Talk:XML - Managing Data Exchange/XHTML

Merge with XHTML
This is a chapter within an XML book so merging the XHTML document into this chapter makes sense. User:rtw 9 Nov 2005

This page is much better than the Programming:XHTML page I would prefer to see this content stand and the other's get merged into this.--Nathan 22:29, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

HTML's design
An anonymous editor changed
 * "HTML was designed to display data, not to describe data."

to
 * "HTML was designed to describe data, not to display data."

and I definitely disagree with this, although I think I can understand their POV.

Because this module is about XML, the former is the better statement in context because HTML was designed to give information to renderrers about how to display the content, where as XML is more general -- effectively any meta data can be included with the 'main' content.

Mark Hurd 01:57, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree--Nathan 22:30, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Revision lists
by Geun-young(Kelly) Yim

-Unify the format when it talks about the code in a sentence(ex: have a shade)

-Get ride of the highlights with different colors under "Documents must be well-formed"

-Unify the format for the emphasized words

-Have a button that links to the author guidelines page. The button moves with the screen on the left side, so a editor can click anytime to make sure that he or she is following the author guidelines. A "back to" button on the author guidelines page as well.

-Have a "top" button to go to the top of the page

-Have the learning objective box at the top of the page

Revisions by editorial board - Moussa

 * We cut off some information. Are we assuming that the user as some knowledge of HTML or XHTML? The transition from HTML to XHTML is not too hard, so we do not need this mush info.
 * Contents can be shorter. The chapter is not that long, but the contents make it seem that way. We can use bullets on some parts instead of them being sub-sections in the contents.
 * I don’t think a “guidelines button” is needed, people do not always go to the book to make changes, and it may be disturbing to some readers.
 * The chapter has exercises that refer to chapter 5 and 6, I think it would be preferable to either write down what those exercises were about (just the relevant parts) or create new exercises. This is just to stay within the page instead of having to go back just to do exercises.
 * The top button is a good idea; we just need to check if it is feature available in wiki.
 * Yim we will need some clarification on “Unify the format for the emphasized words”. You mentioned the highlights, but it seems like you are talking about other ones

Professor
I think the general structure and content of this chapter is OK because it is not meant to teach XHTML and it is assumed readers already know HTML when they start the book. The proposed changes and comments upon them make sense.

rtw 19:20, 5 Feb 2006 (UTC)

Final comments - Moussa
Looks good. You can take out the highlights where it says "incorrect" and "correct". I was not able to find the link to the validator. I think it would be a good idea to have it somewhere at the top and/or bottom. Good job !!

Question-Kelly
The link is under both exercises and answers. Do you still want me to add the link in the module?

Browser guidelines / bugs / pitfalls?
I'd like to see a section for web developers regarding typical problems specific to XHTML, and how to solve them. E.g., how to include JavaScript in XHTML 1.1 without breaking in IE when serving as text/html to that browser, an example script to serve as application/xhtml+xml or text/html depending on browser capabilities, and an answer to why IE renders some valid XHTML pages in quirks mode.

I can start adding a few of these.

Engmark 09:21, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Validation
One important benefit of XHTML over HTML is that XHTML can be validated using an XML validating parser. Even though this chapter explicitly states creation of valid HTML documents as a learning objective, the only mention of validation in this article is in a single sentence at the end of the paragraph on HTML Tidy. Validation merits a heading, with brief text describing what a validator does, the link to the W3C validator, how to validate using Xerces, and a mention that many HTML authoring tools support validation.