Bill Brown wrote: > While on some level, I was aware that these two things refer to > different mechanisms, I'm also of the understanding that they are > intrinsically linked, even if only because IE's quirks mode switch is > contingent on the doctype.
All browsers have a "doctype switch" - unfortunately, only IE's is more broken than the others'... <http://www.satzansatz.de/cssd/quirksmode.html> ...and doesn't involve an "almost standard mode". > That being said, I'm also the guy who doesn't use speed dial on his > cell phone, allows his browser to retain no passwords and who prefers > vehicles with manual transmissions. Slightly off topic here, but yes, I also prefer "direct control" and "no loose ends" (and I don't own a cell phone anymore) :-) > Strict, in many senses, just makes sense to me. There's either rules, > or there aren't. Well, in essence there aren't any rules other than that some methods work better than others when dealing with certain problems. W3C standards are only as good as browser-support allows for, which isn't all that much - yet. > It makes me nervous to depend on a browser or a validator or an > operating system (ahem Windows) to say 'Ohhhh, all right...I'll fudge > it a little here,' which is my basic understanding of what > transitional means. "Transitional" was introduced to make it slightly easier to convert / rewrite old stuff in a "transitional period", and should not be used for marking up new documents. Thus, using a "Transitional" standard while marking up entirely new documents today, is the same as saying: "I can't/won't write proper markup yet, so I'll just keep on writing markup as they did back in 1998 and earlier, and add a doctype to make it look better". > I also have had little to no trouble just using Strict Doctypes, so I > am sort of out of the loop on the purpose or need for Transitional. I do find Transitional a necessity when I have to include low-quality stuff from Google or others that I can't really make proper changes to. I don't like to lie about the quality of my markup - even if the bad parts aren't mine, and my version of HTML Tidy won't let me lie either. Other than that I'm out of of my "transitional period", and prefer "Strict"/"standard mode" ... except if the browser is called IE6, in which case I prefer to trigger "quirks mode" - for a mix of personal and quality reasons. > In any event, your clarification is helpful, in spite of my desire to > write back and say 'Oh, I knew THAT,' which of course, I didn't > really. Of course you did :-) Sorting out the nonsense surrounding "doctypes and browsers' layout modes" easily introduces some confusion though - especially since browsers weren't supposed to have mode-switching mechanisms for HTML in the first place. Doctypes were supposed to have only one purpose: declaring which standard one was marking up in accordance with. That's only meaningful for curious web designers and "basic validity-checking" reasons. Browsers don't check validity for anything served as HTML - they just switch mode and thereby changes a few internal rules, and then carry on as if nothing had happened - which in many cases is true. > I'm still kinda diggin' Strict mode, so I'll probably continue with > that anyway, seeing no data here which would encourage me in a > different direction. Of course not. I'll encourage you to keep on digging "Strict"/"standard mode" until a better "mode" arrives, but it's a good thing to keep the correct meaning of the various terms, mechanisms and effects in mind while you're at it. Makes it easier to control those browsers with meaningful and valid code, and help others achieve the same. regards Georg -- http://www.gunlaug.no ______________________________________________________________________ css-discuss [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
