invalid XHTML

I keep getting lots of errors in code produced by FCK ...

this for instance is NOT valid:-
<h3><p>Test H3 Header</p></h3>

it would of course be valid without the <p> tags...

Fixes anyone?

Thu, 09/22/2005 - 04:18

aspwiz

Joined: 19/09/2005

Posts: 2

RE: invalid XHTML

** BUMP **

For an editor that claims to be XHTML compliant I'm very suprised no one sees this as an issue.

Thu, 09/22/2005 - 04:28

xenden

Joined: 08/04/2006

Posts: 321

I'm not an expert or anything... bt I think you would need eaither a metric tonne of regexes or something like tidy to achieve what you want. ...

Not sure tho! Maybe there is a switch we can flip or something... this DOM stuff is still kina new to me...

Sun, 09/25/2005 - 12:22

jara06

Joined: 12/06/2006

Posts: 12

RE: invalid XHTML

I agree with you aspwiz.

I've followed the forums for some times now, and havent seen any specific thread about this, yet everyone is complaining about div's, p's and br's..

*wonders*

How about dropping all the feature-stuff for awhile and try fix this somehow. Seems complicated to me and involves rather many things..
Maybe drop the font tags and use of strong 'n em's, and use spans all the way along with some predefined css classes ? People would have much more control in the end too.

Sun, 09/25/2005 - 15:42

bnoblet

Joined: 29/11/2006

Posts: 179

RE: invalid XHTML

> Maybe drop the font tags and use of strong 'n em's,
> and use spans all the way along with some predefined
> css classes ? People would have much more control
> in the end too.

Noooooooooo!!!

span's are evil and should be avoided when possible. (I know it is not always possible). The reason is they are completely void of context and semantic meaning, and are purely for formatting.

<em> means emphasise. It indicates that the text is important and should be emphasised. It replaced the <italic> tag as that dictates *how* the text should be displayed, not just that it is important.

Same with <b> being replaced by <strong> ....

This is important for several reasons:

1. You can't assume that your content is being displayed in a web browser. If it's being (for example) read by a screen reader, italics are irrelevant, but the text can be emphasised by the reader in a variety of ways (even with a tonal change).

2. Maybe I want to parse my XHTML and get all emphasised nodes and make a glossary of them. We have to start thinking of XHTML as a structured XHTML document, not just a blob or formatted text.

3. Your content might live longer than you think, and be repurposed and reused. Perhaps later on someone decides that a better way of emphasising text is to use a different font and make it flash on and off (lets hope not but you get the idea)

Sorry to go on about this, but I think it's pretty important. Perhaps we think our content is more disposable than this (and often it is) but it's a good habit to get into anyway.

Spans might be legal, but if you use them all the time they are just a font tag in sheeps clothing!