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Quote of the Week:

XHTML 2 dumped, HTML 5 ascendant. Does it matter?

Here's the short version: XHTML was based on XML, back in the '90s when people thought XML was the future.

As mentioned in Techworld.com a while back:

XHTML 2 will not become a W3C standard, [W3C spokesperson Ian] Jacobs said. "We're investing in HTML 5 for the future," he said. Work stops on the XHTML language, but W3C still plans an XML formulation of HTML 5, to be done by the HTML working group.

A prominent AJAX and web development proponent applauded the W3C decision.

Firefox and Safari also include HTML 5 support, as well as Google's Chrome and Android.

So, what's the practical difference for us web designers and developers; people who need to know the code underneath the user experience, but aren't necessarily considered "coders"?

XHTML info from Mike:

XHTML 2.0 is based solely on XML, forgoing the SGML heritage and syntax peculiarities present in current web markup. XHTML 2.0 is supposed to be a “general-purpose language,” with a minimal default feature set that is easy to extend using CSS and other technologies (XForms, XML Events, etc). It’s a modular approach that allows the XHTML2 group to focus on generic document markup, while others develop mechanisms for presentation, interactivity, document construction, etc.

...and HTML 5:

While XHTML 2.0 aims to be revolutionary, the HTML working group has taken a more pragmatic approach and designed HTML 5 as an evolutionary technology. That is to say, HTML 5 is an incremental step forward that remains mostly compatible with the current HTML 4/XHTML 1 standards. However, HTML 5 offers a host of changes and extensions to HTML 4/XHTML 1 that address many of the faults in these earlier specifications.

Read his post for more.

Another post explaining the difference had a nice example of the structural, easy-to-understand nature of XML:

<farm>

 <barn>

    <horses>10</horses>

    <tools>

      <hammers>1</hammer>

      <shovel>2</shovel>

   </tools>

  </barn>

  <field>

   <cows>8</cows>

   <pigs>30</cows>

 </field>

</farm>

The structure shows the hierarchy of elements, and makes no effort to style of make them act a certain way. XHTML is simply a version of HTML that is valid XML code.

HTML 5 will contain more support for web applications, APIs, and other stuff that wasn't as built-into earlier versions of HTML. And as mentioned above, it will be (mostly) backward-compatible with BOTH HTML and XHTML.

So why, or should, we care? Probably not a lot, at the moment. But be prepared to make adjustments in the nearish future, and bone up on the new specification with the Definitive Guide of your choice. O'Reilly, here I come, once again!

Labels: advice, coding, W3C, web design, XHTML

posted at 9:51 AM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

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2.19.2009

One thing I never thought I'd encounter

I'm reviewing a potential client's existing site today. She wants to add and modify a lot of it, as her market is changing and growing in ways they didn't anticipate when the site was initially built. The original code is almost entirely Flash. They have a great relationship with the original site's design team, and they were happy to hand over the source Flash files so she could make updates and changes, as needed.

I knew the original design firm was based in Russia, so you think I'd have expected to see this when I opened up the Flash project:

Time to break out my handy Russian-to-English Flash Programming Translation Guide, 2nd ed.

Labels: bad english, coding, flash

posted at 4:51 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

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11.18.2008

Matrix of supported CSS styles for e-mail clients

Ever wanted to know if ANY e-mail readers support background-image in inline CSS? Campaign Monitor has a handy matrix that shows you the ugly truth.

Labels: coding, css

posted at 10:48 AM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

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9.30.2008

I am so glad I am not a full-time content manager

TO all the content managers in the world, WE SALUTE YOU!

I have just completed an initial content import for a lovely website I designed, for a national conference taking place in Colorado this fall. I did all the branding, too, and am assisting the organizers in other marketing-oriented ways as well. One of the things I am helping out with is getting all of the conference sessions, papers, tour descriptions, and other content up online. There's a lot of it. Well over a hundred thousand words' worth, by my back of the napkin calculation. And after all of that, all I can say is: I am glad I spend most of my time creating brands, and not managing online content. I am not wired to do it on a daily basis. That, and thank the music gods for the Talking Heads, who got me through the last 24 hours.

Labels: branding, coding, talking heads, web design

posted at 11:59 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

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5.13.2008

Repost from the desert: Hand-crafted HTML

Now, all serious beer drinkers I know prefer homebrewed beer to Duff. A more hands-on experience in creating the product results in a product that has more character, more personality, and a betterness that is hard to describe; but you know it when you see it (or taste it, in this case). In our second repost from the desert, I talk about how and why hand-coded HTML is better than what you get from a machine, like an HTML layout program (Dreamweaver, and especially FrontPage, I'm looking at you!). This post originally appeared in March 2005. Enjoy. Meantime, I am going to go out to the pool.

Here it is:

I spent the better part of this afternoon doing web production on a medium-sized site due to go live in a few weeks, so I thought I'd talk a little bit about how I like to work.

Now, there are many decent, hard-working web page composition programs out there, most notably Dreamweaver; and I have used them extensively...in the past. But I've come to the conculsion that for 90 percent of all HTML, XHTML, CSS, XML, PHP, and other acronymed web development work, I prefer to code by hand.

Old School!

Why? Well, once you learn the syntax, it's quicker. Trust me! And it allows you to create fast, clean code, without many of the pitfalls and extraneous bits that GUI-based programs like Dreamweaver can place into your pages without your knowledge. Anyone who has ever waded through Microsoft FrontPage-created webpage code will know what I am talking about.

Pretty much any text editor will do--even Microsoft Word, in a pinch--but I prefer BareBones Software's BBEdit. It's long been the de-facto standard in programming text editors, especially for web code writers. Why? Well, it's no-frills, function-specific approach to its interface is a big selling point.

And it is very user-friendly.

Case-in-point: it color-codes your code so you know if you are looking at an image source element, or a formatting element, or actual content, for example. Their motto: "It doesn't suck", says it all.

Yes, yes, Dreamweaver has a "code view" mode, so you can see the code as you mess about in GUI mode, but BBEdit also has a Preview mode, which allows you to see things as the browser will display them, so that arguement is a wash.

It comes down to this:

1. did you grow up in the age of learning BASIC in school?


2. Were you amazed when you found out that you could upgrade from a VIC-20 to a Commodore 64 and get all that extra processing power?


3. Did you make ASCII art with your dot-matrix printer?

If so, you will prefer to code by hand. If not, you will probably prefer something like Dreamweaver.

Not that I'm judging you.

So if you really want to understand what this web thing is all about, look at some of your favorite webpages using "View Source", borrow a copy of O'Reilly's HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide, and learn something new! Trust me, you'll love it!

Labels: coding, productivity, W3C, XHTML

posted at 9:00 AM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

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