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Stories and comments across the archive that link to w3.org.

Comments · 6,785

  1. Re:Table by RedK · · Score: 1 · on Firefox 3.5 Benchmarked, Close To Original Chrome

    The advantage of using DIVs and CSS to format your page into columns is that you won't have a shit-ton of copy/pasting and code rearranging to do if you ever want to swap your columns around, or switch out some content from the right to the left. You just change a few lines in the CSS. If you can't see the enormous benefits this brings over Table based formatting, you have not made many changes to existing websites.

    And from your CSS example, it shows. You do know about inline styles right ? You don't need to use the <style> tag at all. You can just do <span style="your CSS stuff here...">. But then again, why do it like that at all ? Even XHTML 1.0 Strict has support for the B and I tags for Bold Text and Italic Text. You can check the DTD yourself : http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/dtds.html#a_dtd_XHTML-1.0-Strict

  2. Why Do They Ignore Their Own Advice? by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Interesting · on Google To Promote Web Speed On New Dev Site
    Most of this is helpful but from the HTML piece:

    HTML - as opposed to XHTML, even when delivered with the MIME type text/html - allows authors to omit certain tags. According to the HTML 4 DTD, you can omit the following tags (tags of so-called "void" - empty - elements are marked as strikethrough):

    • </area>
    • </base>
    • <body>
    • </body>
    • (Void Element) </br>
    • </col>
    • </colgroup>
    • </dd>
    • </dt>
    • <head>
    • </head>
    • (Void Element) </hr>
    • <html>
    • </html>
    • (Void Element) </img>
    • (Void Element) </input>
    • </li>
    • (Void Element) </link>
    • (Void Element) </meta>
    • </option>
    • </p>
    • </param>
    • <tbody>
    • </tbody>
    • </td>
    • </tfoot>
    • </th>
    • </thead>
    • </tr>

    For example, if you have a list of items marked up as <li>List item</li>, you could instead just write <li>List item. Or instead of a paragraph that you'd usually close with via </p>, you could just use <p>My paragraph. This even works with html, head, and body, which are not required in HTML. (Make sure you feel comfortable with this before making it your standard coding practice.)

    Omitting optional tags keeps your HTML formally valid, while decreasing your file size. In a typical document, this can mean 5-20 % savings.

    Now, my first reaction was simply "that cannot be valid!" But, of course, it is. What I found interesting is that when I looked at the source for that tutorial they themselves are using </li> and </p>. Interesting, huh? You would hope that Google would follow the very advice they are trying to give you.

    Some of these suggestions may come at the cost of readability and maintainability. There's something about web pages being nice tidy properly formatted XML documents with proper closing tags that I like.

  3. Re:HTML is dead... Didn't you notice? by lannocc · · Score: 1 · on Questioning Mozilla's Plans For HTML5 Video

    I like to think of it in terms of Structure (HTML/DOM), Spatial (Size & Location: CSS), Decoration (colors, fonts, etc...), and last but not least, BEHAVIOR, which is all JavaScript

    That's a good way to put it. As it is, though, "Spatial" and "Decoration" always seem to go together in one spec (CSS, XSL-FO). Do they have to? I'm not sure...

    I would say that BEHAVIOR is more than JavaScript. To describe that the <a href="..."> tag should link to another document when clicked is also behavior, something that xlink aims to address.

  4. Re:HTML is dead... Didn't you notice? by lannocc · · Score: 1 · on Questioning Mozilla's Plans For HTML5 Video

    Well, my perspective is probably a bit off the mainstream. To me, web browsers have strayed from their primary purpose: browsing and linking content, aka data. I find that most data generally is well-formed, since if it weren't it wouldn't be very useful to a computer. Why do we spend so much time writing HTML or XHTML to interact with data on the back-end that is generally well-formed?

    As far as dealing with existing web pages that are in HTML and not well-formed, well there are tools like HTML TIDY that could be used as a front-end to any XML browser expecting well-formedness.

  5. Re:Somebody help me on this by Simetrical · · Score: 1 · on Questioning Mozilla's Plans For HTML5 Video

    Why is this even happening? Surely video should never show it's innerHTML unless the tag isn't understood? Just like Iframe, just like Object, just like Embed, etc.

    This is exactly correct. The HTML 5 standard specifies that "Content may be provided inside the video element. User agents should not show this content to the user; it is intended for older Web browsers which do not support video, so that legacy video plugins can be tried, or to show text to the users of these older browser informing them of how to access the video contents." JavaScript is therefore not theoretically necessary for fallback to work.

    However, if the browser supports <video> but not the specific codec used, I'm not aware of any way to arrange for fallback without JavaScript. This is the situation that, for instance, Wikimedia is in: it refuses to use H.264, only Theora, so it can't just use plain old <video> and rely on element-level fallback. Safari wouldn't work right in that case.

  6. Re:Somebody help me on this by Simetrical · · Score: 1 · on Questioning Mozilla's Plans For HTML5 Video

    Some random Mozilla Hacks (note the word Hacks) blogger posts some code that web developers can use to implement HTML5 video (which does not use javascript, contrary to the implications in this article and summary?)

    HTML5 video does provide a rich JavaScript API to allow programmatic manipulation of the video by script. This is, in fact, potentially a great advantage it has over Flash and other solutions. So it can use JavaScript, although it doesn't require it for basic functionality (e.g., "when the page loads, download and display a video with controls to allow the user to play and pause it").

  7. Re:HTTP hints at a solution by QuoteMstr · · Score: 1 · on Attack On a Significant Flaw In Apache Released

    Actually, you can check that a server will allow a certain-sized upload. You do that using the HTTP 1.1 expect mechanism: the user-agent sends the normal headers plus a expect: 100-continue header. The server, after it reads the client headers but before it reads the body, replies with either a 100 continue or some error depending on the headers it saw, which can include content-length. The user-agent just holds off on sending the body until it receives a go-ahead from the server.

  8. Re:Can we come up with coherent rebuttals? by the_womble · · Score: 1 · on Microsoft Launches New "Get the Facts" Campaign

    1) IE8 passes more W3C compliance CSS 2.1 test cases than any other browser.

    Is that against the 2006 "pre alpha release" or the current woefully incompleteACID3 is not an official test

    It is still a good thing, and has been accepted as such by all the other browser vendors/developers.

    to claim that IE8 is not customizable is just as silly, especially when you pick and choose only those addins that matter to you.

    I claim that IE8 is not as customizable as Firefox, not that it is not customizable at all. There is a repositary of IE addons, and it is fairly empty. I am picking addons I use as examples, not as a comprehensive list.

    If a vulnerability in a plugin is exploited in Firefox on Linux that exploit can trash the user's profile.

    Any examples of it actually happening? I would prefer theoretical risk with no exploits in the wild, to theoretical security and exploits in the wild. You do realise that Linux has security mechanisms as pointed out on other replies?

    Tab isolation is better than no isolation, and it is better for one or two tabs to crash than the entire browser.

    I agree, but it is better not to crash in the first place, something that MS do not attempt to measure.

  9. Re:OpenBSD's pf has some mitigation features by VGPowerlord · · Score: 1 · on Attack On a Significant Flaw In Apache Released

    Sorry, section 8.1.4. I was looking at the draft of the RFC to replace RFC2616 rather than RFC2616 itself when I wrote this.

  10. Re:Lies and Lying Liars. by Phroggy · · Score: 2, Interesting · on Microsoft Launches New "Get the Facts" Campaign

    Web Standards - IE8: * FF: CR: * - It's a tie. Internet Explorer 8 passes more of the World Wide Web Consortium's CSS 2.1 test cases than any other browser, but Firefox 3 has more support for some evolving standards.

    A barefaced, shameless, utterly false lie. For you see, there is no W3C CSS 2.1 test suite. There is a Pre-Alpha CSS 2.1 Test Suite , but upon further investigation it can be seen that the IE team themselves have submitted at least 3221 of the 3708 test cases, or at least that was the case last August 18th.

    This is the most interesting lie I noticed. For the record, if all 3221 of those test cases Microsoft submitted to the W3C are legitimate (and, if the W3C has incorporated them into the test suite, I would hope that they are), then it doesn't particularly bother me that Microsoft's contributions make up 87% of the test suite. What it tells me is, Microsoft has been very active at finding CSS bugs in IE (which, to be fair, is rather like shooting fish in a barrel). It just happens that the CSS bugs that Microsoft has fixed recently aren't all the same ones that Mozilla and Apple and Opera have fixed. That's fine. Test suites are one of the ways we can quickly identify bugs that need fixing, and by contributing to the W3C's CSS test suite, Microsoft is actually helping other browser vendors to find their own bugs. This is a Good Thing.

    However, this is obviously not a complete test suite, and I'd bet IE doesn't "[pass] more... test cases than any other browser" by a particularly wide margin. Presumably, IE passes all the tests that Microsoft has submitted, which is 87% of them. I'd guess that pre-release versions of other browsers probably pass even more, but Microsoft probably only compared shipping versions (which is fair, but doesn't tell the whole story).

    Interesting that they single out Firefox 3 for having "more support for some evolving standards." Are they referring to things that Firefox 3 supports but Chrome doesn't, or are they being disingenuous again?

  11. Lies and Lying Liars. by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 5, Insightful · on Microsoft Launches New "Get the Facts" Campaign

    The story is, quite simply, that it is appallingly easy of companies to shamelessly and flagrantly lie, to produce the most obvious falsehoods, and for absolutely no one whatsoever to bother stating the obvious fact; that they are appalling liars.

    It's not even deceptive wording, or qualified phrases we're talking about here. Most companies and organisations just come right out an lie nowadays. Some choice selections from the article. Note that the tick marks in the article next to browsers are replaced by stars here.

    Security - IE8: * FF: CR: - Internet Explorer 8 takes the cake with better phishing and malware protection, as well as protection from emerging threats.

    A lie.

    Privacy - IE8: * FF: CR: - InPrivate Browsing and InPrivate Filtering help Internet Explorer 8 claim privacy victory.

    A falsehood.

    Web Standards - IE8: * FF: CR: * - It's a tie. Internet Explorer 8 passes more of the World Wide Web Consortium's CSS 2.1 test cases than any other browser, but Firefox 3 has more support for some evolving standards.

    A barefaced, shameless, utterly false lie. For you see, there is no W3C CSS 2.1 test suite. There is a Pre-Alpha CSS 2.1 Test Suite, but upon further investigation it can be seen that the IE team themselves have submitted at least 3221 of the 3708 test cases, or at least that was the case last August 18th.

    Perhaps some would argue that these are merely exaggerations or omissions, not lies. I beg to differ. Taking these statements as truths would lead one to believe that IE has less exploits, less chance of exposing private data and a higher or equal chance of rendering web pages correctly that either Firefox or Chrome. All three conclusions are false. These are lies.

    Some will believe them, but even sadder, more will not accept them as lies.

    P.S.
    My reply text is being squashed into a 25 character wide column to the right of a mass of grey. It would be great if Slashdot rendered properly these days.
    P.P.S.
    Perhaps I'll try it in IE8!

  12. Web Standards???? by Goosgoonies · · Score: 1 · on Microsoft Launches New "Get the Facts" Campaign

    Rule #1: If you want to talk about how great your browser is, make sure the relevant pages pass the validator.

  13. Re:A little Opera Music with a bad note by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 1 · on Firefox 3.5 Hits Release Candidate Milestone

    W3's HTML validator is a good place to start researching.

  14. Re:Total nonsense by Simetrical · · Score: 1 · on HTML 5 Takes Aim At Flash and Silverlight

    Acid 3 is, unfortunately, heavily dependent upon CSS3 functionality, which isn't officially standard yet and could change. So claiming that Acid3 is some kind of test only tests if you're compliant with drafts.

    Bzzt. The only part of CSS3 that Acid3 tests is Selectors, which has been in Last Call since 2005, and hasn't been a draft since 2000. 92/100 tests are unrelated to CSS. As for Selectors, Last Call means that it's only open for final adjustments, not major reworking. No significant changes are likely to occur: all objections have been hashed out over the past four years, and further functionality is deferred to CSS4.

    In particular, anyone even remotely familiar with the CSS WG's development process (e.g., by reading www-style) knows that it's very reluctant to change anything that's already interoperably implemented. Even if something is nominally a draft, any part that's been implemented is very likely to remain stable, with only adjustments to details and corner cases (and only then if implementers are okay with it). The entire Selectors specification has been interoperably implemented by multiple browsers for a long time now.

    The people writing these standards are mostly the implementers (i.e., browser authors). They aren't going to implement a feature and then screw themselves over by gratuitously changing it after the fact.

  15. Re:Total nonsense by Simetrical · · Score: 1 · on HTML 5 Takes Aim At Flash and Silverlight

    Acid 3 is, unfortunately, heavily dependent upon CSS3 functionality, which isn't officially standard yet and could change. So claiming that Acid3 is some kind of test only tests if you're compliant with drafts.

    Bzzt. The only part of CSS3 that Acid3 tests is Selectors, which has been in Last Call since 2005, and hasn't been a draft since 2000. 92/100 tests are unrelated to CSS. As for Selectors, Last Call means that it's only open for final adjustments, not major reworking. No significant changes are likely to occur: all objections have been hashed out over the past four years, and further functionality is deferred to CSS4.

    In particular, anyone even remotely familiar with the CSS WG's development process (e.g., by reading www-style) knows that it's very reluctant to change anything that's already interoperably implemented. Even if something is nominally a draft, any part that's been implemented is very likely to remain stable, with only adjustments to details and corner cases (and only then if implementers are okay with it). The entire Selectors specification has been interoperably implemented by multiple browsers for a long time now.

    The people writing these standards are mostly the implementers (i.e., browser authors). They aren't going to implement a feature and then screw themselves over by gratuitously changing it after the fact.

  16. Re:simple block by gibson042 · · Score: 0 · on Sniffing Browser History Without Javascript

    And rendering all links as unvisited by default (perhaps relegating :visited exclusively to user style sheets) would permanently resolve it. Like the specification suggests.

  17. Does HTML 5 away with meaningful DOCTYPEs? by mcvos · · Score: 1 · on Google vs. Microsoft On the Desktop

    Chris Wilson joined the HTML 5 working group (WHATWG) in April '07. Over one year, his sole contribution was that HTML versioning crap: ref.

    I just read that and the WG discussion it links to, and from what I understand, Chris Wilson wants to maintain html version numbers in the doctype declaration, while others want to pretend html 5 is the only version of html in existence, which is completely stupid. I hate MS as much as the next guy, but Chris Wilson is completely correct here.

    I haven't really been following the HTML 5 standard much so far, but I guess this means that HTML 5 has already done away with meaningful doctype declarations (which also helps to explain why a w3c acquaintance of mine doesn't like html 5 much).

  18. Re:Hate to be a spoilsport but by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Google vs. Microsoft On the Desktop

    There are 220 messages from @microsoft.com, out of almost 20,000 messages on the mailing list of the HTML WG, and many of those have been Chair-related administrative issues - I only remember a handful of occasions where any Microsoft employees offered feedback on the spec (though they wrote some tests too). The editor says: "Personally I would like Microsoft to get more involved with HTML 5. They've sent very little feedback over the years, far less than the other browser vendors. Even when asking them about their opinion on features they are implementing I rarely get any feedback."

    (A lot of the spec is indirectly contributed by Microsoft, via reverse-engineering their implementations (for old features like parsing, and newer ones like drag-and-drop and contenteditable), but that's not really the same thing.)

  19. Re:Yeah, screw you too by Xest · · Score: 1 · on Firefox 3.5 Beta Boosts Open Video Standard

    Unless that's the CEO, then one person in a company does not dictate company stance on an issue.

    See here for Nokia's position paper and why they have been unhappy:

    http://www.w3.org/2007/08/video/positions/Nokia.pdf

  20. Re:...and so what? by X0563511 · · Score: 2, Informative · on Detailed Privacy Study Finds Loopholes Galore

    ... that I couldn't discern from the server logs is where people link in from.

    Hrm, strange. You would think your server would both be able to read and log the Referer request header.

  21. Re:Yeah, screw you too by pizzach · · Score: 1 · on Firefox 3.5 Beta Boosts Open Video Standard

    Besides that there's also something that stinks about forcing a standard on the web too - open or not. I think I'd rather have market forces decide a standard over a small clique of people who have their own interests and agendas which may not necessarily be the best for the web overall.

    According to the w3c site, the members include:

    • Apple, Inc.
    • Microsoft Corporation
    • Opera Software
    • Mozilla Foundation

    I may be wrong, but I believe this encompasses all the major rendering engines on the web today. There are about 390 other members on the page too. I do not understand how this is a smaller clique of people than just having the developers of Webkit, Gecko, Trident and Presto doing their own things.

  22. Re:As Someone Who Has to Support IE6 at Work ... by awpoopy · · Score: 1 · on Internet Explorer 6 Will Not Die

    Here's a good starting point for /. web devs: http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Ftech.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F09%2F06%2F02%2F134224%2FInternet-Explorer-6-Will-Not-Die%3Ffrom%3Drss&charset=(detect+automatically)&doctype=Inline&group=0

  23. As Someone Who Has to Support IE6 at Work ... by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Insightful · on Internet Explorer 6 Will Not Die

    Sorry web developers, for those of you who thought the ugly hacks would soon be over, it appears they will linger on for quite a bit -- especially if you develop for business sites.

    Yeah, IE6 is the herpes of the internet. It appears to be gone after heavy medication but if you look under the first layer of skin, there it is.

    Oh, and I should point out another untimely mark of IE6: we've all made this hilariously fugly hacks to make crap work in IE6 at some point and those relics of the last millennium are still out there. Which means that browsers still have to support the old rendering ways of IE6. Yes, the doctype will tell the browser what standards to use but I'm betting that the support for rendering HTML 4 is just as annoying as having to patch up old struts 1.x applications and read through nested tables galore in the HTML.

    And we all know that 90% of the work out there for developers is maintenance. What a painful irrepressible memory ...

  24. Re:That's not a fucking monopoly. by Paua+Fritter · · Score: 1 · on EU Wants Multiple Browser Bundling On New PCs

    and Amaya

  25. Re:Hm. by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · · Score: 1 · on EU Wants Multiple Browser Bundling On New PCs

    Yeah, If I were Microsoft, I would provide the following options

    amaya
    Maxthon
    crazy browser
    grail

  26. Re:Patent awards out of sync with reality? Hardy! by Spyder0101 · · Score: 1 · on Judgement Against Microsoft Declares XML Editing Software To Be Worth $98?

    I'm afraid I am missing the sarcasm if it was present in that post...

    You do know that XML Specification defines XML as a tree, a common structure in most (all?) programming languages. It is obvious to anyone even remotely skilled in the art. I wrote an XML editor as a toy project as a freshman in HS that would have violated this patent. I guess I am that much of a genius, or just not as much as a dumbass as you. **Listens for WOOSHING**

  27. CSS? by roemcke · · Score: 3, Insightful · on Wikipedia Launches a New Mobile Interface, Seeks Help

    Instead of using a different url for handhelds, why not use a customized CSS together with the "handheld" media type?

    See http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/media.html

    Having two different urls for the same content, but for different target devices breaks the concept of linking. Google and other webpages linking to Wikipedia can not know (and should not know) what kind of device the users have.

  28. for web development by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on What Free IDE Do You Use?

    geany, http://validator.w3.org/ http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/, and firefox' console2

    so, actually this is not _integrated_ since there is no one thing but 4 things. well. i have not found truly useful IDEs for my needs yet.

  29. for web development by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on What Free IDE Do You Use?

    geany, http://validator.w3.org/ http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/, and firefox' console2

    so, actually this is not _integrated_ since there is no one thing but 4 things. well. i have not found truly useful IDEs for my needs yet.

  30. Re:My Kingdom for a Datagrid Element! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on HTML 5 As a Viable Alternative To Flash?

    the specification itself is pretty damn useless to just read, unless you've alrady memorized the DTD language. here's the section on <form>, the only mention of this particular restriction is the %block; in the DTD. If you didn't know to look, you wouldn't find it anywhere in the several paragraphs explaining how the form tag is used.

    because it is unspecified what this input field really is

    It's state information tied to the form itself, which is only a problem because the w3 people refuse to acknowlege that an application state is neither presentation nor content. Perhaps around html7 or so they'll get around to some kind of tag to divide this from actual widgets to be displayed to the user. Or better yet, they'll incorporate xforms so that application data can be separated from presentation and content.

  31. Re:My Kingdom for a Datagrid Element! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on HTML 5 As a Viable Alternative To Flash?

    I didn't know until I started validating my pages that
    [Horribly broken code]
    was invalid, and I *still* don't have a decent answer about how to go about doing this in a valid way.

    You know http://validator.w3.org/? ;) Additionally, the specification itself is worth a look sometimes, too. (Although I would recommend XHTML for being more stringent, therefore, being easier to understand.)

    Of note is the fact that [form][input type="hidden"] is itself invalid, making automatic generation of forms awkward.

    The specification says the form element can only contain block-level elements, such as p, table, etc. Nothing awkward about this: form just says that there's a form. To structure the form's content, you need additional markup. A form with an input field wouldn't make any sense, because it is unspecified what this input field really is (is it tabular data? Is it something in the text flow? Is it a paragraph in its own right?). For validity's sake, just automatically add some meaningful element ...

  32. Re:My Kingdom for a Datagrid Element! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on HTML 5 As a Viable Alternative To Flash?

    I didn't know until I started validating my pages that
    [Horribly broken code]
    was invalid, and I *still* don't have a decent answer about how to go about doing this in a valid way.

    You know http://validator.w3.org/? ;) Additionally, the specification itself is worth a look sometimes, too. (Although I would recommend XHTML for being more stringent, therefore, being easier to understand.)

    Of note is the fact that [form][input type="hidden"] is itself invalid, making automatic generation of forms awkward.

    The specification says the form element can only contain block-level elements, such as p, table, etc. Nothing awkward about this: form just says that there's a form. To structure the form's content, you need additional markup. A form with an input field wouldn't make any sense, because it is unspecified what this input field really is (is it tabular data? Is it something in the text flow? Is it a paragraph in its own right?). For validity's sake, just automatically add some meaningful element ...

  33. Re:My Kingdom for a Datagrid Element! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on HTML 5 As a Viable Alternative To Flash?

    I didn't know until I started validating my pages that
    [Horribly broken code]
    was invalid, and I *still* don't have a decent answer about how to go about doing this in a valid way.

    You know http://validator.w3.org/? ;) Additionally, the specification itself is worth a look sometimes, too. (Although I would recommend XHTML for being more stringent, therefore, being easier to understand.)

    Of note is the fact that [form][input type="hidden"] is itself invalid, making automatic generation of forms awkward.

    The specification says the form element can only contain block-level elements, such as p, table, etc. Nothing awkward about this: form just says that there's a form. To structure the form's content, you need additional markup. A form with an input field wouldn't make any sense, because it is unspecified what this input field really is (is it tabular data? Is it something in the text flow? Is it a paragraph in its own right?). For validity's sake, just automatically add some meaningful element ...

  34. Re:What? by Randle_Revar · · Score: 1 · on HTML 5 As a Viable Alternative To Flash?

    Well, as I said it is merely a demo, you would not be likely to use these abilities in this particular way for a real world application.

    screenshot: http://www.ditii.com/2009/03/23/glimpse-of-future-web-technologies/

    In any case, you first have SVG text on a curved path. There is a rotated (I think all the rotation is done with CSS3) text box that lets you seamlessly change the SVG text. There are also a number of SVG shapes with different Z orders (foreground/background) and different transparencies.

    Then there is some rotated MathML, and a button that changes the displayed formula. There is some text near the bottom that has a CSS blur filter, and buttons (rotated) that add more text and more blur. There is a button to highlight some text that is marked up with RDFa information; that info pops up in a box when you hover over the text.

    There is a "play" button that is highly styled (multicolored, bold letters, flat red border, white background). When you press it, it makes a (rotated) <video> play and the button now says "pause", while a "stop" becomes enabled. The video has a caption box that uses DFXP timed text. This text is not part of the video, it can be selected, copied and pasted. Also, in the beginning of the movie when a clock ticks, a faucet drips and a phone, the sound effects text is also rendered in SVG and placed on the page around the movie and even on top of the movie.

    There is a button that rotates further around its center point every time you press the button. At some times in its rotation, it overlaps the video element. It seamlessly overlays the video even when the video plays.

    There is an example of East Asian ruby annotations, although even with the FF beta, you need an extension to see it properly.

    Finally there is a reset button that resets everything in the demo to its original state.

  35. Re:My Kingdom for a Datagrid Element! by astrotek · · Score: 1 · on HTML 5 As a Viable Alternative To Flash?

    Ummm fieldset?

    http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-HTML-TECHS/#forms is like a bible.

  36. Re:My Kingdom for a Datagrid Element! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on HTML 5 As a Viable Alternative To Flash?

    CSS tables can solve that problem for you today, without HTML 5. The only thing is, the only Internet Explorer that supports CSS tables is IE 8.

    http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/tables.html

  37. Re:Options by Randle_Revar · · Score: 2, Informative · on HTML 5 As a Viable Alternative To Flash?

    That is nothing. Like everyone else said, you can do everything except the music control without HTML5 (though 5 might make it easier).

    If you want to see what HTML5 can do, look at this:
    http://www.w3.org/2009/03/web-demo.xhtml

    and this:
    http://standblog.org/blog/post/2009/04/15/Making-video-a-first-class-citizen-of-the-Web

    Admittedly, these are not exactly real-world use cases, but they do show the potential.

  38. Re:My Kingdom for a Datagrid Element! by DeafZombie · · Score: 2, Insightful · on HTML 5 As a Viable Alternative To Flash?

    But as someone who's thrown together more than a few web applications in my time, I'd like to talk to you about what I'm really excited about--the datagrid element. Now, I know a lot of people are going to argue with me, but the most important tag in HTML is <table>. Every single graphical trick done to either speed up or sexify your web site is done with tables inside tables inside tables--it's tables all the way down! When's the last time you laid out a site without a table element on every page? Hell, it's almost always the next thing to follow <body> on my pages. And you know the code I write to interact dynamically with that table is a bitch. An unmaintainable mess. Yeah, there's probably some library out there I could use to simplify that pain but it always comes down to me messing around with advanced Javascript code trying to squeeze some more functionality into the user's interaction with that table. "Oh, I want this box to highlight red when this happens!" a user might say. Everyone wants a "simple table" with Google Spreadsheets functionality.

    Well, although I am not one of the people who thinks people who use tables for layout should all go to hell, I do prefer to NOT use them. I can say that I've written a few web apps myself (and still do) and use tables only for data representation. And I am comfortable to say I am not alone... take a look at, for instance, /.'s source. Another beautiful example of tableless layout can be found at Zen Garden

  39. My Kingdom for a Datagrid Element! by eldavojohn · · Score: 4, Interesting · on HTML 5 As a Viable Alternative To Flash?
    Yeah, video and sound are two biggies that HTML 5 needs to get correct. No doubt about that.

    But as someone who's thrown together more than a few web applications in my time, I'd like to talk to you about what I'm really excited about--the datagrid element.

    Now, I know a lot of people are going to argue with me, but the most important tag in HTML is <table>. Every single graphical trick done to either speed up or sexify your web site is done with tables inside tables inside tables--it's tables all the way down!

    When's the last time you laid out a site without a table element on every page? Hell, it's almost always the next thing to follow <body> on my pages. And you know the code I write to interact dynamically with that table is a bitch. An unmaintainable mess. Yeah, there's probably some library out there I could use to simplify that pain but it always comes down to me messing around with advanced Javascript code trying to squeeze some more functionality into the user's interaction with that table. "Oh, I want this box to highlight red when this happens!" a user might say. Everyone wants a "simple table" with Google Spreadsheets functionality.

    So we switched a whole project to Flex once. Yeah, Flex. Free right? Not if you want the datagrid!

    Advanced DataGrid component -- The Advanced DataGrid is a new component that adds commonly requested features to the DataGrid such as support for hierarchical data, and basic pivot table functionality. Available only with Flex Builder Professional.

    Need to fork over cash for that gem. Oh, you can drone on and on about "vendor lock in" and "hidden costs" with Flash. Don't matter. Customer is king.

    My only hope is that HTML 5 presents a competitive datagrid with pivot table functionality. From their specs:

    The datagrid element represents an interactive representation of tree, list, or tabular data.

    HTML 5, I await you with open arms, hope and understanding. Improve the table element (if possible) and create a solid datagrid element. Deliver me from Flash.

  40. Re:No - there are plenty of safer alternatives by chkn0 · · Score: 2, Informative · on Microsoft To Banish Memcpy()

    Or the server that it would receive that amount of text from you?

    Actually, yes.

  41. Re:Oh noes! by Hurricane78 · · Score: 1 · on Secret EU Open Source Migration Study Leaked

    Oh, and some notes on the site:
    1. Please add more pictures. We wanna *see* the system in action, without going to a store. Remember that we are not the people that we get that system for. They do not surf yet. :)
    2. Make the feature comparison scalable. The text is way too tiny. The best thing would be to make it XHTML.
    3. And make stuff a bit bigger. No need to support 800px with anymore. Dynamic width would be more professional too.
    4. Those terms under "Algemene Voorwaarden" look a bit long, which I associate with crookery. No offense, but this is just how this feels. Like someone wants to hide "gotcha" stuff in there. Not very cool. I hope you understand this.
    5. The thing with offering different languages, that I mentioned in my other comment. Maybe get a professional translator to translate the OS, manual, site etc. for you, a sales person to distribute it locally, including roadshows at computer chains etc., and a support guy who answers the phone etc. I bet this would quickly boost your income.)
    6. Last but not least: http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.simpc.nl%2F *OW* Get yourself a real web developer. One that does valid XHTML 1.1 with closed eyes, and can do real CSS layouting. I was someone like that for five years, and it physically hurts me to look at that code. ^^ Again, no offense, but... it's only an hour of work to clean that up. Most of it is already ok. Add a real XHTML header (look at the W3C example template), fix some img-alt-parameters, etc., and you're done. :)

    Apart from that, I must say the whole thing is really great, and I with your business well!

  42. Re:After seeing this by just_another_sean · · Score: 1 · on Linux.com Relaunched Under New Management

    I'm totally serious and I love Linux or wouldn't be sitting here talking about it 13 years after I found the aforementioned sites.

    What's wrong with linux.org? You don't like red? There is no flash, no ani-crap of any kind. There are a few discreet ads to the
    side that actually offer products I may be interested in buying. (books ftw!)

    The page is neatly laid out to provide you links to news about Linux, documentation for Linux, applications for Linux, etc. Glancing
    at it for a quick minute shows a wealth of useful starting points for both new users and experienced gurus.

    IMHO there is still room on the web for pages that don't dance in your face and just provide useful information.

    The LDP? Yes, it's pretty messy. But it is also a mountain of documentation on the use and history of Linux and other free software.
    To me it's warts are a lot easier to handle then this chaotic soup.

  43. Re:There's no barrier, only perception. by nxtw · · Score: 1 · on IE Losing 10% Market Share Every Two Years

    The difference is that Firefox is standards (mostly) compliant, and seeks to keep it that way. So if web developers build "only for Firefox" the sites will work in ALL standards compliant browsers. The same can't be said for IE, brought to you by a company who use vendor lock-in as a weapon.

    It is entirely possible to build websites compatible with only certain browsers. It is also possible to build sites compliant with published standards that do not work properly on any current web browser.

    Firefox mplements many features which are not published standards. Many are draft or proposed standards, but some are not. Firefox also fails to fully implement some standards. (Firefox is not alone in this.) A pure "standards compliant" web browser would not implement these:

    • XMLHttpRequest, which is used by AJAX sites and was made popular by Gmail. It is a Working Draft and it was first drafted in 2006. The first implementation was made by Microsoft in 1999 (as an ActiveX object usable from JScript or VBScript) and implemented in its current form by Mozilla in 2002.
    • CSS 2.1 is currently a Candidate Recommendation and was first drafted in 2002.
    • Data URI is not a standard, but just a published specification.
    • JavaScript is not a standard. ECMAScript is. Take a look at the Firefox column on the first link - they have introduced lots of features since the last published standard.
    • A bunch of nonstandard tags like embed, blink, and marquee

    A standards-complaint browser compatible with the latest published standards would also support the latest standardized DOM. Take a look at that - some of the features are not implemented by any browser. See the specifications here. DOM Level 2 was published as a recommendation in 2000 and DOM Level 3 was published as a recommendation in 2004.

  44. Re:There's no barrier, only perception. by nxtw · · Score: 1 · on IE Losing 10% Market Share Every Two Years

    The difference is that Firefox is standards (mostly) compliant, and seeks to keep it that way. So if web developers build "only for Firefox" the sites will work in ALL standards compliant browsers. The same can't be said for IE, brought to you by a company who use vendor lock-in as a weapon.

    It is entirely possible to build websites compatible with only certain browsers. It is also possible to build sites compliant with published standards that do not work properly on any current web browser.

    Firefox mplements many features which are not published standards. Many are draft or proposed standards, but some are not. Firefox also fails to fully implement some standards. (Firefox is not alone in this.) A pure "standards compliant" web browser would not implement these:

    • XMLHttpRequest, which is used by AJAX sites and was made popular by Gmail. It is a Working Draft and it was first drafted in 2006. The first implementation was made by Microsoft in 1999 (as an ActiveX object usable from JScript or VBScript) and implemented in its current form by Mozilla in 2002.
    • CSS 2.1 is currently a Candidate Recommendation and was first drafted in 2002.
    • Data URI is not a standard, but just a published specification.
    • JavaScript is not a standard. ECMAScript is. Take a look at the Firefox column on the first link - they have introduced lots of features since the last published standard.
    • A bunch of nonstandard tags like embed, blink, and marquee

    A standards-complaint browser compatible with the latest published standards would also support the latest standardized DOM. Take a look at that - some of the features are not implemented by any browser. See the specifications here. DOM Level 2 was published as a recommendation in 2000 and DOM Level 3 was published as a recommendation in 2004.

  45. Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft? by nxtw · · Score: 1 · on DOJ Nixes Lax Policy, Hardens Antitrust Enforcement

    It wasn't the fact that it was just a browser, it was also a browser that managed to be annoyingly incompatible with standards. Not to mention was created specifically to stop Netscape.

    Did you use the internet a decade ago? Back in the late, Netscape Navigator sucked compared to the IE versions available at the time. IE4's support for the HTML DOM and CSS were much better than Navigator 4's. Both companies frequently ingored standards and created their own, and many times this actually was good. Remember blink (NN)/marquee(IE)? Frames, cookies, and JavaScript? All Netscape inventions. XMLHttpRequest, which enables "AJAX" and makes things like Gmail and the new Slashdot possible? Originally developed by Microsoft in 1999 and later implemented by other browsers starting in 2002. Oh... and the standard - still a working draft - was first drafted in 2006.

    Many of the complaints made regarding IE in the past 5 years or so could apply to the last versions of Netscape Navigator.

    Read on.

  46. Re:Makes Firefox/browser platform of the future by Randle_Revar · · Score: 1 · on New Firefox Project Could Mean Multi-Processor Support

    I think HTML5, CSS3, et al have it covered:

    http://standblog.org/blog/post/2009/04/15/Making-video-a-first-class-citizen-of-the-Web

    http://www.w3.org/2009/03/web-demo.xhtml

    http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/x-html5/

  47. Freetype and Apple patents by viralMeme · · Score: 4, Insightful · on Firefox Beta Scores 93 On Acid3 Test

    'One of the requirements is that the be able to render TrueType fonts. Correct rendering of Acid3 requires displaying a TrueType font called "Ahem"'

    According to this Ahem is is in the public domain

    "The big question: Does correct rendering of Ahem in Acid3 require the patented parts of TrueType?"

    Freetype and Patents

    "Myth 2: Apple Is Suing (or Sued) FreeType

    This complete myth apparently started with this article on the SlashDot news site. Too bad the editors did neither care to check the submitted link nor even tried to contact us, we could have helped them!

    It is true that we have been contacted by Apple's legal department, but that has never been in the clear intent of suing us, which isn't too surprising given that FreeType doesn't harm Apple in any way."

  48. Re:Dont' bash CSS... by Intron · · Score: 1 · on Styling Web Pages With CSS

    Actually, the W3C tutorial is not a bad place to start. They seem to think they know something about CSS.

  49. Re:Google Analytics? by POWRSURG · · Score: 1 · on Google Analytics API Goes Public
    1. Defer, though being a part of the HTML 4.01 spec, is only supported by IE. And even if other browsers supported it they could not use it because they need to know that the content had been loaded before they execute the tracking code.
    2. The vast majority of developers just copy and paste the code as given. This code is an internal script tag that derives the protocol that is currently being used to then refer to the HTTP or HTTPS file using document.write, and then a second internal script tag that starts the tracking using your unique id while inside of a try/catch block.
  50. Re:English Language Article. by erikdalen · · Score: 1 · on Judge In Pirate Bay Trial Biased

    HTML provides a way to specify which charset it accepts in forms:

    http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/interact/forms.html#adef-accept-charset