Hi,

I was going through some xhtml reference text and found that there are many
attributes to xhtml tags that i did not knew of. There were many tags which I
never used. For eg., <big></big> and some attributes like <select
dir=""></select>.

What I want to know is that - do I really need to learn each and every
attribute of an xhtml element or each and every tag that xhtml throws at me,
from the point of interview or is it sufficient to know those attributes and
elements which make me make accessible websites and validated markup?

What do you all suggest?

Gaurav
http://www.gauravchandra.info

XHTML is built on HTML. As far as I know the tag set is the same. If you
look here, you will not see an index item for "new tags" -

http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/

<big> was part of HTML3.2.

There is no dir attribute for the <select> tag.

http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/interact/forms.html#h-17.6

> What do you all suggest?

Validating the page?

--
Murray --- ICQ 71997575
Adobe Community Expert
(If you *MUST* email me, don't LAUGH when you do so!)
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"gaurav_ch" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:g6mr3h$eep$1@forums.macromedia.com...
> Hi,
>
> I was going through some xhtml reference text and found that there are
> many
> attributes to xhtml tags that i did not knew of. There were many tags
> which I
> never used. For eg., <big></big> and some attributes like <select
> dir=""></select>.
>
> What I want to know is that - do I really need to learn each and every
> attribute of an xhtml element or each and every tag that xhtml throws at
> me,
> from the point of interview or is it sufficient to know those attributes
> and
> elements which make me make accessible websites and validated markup?
>
> What do you all suggest?
>
> Gaurav
> http://www.gauravchandra.info
>

..oO(gaurav_ch)

> I was going through some xhtml reference text and found that there are many
>attributes to xhtml tags that i did not knew of. There were many tags which I
>never used. For eg., <big></big> and some attributes like <select
>dir=""></select>.
>
> What I want to know is that - do I really need to learn each and every
>attribute of an xhtml element or each and every tag that xhtml throws at me,
>from the point of interview or is it sufficient to know those attributes and
>elements which make me make accessible websites and validated markup?

XHTML 1.0 is the same as HTML 4.01, just with stricter syntax rules.
The supported elements and attributes are almost the same (there are
some small differences, though, but in practice they won't matter much).

> What do you all suggest?

Unless you have a very good reason to use XHTML, you should stay with
HTML 4.01 Strict. Real XHTML doesn't work in the WWW yet, simply because
Internet Explorer doesn't support it. You would have to write your XHTML
in an HTML-compatible way and deliver it as HTML, so that IE will treat
and render it as HTML ... pretty pointless. Real XHTML would just cause
a download dialog in current IEs.

Suggestion: Write proper and reasonable HTML 4.01 Strict, validate your
markup/CSS and all will be happy.

Micha

Hi,

Thank you all for replying. @Murray - Yes, you are right. There is no
attribute "dir" for select tag. I read it in a book so I got confused and asked.

@Michael Fesser - If IE does not support XHTML, this means that it is
rendering it as HTML inspite of the XHTML DOCTYPE used in making pages? OMG!!!
I really hate Microsoft for this. Thanks for telling me this. I never knew that.

Still my question is unanswered - do I really need to learn each and every
attribute of an xhtml element or each and every tag that xhtml throws at me,
from the point of interview or is it sufficient to know those attributes and
elements which make me make accessible websites and validated markup?

Gaurav

> Still my question is unanswered - do I really need to learn each and every
> attribute of an xhtml element or each and every tag that xhtml throws at
> me,

Has has already been said, XHTML is HTML with stricter tag syntax. If you
know HTML (and to know HTML you should be familiar with ALL the tags), then
you will be fine in XHTML (tag-wise, at least).


--
Murray --- ICQ 71997575
Adobe Community Expert
(If you *MUST* email me, don't LAUGH when you do so!)
==================
http://www.projectseven.com/go - DW FAQs, Tutorials & Resources
http://www.dwfaq.com - DW FAQs, Tutorials & Resources
==================


"gaurav_ch" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:g6ne7o$5m2$1@forums.macromedia.com...
> Hi,
>
> Thank you all for replying. @Murray - Yes, you are right. There is no
> attribute "dir" for select tag. I read it in a book so I got confused and
> asked.
>
> @Michael Fesser - If IE does not support XHTML, this means that it is
> rendering it as HTML inspite of the XHTML DOCTYPE used in making pages?
> OMG!!!
> I really hate Microsoft for this. Thanks for telling me this. I never knew
> that.
>
> Still my question is unanswered - do I really need to learn each and every
> attribute of an xhtml element or each and every tag that xhtml throws at
> me,
> from the point of interview or is it sufficient to know those attributes
> and
> elements which make me make accessible websites and validated markup?
>
> Gaurav
>

..oO(gaurav_ch)

> @Michael Fesser - If IE does not support XHTML, this means that it is
>rendering it as HTML inspite of the XHTML DOCTYPE used in making pages? OMG!!!
>I really hate Microsoft for this. Thanks for telling me this. I never knew that.

Exactly. IE accepts XHTML only if the server delivers it as text/html.
But then it's not really XHTML anymore.

Real XHTML should be delivered as application/xhtml+xml, which would let
modern browsers like Opera and FF use their XML parsers instead of the
old and bloated tagsoup parsers, but until now IE doesn't support this.
Not sure about the coming IE 8, though.

>Still my question is unanswered - do I really need to learn each and every
>attribute of an xhtml element or each and every tag that xhtml throws at me,
>from the point of interview or is it sufficient to know those attributes and
>elements which make me make accessible websites and validated markup?

You should know at least most of the elements and attributes, so that
you can use them where appropriate. Same for CSS and its properties. Of
course you can't (and don't have to) remember them all. That's where a
quick reference guide or a "cheat sheet" comes in handy.

In my Opera browser for example I have these pages as sidebar panels for
a quick lookup (should also work in FF):

http://people.opera.com/rijk/panels/...line/elem.html
http://people.opera.com/rijk/panels/...op-visual.html

Here are some more panels with previews:

http://people.opera.com/rijk/panels/

You also might find some of these cheat sheets quite useful:

http://www.addedbytes.com/cheat-sheets/

Micha