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Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 06:51:24 -0500
From: Marshall Roch <marshall@exclupen.com>
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To: forrest-dev@xml.apache.org
Subject: Re: XHTML compliance
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David Crossley wrote:
> IIRC forrest-dev decided to start off with trying to get compliant
> HTML first.

The few pages I validated at xml.apache.org/forrest/ were valid HTML 4.01.

> So we were deliberately not doing the XHTML by default.
> Also there is the issue of compatibility with older browsers (which
> has been thrashed out on this list). So the big question is probably
> "What should be the default".

I don't want to restart discussions that have already been had, but it 
was my understanding of XHTML 1.0 that it is backwards-compatible with 
old browsers, and that CSS is what starts having some problems with any 
browser 4.0 or older.  Old browsers, however, will still get the 
unstyled text instead of completely breaking.

> If the default does remain as HTML then we could simply add an FAQ
> to explain how to get XHTML instead. It should be just a matter of
> changing the serializer in sitemap.xmap. (Yes, i know that you have
> found some other issues which must be fixed whatever happens.)

How about a skinconf setting?  Maybe "project.serializer=html" by 
default, then the option to switch to "xhtml-trans" or "xhtml-strict" 
(to have the option of either doctype) if you want and your skin is valid.

> We have been trying to get everything that should be done with CSS
> into the associated skin/page.css rather than in the HTML code.
> Perhaps we should switch to the "forrest-css" skin to expedite this.

Has anyone taken a look at Sliding Doors[1], the recent A List Apart 
article that details how to make curved tabs with just an unordered list 
and some CSS?  I've used that article to make some (IMHO) pretty cool 
tabs on the site I'm working on[2].

> Why do you need to hard-code the mime type? Doesn't the serializer
> add that?

I expected it to, but I don't think it did.  Something to look into, for 
sure.

> What is the mime type for XHTML? Eeek, i thought that this would be
> a big issue, but when i Googled for an answer i became more horrified.

IIRC, it has to follow the XML spec, which is either UTF-8 or ISO-8859-1 
(or US-ASCII, which is a subset).  Not sure on that, though.

--
Marshall Roch

[1] http://www.alistapart.com/articles/slidingdoors
[2] http://whs.winnacunnet.k12.nh.us:81/