HWG-News Tips Late May 2000

XHTML Transition

HWG-News features member-submitted "tips" in each issue, in the space between articles and announcements. These were the tips submitted for the 20 May 2000 newsletter, for the following category:

XHTML Transition

XHTML is here! What are some tips to help web developers transition their sites from HTML 4.0 to XHTML 1.0

This issue's winner!

Ease the transition to XHTML 1.0 by using the following conventions when writing web pages:

1. Use lowercase for all tags
2. Place quotes around all attribute values
For example: Use <div id="myName"> instead of <DIV ID=myName>
3. Terminate all single-tag elements. Use <br /> instead of <br>
4. Do not overlap tags, nest them instead
For Example: Use <b><i>my text</i></b> insead of <b><i>my text</b></i>

-- Submitted by Terry Felke <terryfelke@hotmail.com>

Other Tips for XHTML Transition

The three big things I found were:

1. Get into the habit of closing all tags.
2. Start putting all tags in lower case.
3. Use style sheets as much as possible to separate content from design.

-- Submitted by Stephen Moffitt <smoffitt@wmata.com>

I teach Internet development classes at a local training center, and I have been recommending to my students for over a year that they close all tags, even those such as <p> where the closing tag is optional. Even if you are not ready to move to XHTML, closing all tags will make it easier to transition when you do. And leaving out closing tags can cause CSS problems in some browsers.

-- Submitted by Sheila S. Ruth <sruth@abs.net>