Slashdot Mirror

Good point. However, in their defense, it is of some comfort to know that the site validates as HTML 4.01 Transitional if you mandate it be verified as such (they are missing the DOCTYPE on the page). On the other hand, the original site still doesn't validate even after selecting HTML 4.01 Transitional (the closest it possibly comes to).

Good point. However, in their defense, it is of some comfort to know that the site validates as HTML 4.01 Transitional if you mandate it be verified as such (they are missing the DOCTYPE on the page). On the other hand, the original site still doesn't validate even after selecting HTML 4.01 Transitional (the closest it possibly comes to).

Neither does Mozilla's web site.

Hell even my own site doesn't work very well.

Your site does not validate. Your complaint is hence analogous to the stating "My program does not work well", when in fact it it has syntax errors and doesn't even compile.

"Opera will be a good browser when it supports all the latest HTML/XHTML standards and CSS. Until my (100% properly coded and W3C validated) websites render as perfectly in Opera as they do in Mozilla and IE, Opera can't really be classified as 'the best browser out there.'"

I'd say that you're either a lying sack of shit, or someone who don't know what they're talking about. (Take your pick!)

"Opera will be a good browser when it supports all the latest HTML/XHTML standards and CSS. Until my (100% properly coded and W3C validated) websites render as perfectly in Opera as they do in Mozilla and IE, Opera can't really be classified as 'the best browser out there.'"

I'd say that you're either a lying sack of shit, or someone who don't know what they're talking about. (Take your pick!)

Slashdot (main page alone) is in 624 violations of the World Wide Web Consortium.

I'm an AvantGo user and am happy with the free service. I don't use custom pages anymore -- page size and link depth are a problem when trying to get a multipage article. However, I think that our reliance on a service like AvantGo points out a problem that's only going to get worse, unless we look to consientiously follow standards.

The increasing popularity of PDAs of all kinds will start to pose a problem in terms of conveying content in a useable way usable for these devices. Until now, we've been getting by with various hacks like AvantGo, but I thnk we are starting to come to a breaking point. There are probably as many ways to retrieve web content as there are PDAs these days, and I'm sure some will do a better job than others.

Before we start to go the way of designing multiple pages for each browser and PDA (which will *still* lock some people out), maybe we should actually start thinking about standards.

Today's standards/recommendations from W3C basically are tilted at separating style/layout from content. If site designers as well as web-client programmers work to implement the standards, then there would be no reason to creat alternate versions of a page for each device. Since content and style/layout is seperated at a structural level in the markup, then it will be easy for any client to serve up the content and display it according to its own necessities (screen size, colors, etc).

This does mean that we have to disabuse ourselves of the notion that a webpage must look the same on all browser, or that it's okay to make a webpage that can only be displayed in one type of browser, or only if certain plugins, etc are present.

The web, and the net, for that matter is not about, style, it's about content. Let's focus on content.

If we would have been doing this all along, chances are that services like AvantGo wouldn't be necessary in the first place.

I wonder if the number 1 ranked page will always end up being a single document - the ontology.?

I wonder if the number 1 ranked page will always end up being a single document - the ontology.?

Sure ACPI is open. So is Kerberos but Microsoft has managed to put enough of their extensions into it to make life a little hairy in a mixed enterprise enviroment. Go on over to the World Wide Web Consortium page and look at the standards. Now go look at how IE enhances it.

If you think Microsoft plays well with standards then I will have to disagree on several counts.

it started in 1988 actually:

but any internet tech that goes back farther than the web is old enough ;-)

> (just what is the non-proprietary vector animation standard, anyway?)

SVG, or Scalable Vector Graphics, which also includes a mobile version and also caters for disabled users and non standard display devices.

There are tools to author it such as Jasc WebDraw, and it can be displayed on a significant proportion of browsers (IE is the only browser I know supports it, Mozilla probably does too).

> (just what is the non-proprietary vector animation standard, anyway?)

SVG, or Scalable Vector Graphics, which also includes a mobile version and also caters for disabled users and non standard display devices.

There are tools to author it such as Jasc WebDraw, and it can be displayed on a significant proportion of browsers (IE is the only browser I know supports it, Mozilla probably does too).

It doesn't seem to display correctly in ns4. I had to use "view source" in order to read any of the text and get the url of the pictures.
Probably you need to double check your table html.

This is not only a problem with Netscape. The HTML code of the page is broken: there is a <table> tag at the beginning of the page and it is never closed. The table structure is incorrect anyway, because the <table> tag is immediately followed by <td> without a <tr>. The same problem occurs for a <center> tag and a <font> tag that are never closed (besides, the <font> tag occurs just before a block-level <h2> tag, so it should have no effect). Also, all color specifications are incorrect: missing quotes, missing "#" sign before the hex values.

MrP-, if you are mirroring this slashdotted page, it would be a public service to fix the most obvious errors so that the mirrored page can be viewed by most browsers and passes at least some minimal HTML validation tests. The easiest way to fix the problem would be to remove the offending tags (2nd, 3rd and 4th line in the original page).

I highly recommend checking the page with HTML Tidy or with the W3C validator.

You forgot the awesome support of all the browsers out there. Yeah, Macromedia cut a deal with the major browsers to ship Flash in the basic install (95%+ of browsers out there).

The Adobe SVG Viewer ships with Acrobat Reader and is therefore already installed on most systems today. It's not installed on as many systems as Flash is, but it's still a viable alternative.

Not to mention all the kick-ass development tools for SVG. Wow, for quickly developing state-of-the-art sites, they stomp Macromedia Flash and Adobe Live Motion!

There are a few nice native SVG editors that do a pretty good job given the fact that these are still very early days for this technolgy. There are also many established vector editors that export SVG.

Ya know, not every W3 technology has busted out onto the seen like a big dog. Flash is ubquitous [sic]. Get used to it.

Changing a whole industry takes time. And just because something unpleasant is ubiquitous doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to find an alternative.

Oh... And I do have Mozilla/Linux installed with the SVG plugin... Just show me one thing that's cool out there. just one.

The "Fluent Solutions/Adobe Theater demo" at the Adobe SVG demos page is very cool. But coolness is subjective.

You don't have to like SVG any more than you like Flash, but as with anything else it's important to have the freedom of choice. SVG and Flash both have their uses, just like JPEG and GIF.

You forgot the awesome support of all the browsers out there. Yeah, Macromedia cut a deal with the major browsers to ship Flash in the basic install (95%+ of browsers out there).

The Adobe SVG Viewer ships with Acrobat Reader and is therefore already installed on most systems today. It's not installed on as many systems as Flash is, but it's still a viable alternative.

Not to mention all the kick-ass development tools for SVG. Wow, for quickly developing state-of-the-art sites, they stomp Macromedia Flash and Adobe Live Motion!

There are a few nice native SVG editors that do a pretty good job given the fact that these are still very early days for this technolgy. There are also many established vector editors that export SVG.

Ya know, not every W3 technology has busted out onto the seen like a big dog. Flash is ubquitous [sic]. Get used to it.

Changing a whole industry takes time. And just because something unpleasant is ubiquitous doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to find an alternative.

Oh... And I do have Mozilla/Linux installed with the SVG plugin... Just show me one thing that's cool out there. just one.

The "Fluent Solutions/Adobe Theater demo" at the Adobe SVG demos page is very cool. But coolness is subjective.

You don't have to like SVG any more than you like Flash, but as with anything else it's important to have the freedom of choice. SVG and Flash both have their uses, just like JPEG and GIF.

Adobe SVG Viewer (Linux version) and check the W3C's list

SVG can do everything SWF can and more.
The animation XML grammar you dream of exists: SMIL in SVG. SVG does animation without ECMA script (standardized J-/Java script). You read should check out SVG; it's what you're looking for. (and yes, that includes RTFM).
"SVG was meant for Vector-Graphics, nothing else"; not true. It features typo, ani, pics, real filters, and can be combined with XForms, SMIL, XHTML, etc. You have CSS, XML, SMIL; all the good stuff. Plus you can script it via ECMA script.
In some cases, both technologies are a fit; but in many fields, SVG offers tremendous advantages, for example: data driven graphics, process monitoring, data visualization, representation of XML data, personalization, internationalization, mapping, and many more. Basically, it's fun.
SVG home, SVG spec.

SVG can do everything SWF can and more.
The animation XML grammar you dream of exists: SMIL in SVG. SVG does animation without ECMA script (standardized J-/Java script). You read should check out SVG; it's what you're looking for. (and yes, that includes RTFM).
"SVG was meant for Vector-Graphics, nothing else"; not true. It features typo, ani, pics, real filters, and can be combined with XForms, SMIL, XHTML, etc. You have CSS, XML, SMIL; all the good stuff. Plus you can script it via ECMA script.
In some cases, both technologies are a fit; but in many fields, SVG offers tremendous advantages, for example: data driven graphics, process monitoring, data visualization, representation of XML data, personalization, internationalization, mapping, and many more. Basically, it's fun.
SVG home, SVG spec.

• SVG is a true open standard
• SVG is designed with accessibility in mind
• SVG integrates well with HTML
• SVG uses familiar technologies engendered by HTML, such as XML, DOM, JavaScript, and CSS
• Because SVG is based on XML its text is selectable, searchable, and indexable
• SVG supports hyperlinks, both inbound and outbound
• SVG can be generated server-side without proprietary software
• SVG is supported on many platforms, including Linux

• SVG is a true open standard
• SVG is designed with accessibility in mind
• SVG integrates well with HTML
• SVG uses familiar technologies engendered by HTML, such as XML, DOM, JavaScript, and CSS
• Because SVG is based on XML its text is selectable, searchable, and indexable
• SVG supports hyperlinks, both inbound and outbound
• SVG can be generated server-side without proprietary software
• SVG is supported on many platforms, including Linux

• SVG is a true open standard
• SVG is designed with accessibility in mind
• SVG integrates well with HTML
• SVG uses familiar technologies engendered by HTML, such as XML, DOM, JavaScript, and CSS
• Because SVG is based on XML its text is selectable, searchable, and indexable
• SVG supports hyperlinks, both inbound and outbound
• SVG can be generated server-side without proprietary software
• SVG is supported on many platforms, including Linux

• SVG is a true open standard
• SVG is designed with accessibility in mind
• SVG integrates well with HTML
• SVG uses familiar technologies engendered by HTML, such as XML, DOM, JavaScript, and CSS
• Because SVG is based on XML its text is selectable, searchable, and indexable
• SVG supports hyperlinks, both inbound and outbound
• SVG can be generated server-side without proprietary software
• SVG is supported on many platforms, including Linux

• SVG is a true open standard
• SVG is designed with accessibility in mind
• SVG integrates well with HTML
• SVG uses familiar technologies engendered by HTML, such as XML, DOM, JavaScript, and CSS
• Because SVG is based on XML its text is selectable, searchable, and indexable
• SVG supports hyperlinks, both inbound and outbound
• SVG can be generated server-side without proprietary software
• SVG is supported on many platforms, including Linux

• SVG is a true open standard
• SVG is designed with accessibility in mind
• SVG integrates well with HTML
• SVG uses familiar technologies engendered by HTML, such as XML, DOM, JavaScript, and CSS
• Because SVG is based on XML its text is selectable, searchable, and indexable
• SVG supports hyperlinks, both inbound and outbound
• SVG can be generated server-side without proprietary software
• SVG is supported on many platforms, including Linux

• SVG is a true open standard
• SVG is designed with accessibility in mind
• SVG integrates well with HTML
• SVG uses familiar technologies engendered by HTML, such as XML, DOM, JavaScript, and CSS
• Because SVG is based on XML its text is selectable, searchable, and indexable
• SVG supports hyperlinks, both inbound and outbound
• SVG can be generated server-side without proprietary software
• SVG is supported on many platforms, including Linux

• SVG is a true open standard
• SVG is designed with accessibility in mind
• SVG integrates well with HTML
• SVG uses familiar technologies engendered by HTML, such as XML, DOM, JavaScript, and CSS
• Because SVG is based on XML its text is selectable, searchable, and indexable
• SVG supports hyperlinks, both inbound and outbound
• SVG can be generated server-side without proprietary software
• SVG is supported on many platforms, including Linux

• SVG is a true open standard
• SVG is designed with accessibility in mind
• SVG integrates well with HTML
• SVG uses familiar technologies engendered by HTML, such as XML, DOM, JavaScript, and CSS
• Because SVG is based on XML its text is selectable, searchable, and indexable
• SVG supports hyperlinks, both inbound and outbound
• SVG can be generated server-side without proprietary software
• SVG is supported on many platforms, including Linux

Designing for universal access wouldn`t be so difficult, if you simply followed w3c standards!
Atleast then, you truly can blame a browser for being unable to display a page. I have never had any site which passes the validity test, fail to display under lynx for instance, sure the images are missing but you atleast get text which describes the image.
Personally, i would check every page a webdesigner made for me, and reject it if it didnt validate as correct html code. Afterall, theyre being payed to write html.

No, in the same way that an iframe is useless to anyone who doesn't use IE.

Are you claiming that Microsoft Internet Explorer is the only popular web browser that implements iframe, which is part of the HTML 4.0 standard?

Have a read of the CSS standard. There's support for alternative media types. You can create multiple stylesheets for different types of devices, so that each device gets the stylesheet that's appropriate for it.

There's also the CSS-Mobile standard which is aimed at small wireless internet devices.

Have a read of the CSS standard. There's support for alternative media types. You can create multiple stylesheets for different types of devices, so that each device gets the stylesheet that's appropriate for it.

There's also the CSS-Mobile standard which is aimed at small wireless internet devices.

Have a read of the CSS standard. There's support for alternative media types. You can create multiple stylesheets for different types of devices, so that each device gets the stylesheet that's appropriate for it.

There's also the CSS-Mobile standard which is aimed at small wireless internet devices.

As for the ASCII string dependence...

I think that most implementors ignore the ASCII string requirement because it is impossible to transmit all ASCII characters anyway e.g. NUL is an ASCII character but it is not an XML character.

My (and others') interpretation of the spec is:

- ASCII string
+ XML Char*

* Avoiding the use of the Unicode strings is recommended because many languages that use XML-RPC (e.g. C, PHP) don't have terribly good Unicode support.

This page gives you a few dozens of viewers, editors and converters.

Sheesh... That wasn't very hard was it? You could have googled for that one too...

However, as I stated before, the Flash IDE is a excellent tool, and Macromedia supporting the SVG-format would be great.
Because, and I assume this is your point: Their tool kick the other tools collective asses without even breaking a sweat. =)

The issue here is that the www shouldent depend on any proprietory format. period.

One should not underestimate the importance industry-wide adoption, openness, and transparency of standards.

Flash files are binary files. Hence, their creation, authoring and implementation, rely *heavily* on macromedia's authoring tools, thereby "locking-you-in" a very restricted platform. Such authoring tools may be released for free at first, but easily "upgraded" to commercial versions in a near future. While you can easily author, maintain, update, enhance any web applications whose content and presentation layer are based on standards-implementation text files in a highly distributed and modular environment, authoring of flash files pretty much restricts access to your web application 's components to a single person, on a single computer. Then forget about source-control and revision-control, 'diffing' files for differences. It's all one big binary file.

Flash is a closed standard. Macromedia is the only, largely corporate entity to have full-control over their specifications.

Again, flash files are binary files. You cannot look inside them, re-author them, crawl them, search them for keywords without depending on macromedia opening-up text-only access to content of flash files.

Standards like CSS and XHTML are developed and enhanced to allow an end-user to have somewhat of a control over the resulting user-interface, by overriding a site's font faces, font colors, link styles, font sizes. Believe it or not but yes, there ARE, a *significant* amount of people out there who do have issues with what most web developers call "standards font faces and sizes" and allowing them to override those in the browser is a key factor in making a site accessible.

While it is highly possible to develop bandwidth-efficient compelling content in standards-based web applications, while giving users quick and selective access to the content they are looking for, it is overly tempting to create bloat-ware in the form of flash files. Flash does give you some form of control over an animation's behaviour while it is being downloaded, but a user remains "stuck" waiting for the animation to load. Forget about 56k users. Enter the DSL-only zone.

It breaks the HTTP model, with its derivative page navigation, page caching, history navigation paradigms. A flash file essentially becomes its own mini-browser, its own entire site, where screens are not individually cached, where the navigation cannot be overriden with "back" and "forward" buttons, where any ever-so-small flaw in the 'animation's' user-interface design, is bitterly fellt by the end-user. A whole separate protocol would need to be developed to properly handle navigation within flash animations in order to fully fulfill macromedia's vision. And i honnestly do not thing they are up to the task.

You could also kiss any form of web applications' platform-independence good-bye. While I am sure macromedia is ready and eager to develop their plugin for os x/linux/windoz to work with ie/opera/mozilla/omniweb/navigator, the 'desktop computer' with a traditional web browser is no longer the only web-surfing paradigm. Sites like Google allow you to search HTTP/HTML sites on your cell-phone, while doing its best to "cast" HTML into a "WML" visualisation scheme. It is possible for hand-held device developers to build mini-browsers which understand a subset of the HTML standard, thereby allowing non-specially-authored sites to "gracefuly" degrade on those platforms. Now, what do we do with monolothic .swf binary files?

There are valuable standards being developed and already widely-adopted which allow site authors to greatly enhance a site's usability and appeal with "DHTML" features.

Don't get me wrong, I believe flash is a great site "spicer-upper", but solely relying on this technology within mission-critical and content-driven web applications would represent a real danger to the web-surfing community, which developers at-large should be aware of when deciding which technologies to adopt on their sites. Be sure to *know* exactly what audience you are catering to. *resist* hopping on the "next-cool-whizzbang-nifty-thing" band-wagon.

If you have to shell out $499 for the tools to create web content this equality is gone. The division between those who can and those who cannot is back (no doubt protected by some archaic law such as the DMCA) and once again information is controlled by those who can afford to disseminate it.

Any new "standard" for web applications should be an open standard. I know Macromedia published the specifications for swf but they are hardly obliged to continue to do this with Flash MX. If the net needs a revolution in web application interfaces we should be looking to open standards such as SVG (for presentation) and XForms, not closed standards that are controlled by a single commercial entity.

If you have to shell out $499 for the tools to create web content this equality is gone. The division between those who can and those who cannot is back (no doubt protected by some archaic law such as the DMCA) and once again information is controlled by those who can afford to disseminate it.

Any new "standard" for web applications should be an open standard. I know Macromedia published the specifications for swf but they are hardly obliged to continue to do this with Flash MX. If the net needs a revolution in web application interfaces we should be looking to open standards such as SVG (for presentation) and XForms, not closed standards that are controlled by a single commercial entity.

Need to check your accessbility, try Bobby from cast.

Helps in checking against the W3C Accessibility Guidelines

If you need multimedia and accessibility it's better supporting W3C initiatives like SMIL and SVG.

If you need multimedia and accessibility it's better supporting W3C initiatives like SMIL and SVG.

You mean something like the combination SVG and ECMAScript (JavaScript).

Well, it already exists, and it's pretty nifty too...

Now if somebody just _used_ the stuff too.
With a good IDE (like Flash) for the designer dudes it would be great!
A pity it won't happen. Macromedia is calling the shots on 2D vector-graphics on the web, and they are happy with their proprietary format.
We wouldn't want any competition in the future, now would we?


It's a shame really, the flash IDE is a great product, if they just switched to a open, xml-based format (SVG-DTD) it would be even better.
But as I stated above, they won't. =(

You mean something like the combination SVG and ECMAScript (JavaScript).

Well, it already exists, and it's pretty nifty too...

Now if somebody just _used_ the stuff too.
With a good IDE (like Flash) for the designer dudes it would be great!
A pity it won't happen. Macromedia is calling the shots on 2D vector-graphics on the web, and they are happy with their proprietary format.
We wouldn't want any competition in the future, now would we?


It's a shame really, the flash IDE is a great product, if they just switched to a open, xml-based format (SVG-DTD) it would be even better.
But as I stated above, they won't. =(

You mean something like the combination SVG and ECMAScript (JavaScript).

Well, it already exists, and it's pretty nifty too...

Now if somebody just _used_ the stuff too.
With a good IDE (like Flash) for the designer dudes it would be great!
A pity it won't happen. Macromedia is calling the shots on 2D vector-graphics on the web, and they are happy with their proprietary format.
We wouldn't want any competition in the future, now would we?


It's a shame really, the flash IDE is a great product, if they just switched to a open, xml-based format (SVG-DTD) it would be even better.
But as I stated above, they won't. =(

The SVG format does everything Flash does and more. Adobe SVG Viewer and Illustrator, JASC Webdraw have moved to support it and Mozilla already displays it. And because it's XML, browsers that can't display it won't croak when trying to display the propriety format. AND it can be dynamically updated in web servers such as Apache w/ Perl.

Vector graphics are good. It's clear that Macromedia is attempting to secure a monopoly here.

[Truth in advertising - I have written a book about SVG, so I am hardly an impartial observer.]

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is open, works well with other XML applications, and has animation capabilities. See http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG for articles, references, and links.

I think this is what Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format is trying to achieve.

Yeah, great idea. Just now that the push for an accessible web is gaining momentum, let's design more sites that people with disabilities such as visual impairments can forget about ever entering. Not to mention people with outdated equipment, non-mainstream OS platforms, etc.

It does make me miss good Mozilla things, like tabbed browsing. I've also run into a number of pages that Konqueror does not handle all that well, but I'm not sure if its due to standards violations in those pages or in Konqueror.

In situation like this, use the W3C HTML Validation Service. You can use this URI:

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=URI

I usually get tons of errors while validating most of pages, except for my own sites because I always use my web design rules so they have 0 errors and 0 warnings. But validate /. and you'll see that they haven't heard about my rules. ;)

I sometimes send emails to webmasters with link to their website validation results, asking they to fix their errors when I can't use their websites. If you view any website which your Konqueror can't render, check out what HTML Validator says about it, and when you find any errors, send the link http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=URI to webmaster of this website, telling them that you can't access their broken website. That way they won't answer you that your browser is bad, because they website is broken in the first place. You can suggest them to use HTML TIDY to clean up the web pages.

There's also a W3C CSS Validation Service, but errors in styles are usually less anoying than errors in HTML itself.

Complaining to incompetent webmasters usually doesn't work, but it can help a lot when many people do that. It's the only way to change the current situation.