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Note:These pages make extensive use of the latest XHTML and CSS Standards. They ought to look great in any standards-compliant modern browser. Unfortunately, they will probably look horrible in older browsers, like Netscape 4.x and IE 4.x. Moreover, many posts use MathML, which is, currently only supported in Mozilla. My best suggestion (and you will thank me when surfing an ever-increasing number of sites on the web which have been crafted to use the new standards) is to upgrade to the latest version of your browser. If that's not possible, consider moving to the Standards-compliant and open-source Mozilla browser.

November 15, 2004

X-tirpation

Evan takes a buzz saw to his X-philes list, with predictable results.

“Why,” you may ask, “is XHTML so hard?” It isn’t, really. With the right tools, it’s positively easy. Unfortunately, the “right tools” are not exactly readily available. You either have to be a programming whiz, a deranged physicist, or some equally atypical character, who’s willing to cobble together something half-way bulletproof.

Everyone else quickly realizes that slapping an XHTML DOCTYPE on an otherwise ill-formed bit of tag soup has all of the advantages (you appear progressive and au courant) without any of the disadvantages (actually having to figure out how to reliably ensure well-formedness) of XHTML.

Personally, none of this would matter, but for the fact that doing the old MathML thing actually requires well-formed code. With current technology, that’s still daunting for any who would follow in these footsteps.

Which is why Evan’s list remains short, and MathML-enabled weblogs remain scarce.

Addendum: To be fair, there are a few people working on the problem. But they’re still pretty far from having something even by a deranged physicist could use. [Hat tip to jgraham for the pointer to syncato.]

Posted by distler at November 15, 2004 2:58 AM

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2 Comments & 1 Trackback

Re: X-tirpation

Have you looked at this tool?:

XStandard is the leading standards-compliant plug-in WYSIWYG editor for Windows and browser-based content management systems (IE/Mozilla/Firefox/ActiveX). The editor generates clean XHTML Strict or 1.1, uses only CSS for formatting, and ensures the clean separation of content from presentation. Markup generated by XStandard meets the most demanding accessibility requirements.

Posted by: Chris W. on November 15, 2004 5:18 PM | Permalink | Reply to this

generating valid content

I need to ensure, not just that I generate valid markup. I need to ensure that the comments you type, and the trackbacks Sam sends and the RSS feeds and Technorati Cosmos in my sidebar all generate valid markup too.

Not a trivial task, given the current state of off-the-shelf technology. And another “WYSIWYG XHTML editor” doesn’t take us very far.

Posted by: Jacques Distler on November 19, 2004 11:34 PM | Permalink | PGP Sig | Reply to this
Read the post Vigilance
Weblog: Sam Ruby
Excerpt: For the record, despite all of my efforts, when Evan went to check, my setup had ***GASP*** stopped serving my main page with the appropriate mime type to standards compliant browsers. The problem appears to be an unfortunate interaction between D
Tracked: November 15, 2004 10:04 PM

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