[Thunar-dev] Website draft - (X)HTML Standards

[Jannis Pohlmann]

Hi,

Nick Schermer schrieb:
> 2005/9/2, Jannis Pohlmann <info at sten-net.de>:
> 
>>Hey all,
>>
>>I just read Benny's weblog and noticed there's kind of a final draft for
>>the Thunar website now. Since I've been creating websites for about six
>>or seven years I noticed some things which are, putting it mildly, not
>>acceptable concerning (X)HTML standards. These are:
>>
>>1. Don't use <blockquote/> for things which don't have to do with
>>quotations (like paragraphs or groups of elements). That's what they
>>are made for and *not* for indenting paragraphs of text.
> 
> 
> 
> I used these because it looks better without css

XHTML standards have nothing to do with the layout of a website. It's
just declarations which add context to content, nothing else.

> 
> 1.1 Use <p/> for text paragraphs. Maybe add a class attribute for
> 
>>indenting here, like <p class="block"/> or something. Do not use
>><div/> in this case.
>>
>>1.2 Use <div/> for nothing else than grouping other (X)HTML elements.
>>
>>1.3 Use <ul/> or <ol/> for listings like the different versions of
>>Thunar available for download.
> 
> 
> 
> Jeh good one didn't even think about it :P.
> 
> 2. You probably won't need <div id="header2"></div>. Replace it with a
> 
>>smarter solution - there certainly is one, like moving the background
>>image into div#header or even h1. Empty elements like this don't make
>>sense.
>>
>>3. Don't use "align='center'". Use CSS (text-align:center) here.
> 
> 
> 
> Only used it because it's fast

Why shouldn't text-align:center (CSS) be fast, too?

> 
> 4. Don't use "target='_blank'". If people click on a link you have to
> 
>>expect that they want to replace the Thunar website with the new one.
> 
> 
> 
> I'll remove that one. 
> 
> 5. Don't use <div/> if it only contains *one* element. Instead, apply
> 
>>CSS for the only child and remove the <div/> - it's possible, believe
>>me.
>>
>>Of course, I know it's just a draft. Anyway, I thought this might be
>>helpful.
>>
>>That's it for now. If there are any questions left, feel free to ask
>>them. If you need help in cleaning up or adjust the draft for better
>>support of the W3C standards, please let me know. We'd certainly find a
>>solution.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm also web designing for some years now, but I test the website in a lot 
> of browsers
> and when it looks fine I'm happy with that and when I view a website as a 
> visitor I don't
> care if the designer used <div>, <p> or <table>, if it works good I'm fine 
> with that.

Well, you know, Xfce is one of the most standard compliant DEs that I
know of. And there's no (real) difference between implementing
freedesktop or web standards. Concerning the web: XHTML is *the* step
towards separating layout/style from content in the history of HTML. You
have CSS for layout and you have XHTML elements for marking up the
content. So don't use XHTML elements just because they look good. That's
evil.

Regards,
Jannis