XHTML2?

[UKuser]

Does anyone know the timetable for XHTML2 and if its due out anytime
soon?

A

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Scripsit UKuser:

Does anyone know the timetable for XHTML2

There is none.

and if its due out anytime soon?

Thank &Deity; it isn't. But something even worse, "HTML 5", might emerge in
a few years.

 

[UKuser]

Scripsit UKuser:


There is none.


Thank &Deity; it isn't. But something even worse, "HTML 5", might emerge in
a few years.

On investigation - it appears there are 2 groups looking at HTML, the
W3C and the WHATWG, the latter pushing for focusing on HTML over
XHTML. However the W3C have setup an XHTML2 working group so focusing
on this and development of it is back on the table.

 

[Toby A Inkster]

On investigation - it appears there are 2 groups looking at HTML, the
W3C and the WHATWG, the latter pushing for focusing on HTML over
XHTML. However the W3C have setup an XHTML2 working group so focusing
on this and development of it is back on the table.

You're behind the times. Late last year, Sir Tim announced that the W3C
would re-open its HTML efforts, working in conjunction with WHATWG to
establish an HTML 5 standard.

XHTML 2 has different aims, and will be worked on in parallel by the W3C
XHTML working group.

The W3C HTML and XHTML groups are expected to swap some ideas though.
After all, if there's some piece of functionality that would be beneficial
to both languages, it makes sense that the syntax between them is as close
as possible.

 

[David Dorward]

On investigation - it appears there are 2 groups looking at HTML, the
W3C and the WHATWG, the latter pushing for focusing on HTML over
XHTML. However the W3C have setup an XHTML2 working group so focusing
on this and development of it is back on the table.

The XHTML 2 working group was set up ages ago and is still going.

WHATWG was set up by browser vendors to write a new specification
based on current text/html practises.

The W3C set up a new HTML working group last year, it has just pulled
in the work of the WHATWG as a starting point.

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?G=E9rard_Talbot?=]

Jukka K. Korpela wrote :

something even worse, "HTML 5", might emerge
in a few years.

I agree with your sentiments. As it looks to me, the latest HTML 5
working draft from the WHAT WG is proposing something quite bad in my
opinion.

Gérard

 

[Ben C]

Jukka K. Korpela wrote :


I agree with your sentiments. As it looks to me, the latest HTML 5
working draft from the WHAT WG is proposing something quite bad in my
opinion.

What's wrong with it?

 

[cwdjrxyz]

Does anyone know the timetable for XHTML2 and if its due out anytime
soon?

The information about what is likely in xhtml2 indicates that it will
be greatly different in many ways from existing xhtml or html. So far
as I know, no current browser is ready for many of these changes. Thus
full usage of xhtml 2 will not be possible until browser makers make
great modifications in their browsers. Consider that no IE browser
supports xhtml at all if it is served properly as application/xhtml
+xml. True, one often can serve as text/html. However in this case you
might as well use html 4.02 strict, because the xhtml page gets parsed
as html and not xml. When served properly, an xhtml capable browser
parses the page as xml, and this is extremely strict. Only one tiny
error may mean you see an error message rather than the web page. If
history is any indication, even if xhtml 2 became official today, it
could be many years before most browsers support it fully - especially
IE.

 

[Guest]

Ben C wrote :

On 2007-05-18, G�rard Talbot <[email protected]> wrote:

the latest HTML 5

What's wrong with it?

HTML 5 proposes several tags which defeats the purpose of clear
separation of content with presentation/style and goes against what lots
of web standards advocacy groups have been relentlessly promoting during
over a decade. Restoring <font> is really bad IMO. Same thing with <i>,
and new tags like <m>; even <sup> and <sub>: all of this should be
replaced with CSS. Also, <embed>, etc Some others are questionable to
retain from HTML 4: e.g. <base>
Totally wrong, inadequate, incorrect, pure non-sense is the support for
pseudo-protocol "javascript:".

Maybe (in fact, I wish!) we should/would start a new, distinct, separate
thread on HTML 5.

Gérard

 

[Toby A Inkster]

The information about what is likely in xhtml2 indicates that it will
be greatly different in many ways from existing xhtml or html. So far
as I know, no current browser is ready for many of these changes.

Actually, by virtue of their support for XML+CSS, most browsers can render
the majority of XHTML2 already if you provide them with an appropriate
stylesheet for the new elements. Some functionality, such as navigation
lists and the improved href and src attributes, requires a bit of
client-side script to get working though.

 

[Andy Dingley]

Actually, by virtue of their support for XML+CSS, most browsers can render
the majority of XHTML2 already if you provide them with an appropriate
stylesheet for the new elements.

That's more of a bogosity than Appendix C!

* It requires a non-standard CSS extension to generate links, as
standard CSS can't create a href attribute on an <a>

* It abandons the little semantics that HTML (any sort) already has in
favour of a semantics-free XML that the browser no longer recognise as
being HTML-like. This is worse than the tag soup position.

 

[Toby A Inkster]

That's more of a bogosity than Appendix C!

What you quoted is bogus, yes, but that's not what I said. I added that
client-side scripting is needed to emulate some features.

* It requires a non-standard CSS extension to generate links, as
standard CSS can't create a href attribute on an <a>

You don't *need* to use CSS to create an href attribute for <a>. XHTML2
for a link is:

<a href="...">...</a>

which is already supported in browsers, provided you use an XHTML
namespace. XHTML2 makes the href attribute "special" though, instead of
the <a> element. So the following is also a valid link:

<cite href="...">...</cite>

which is why I specified that client-side scripting is needed -- to read
the href attribute of non-<a> elements, and either dynamically create <a>
elements to provide link functionality, or set onclick attributes to
emulate it.

* It abandons the little semantics that HTML (any sort) already has in
favour of a semantics-free XML that the browser no longer recognise as
being HTML-like. This is worse than the tag soup position.

XHTML2 is not semantics-free XML. It is capable of expressing semantics far
better than existing HTML can. Currently though, far fewer tools are
available to deal with it.

I didn't claim that using XHTML2 today is a good idea -- just that
existing user agents (Opera and Mozilla I've tried, but I'd guess that
KHTML/WebCore-based agents too) are able to deal with it, providing the
author includes some CSS and Javascript to smooth over the differences.

I do know what I'm talking about -- my CMS <http://demiblog.org/> has
experimental support for current drafts of XHTML2 *and* HTML5. I wouldn't
advise using them on production sites, but if someone's committed to using
them, then demiblog won't get in their way. (For what it's worth, it also
outputs standards-compliant HTML 4, HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.0, HTML 1.0 Basic,
HTML 1.0 Print and XHTML 1.1. Experimental support for ISO HTML is also
available and works pretty well. All the markup produced by the CMS
validates, but plugins and user-generated content may break validation.
There's not really any way to stop that.) I have produced content in
XHTML2, and it *can* be made to work, today, if you're determined enough.

 

[Andy Dingley]

XHTML2 is not semantics-free XML.

No, but it becomes semantics-free as soon as you throw the "HT" away
and treat it as plain unidentifiable XML, so that your CSS can render
it.