on your own PC.
>
> --
> PL/I for OpenVMSwww.kednos.com[/color]

This is not a show stopper, but this HTML line:

<p style="text-decoration:blink;">This text is blinking</p>

does not blink with my version of IE7 but works properly with Firefox
2.0.0.12

Now "blink" is listed as part of the CSS2 spec which means that the
IE7 developers made the common mistake of only focusing on HTML while
ignoring CSS.

Neil Rieck
Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge,
Ontario, Canada.
[url]http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/[/url]

In article <cb089167-d833-4d67-922c-281588ec625b@a70g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>, Neil Rieck <n.rieck@sympatico.ca> writes:[color=blue]
>On May 5, 7:22=A0pm, "Tom Linden" <t...@kednos.company> wrote:[color=green]
>> On Mon, 05 May 2008 14:40:00 -0700, Neil Rieck <n.ri...@sympatico.ca> =A0
>> wrote:
>>[color=darkred]
>> > If you believe the hype, 50% of all users in Europe use Firefox. It is
>> > fast and compliant.[/color]
>>
>> I use IE7 for Hotmail, Firefox as my default and Opera for News and fillin=[/color]
>g[color=green]
>> out forms. =A0Googling is best with the latter 2. =A0Google desktop is a f=[/color]
>ar =A0[color=green]
>> better
>> way to locate things on your own PC.
>>
>> --
>> PL/I for OpenVMSwww.kednos.com[/color]
>
>This is not a show stopper, but this HTML line:
>
><p style=3D"text-decoration:blink;">This text is blinking</p>
>
>does not blink with my version of IE7 but works properly with Firefox
>2.0.0.12
>
>Now "blink" is listed as part of the CSS2 spec which means that the
>IE7 developers made the common mistake of only focusing on HTML while
>ignoring CSS.[/color]

M$IE8 now passes ACID2 which stresses HTML/CSS2. It's made my life easier
trying to develop a web for multiple browsers and *ALWAYS* having to deal
with some sort of M$IE brain-damage. Firefox 3 (still in bea) also passes
ACID2. Prior to these two, Safari was the only browser to pass it.

--
VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM

"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"

[url]http://tmesis.com/drat.html[/url]