DOCTYPE Question -- Regarding Validation

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DOCTYPE Question -- Regarding Validation

Should this be xml or html?

modo

5:20 pm on Feb 25, 2004 (gmt 0)

Hi all

I have the following at the top of my site:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

I've designed the whole web site in CSS. There are no tables, and no <font> tags.

I've been reading about validation and I'd like to validate my site. But I'm reading that it needs to be HTML?

Have I lost the plot?

Could anyone direct me to a simple explanation of what/how validation works? I've been looking at W3's site, but it's sort of complicated to understand...

Thanks in advance for any kind words of advice!

:) modo

4css

5:35 pm on Feb 25, 2004 (gmt 0)

Hi Modo,
I use the xhtml transitional dtd for the pages that I am playing around with. (Not at the point of being a total designer yet, still in the wanna be stage ;) )

Have you tried to validate this yet? Validate your xhtml then your css.

I'm not sure about the html part of your question. Unless where ever you are reading your information they are only using html and not xhtml.

The dtds are difficult to follow. I have tried to read them, and started to understand a bit about them. But I dont think Iknow enough to give you any information on it.

PatomaS

5:46 pm on Feb 25, 2004 (gmt 0)

Hello modo

First of all

Good decision to make a standard site (i mean css and validation)

;)

About your questions...

The line you posted works to tell the navigator what kind of page is receiving and how it have to show it.

But this is the firts step to validation.

About the language of the page, it have to be HTML or XHTML, the second is a next step of the first one.

So if you choose in your first line to build a transitional xhtml page, it only means that you are writing a page with no fonts, br tags ar of this type "<br />" img tags are finished with <img /> too and this kind of things, but not too much about the language.

Remember, xhtml ir more or less the same than html.

About the validator, it is simple. You just have to navigate to: [validator.w3.org,...] and you will see an space to paste the address or fou page and a button to activate the validation service. It just tells you if the page is or not a valid xhtml transitional. If you have sintax errors on the page it will tells you where are this errors and what kind.

You can validate your css page to in this address: [jigsaw.w3.org...]

So i hope all this things works for you, but remember, you are in the right way trying to build a web standard site.

Bye and good luck

modo

8:50 pm on Feb 25, 2004 (gmt 0)

Hello again.

So I understand that HTML is rather close to XHTML, but now the validator is telling me that it will only validate HTML.

Would the easiest thing be to change any mention of XHTML to HTML?

Will it validate correctly then?

Thanks for all the help!

modo.

encyclo

9:03 pm on Feb 25, 2004 (gmt 0)

XHTML is HTML reformulated as an XML 1.0 application. In English, that means that XHTML is a simply a version of HTML. There are several versions of both HTML and XHTML available, and the tags and attributes can vary between one version and another. You've picked XHTML 1.0 Transitional. You can get a fuller explation here, including the differences between HTML and XHTML:

[w3.org...]

The XHTML specification can be found here:

[w3.org...]

If you use the validator links in the above posts and put in your address, the validator will recognise the DOCTYPE you have at the top of your page. On the results page, you'll either get a message saying "Valid XHTML Transitional!" or a list of errors and warnings.

ergophobe

9:05 pm on Feb 25, 2004 (gmt 0)

modo,
The W3C validator will validate HTML or XHTML.

First, what is validation?

Every level of markup is specified by a DTD, a Document Type Definition. This explains in SGML what is valid in a particular dialect of SGML (HTML 4 transitional, XHTML 1 strict, etc). The validator is a piece of software that understands the DTD and can use it to figure out whether a document fed to conforms to that DTD. It will usually also try to tell you why it doesn't conform.

Second, W3C can only validate HTML. Not true, so there must be some problem with either your document or your request. Where exactly are you reading this and what exactly does it say?

Tom

ergophobe

9:06 pm on Feb 25, 2004 (gmt 0)

Wait, I just noticed that this is the CSS forum. Are you submitting a CSS doc to the HTML validator? That won't work. There's a separate validator for CSS.

4css

9:06 pm on Feb 25, 2004 (gmt 0)

Hi Modo
Here is where you need to go to validate the xhtml
[validator.w3.org...] (as previously mentioned in posts above)

After you validate your xhtml you need to validate your css.

Try that link and see what happens, it should just validate as xhtml

When you validate your css go here
[jigsaw.w3.org...] (as previously mentioned in posts above)

modo

11:07 am on Feb 26, 2004 (gmt 0)

You guys are brilliant. Got all my answers!

Thanks!

I'm off to validate now. I hope the result won't be too shocking! Being a first timer 'n all..I'm sure I've made plenty mistakes...

modo

11:10 am on Feb 26, 2004 (gmt 0)

woooow. no wait...what is this?

DOCTYPE Override in effect! Any DOCTYPE Declaration in the document has been suppressed and the DOCTYPE for �XHTML 1.0 Transitional� inserted instead. The document will not be Valid until you alter the source file to reflect this new DOCTYPE.

Maybe I should really just change any mention of "XHTML" to "HTML"?

Whatcha think?

grahamstewart

11:24 am on Feb 26, 2004 (gmt 0)

Did you select a doctype in the drop down combo?

If so then don't - just leave it as (detect automatically).

g1smd

3:40 pm on Mar 3, 2004 (gmt 0)

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