Re: html 4.0 validation for the site.
James A. Treacy:
> For a long time, that was all that was available.
Fortunately, it is now a long time later :-)
> So, you are advocating we switch to using CSS. If so, say it instead
> of us having circular arguments.
"Switch"? No, I think that to achieve the visual effects that some
people try to do by hacking HTML code which isn't correct, we *add* CSS
to do that. CSS is in *addition* to HTML, it is not a substitute. HTML
tells *what* the document is, CSS how it *looks*.
> What are the drawbacks to using CSS? Do all browsers support it?
The main drawback is that it, while being invented back in 1994, still
isn't supported correctly. From the popular browsers, it is notably
Netscape 4 that has serious problems with CSS (and older versions lack
support altogether). However, a carefully designed site will look good
even when displayed in a non-CSS browser, although the visual effects
will not appear (things such as author selected fonts, colours,
alignment, etc.)
When I write pages with CSS, I generally leave in stuff like <div
align=center> and so to aid older browsers. So we can more or less do
with what we have now (but remove things that are depreciated, like
<i>, <b>, <font> etc), and just add CSSes. We can leave the tables for
layout, colour specification in <body>, etc. to cater for older
browsers, no problem. (And then, in a few years, when "all" browsers
support CSS, we can skip all the old crud and do with only CSS (at
least in a dream-scenario)).
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peter - http://www.softwolves.pp.se/
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