Hi, I need to seek some advice from the gurus here:- 1) What are the benefits of using the new XHTML 1.0 compared to HTML 4.01 specification? Currently my website is using HTML 4.01 Transitional doctype. Will it affect the current site layout if I change to XHTML 1.0? Does this new format supports the older browsers like Netscape 2 and IE 3.02? 2) As we all know, there are two ways we can implement the CSS on a website. There are Inline CSS and External CSS methods. Some people claimed the Inline CSS will process faster as the codes are embedded into the HTML codes itself. Is it true? Also, is there any impact on the page size? Your comments are very much appreciated. Thank you. Cheers,
Please visit this post/thread. I have to leave my house right now, but I will expand on this subject later in the day when I return. And be sure to read: Problems serving XHTML 1.0 web pages Doctype selection and use James
Whatever benefits XML may give you. Are you using XML for anything? I do not mean RSS: RSS works fine on regular HTML4 pages. No... if you use XHTML1.0 Transitional (who the hell thought up such an abomination anyway??). Transitional is transitional (allows shit in your code) and Strict is strict. You may well see an effect on your current site layout going from Allows-shit-in-your-hamburgers Transitional to Grade-A-Beef Strict, if you choose to switch. I personally don't like shit in my code. Yes, you can write shit-free code with a Transitional doctype, but then why use a Transitional doctype? Does anything support those browsers? Do you have them for testing? Do you know anyone who even has a copy of those? I find that a strange question, so I need to know, why do you ask about those browsers?? Have you tried it? I heard throwing a CD in a microwave makes a funky light show. So I tried it. And it's true. But it wrecks your magnatron, so always use an old one from the junkyard. Anyway, think about it. Putting CSS inline with your HTML, especially if every page on your website has the same fonts, layout and colours, would certainly make your HTML documents bigger, wouldn't it? But go ahead and try it, and measure your file size when you're done. The point a separate CSS stylesheet takes advantage of caching, you know, browsers saving stuff after they load it. So instead of the styles being loaded for every single HTML page, the styles were loaded just once. That means each new requested HTML page should load FASTER cause it's smaller. Obviously there's no point in a separate CSS stylesheet if every single page has totally different styles, or if the site is just one page. If the CSS is a separate document then the browser needs to spend time asking the server for it, and the server has to spend time serving it to the browser. That happens for every single document requested. So what do you think? When James comes back, he'll surely be able to expound on the advantages of real XHTML... but personally I don't have any use for it, unless I ever need to use RDFa or something. They sound awesome, but there's not really any use for the insurance sites I code.