mixing xhtml with html 4

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mixing xhtml with html 4

Is it a good idea to use xhtml code in an html 4 template?

mcwebedit

6:25 am on Aug 17, 2005 (gmt 0)

I am preparing documents for a couple of clients who have website templates that use html 4 (I have to use their templates). I've been told that xhtml is valid within html 4 (and with an html4 dtd), and that it would be better for forward compatibility to use xhtml. Is it okay to do that? And is it a good idea?

For example with <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd"> as the doctype if I include <img src="bg_nav.jpg" alt="background" /> in the code, W3C validator and ARealValidator both say it's valid (though Dreamweaver flags it as an error)

Hester

8:34 am on Aug 17, 2005 (gmt 0)

XHTML is meant to be backwards compatibility, so yes I'd say it's OK. (Though if the whole document was XHTML it should have an XHTML doctype.)

kaled

8:53 am on Aug 17, 2005 (gmt 0)

I don't use xhtml so I'm certainly no expert in this area but, for instance is not valid html.

There have been threads along the lines of "why doesn't this work" and the answer has been mixed html and xhtml.

Kaled.

Hester

8:29 pm on Aug 17, 2005 (gmt 0)

isn't usable, but is. The space ensures backwards compatibility.

Don_Hoagie

1:28 am on Aug 18, 2005 (gmt 0)

Also XHTML i believe needs to be all lowercase, so don't get sloppy with things like ... my guess is that if you use a DTD of HTML4, you'll be ok. But if you start mixing versions and you have an XHTML DTD, I suppose some issues could arise.