It is impractical to serve real XHTML 1.0 (with XML functionality) because of the following: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/09/15/467901.aspx As a result, XHTML 1.0 is almost universally served as HTML (content type text/html without XML functionality) In accordance with appendix C to the W3C recommendation. This compromise allows Web authors to take advantage of the XML rigor of "well formedness" syntax. Following is my current Home page served in this manner: http://jp29.org/indexxhtml.htm Following is my Home page served as real XHTML 1.0 (as specified by the W3C) with content type application/xhtml+xml -- full XML functionality except in MSIE browsers: http://jp29.org/indexxhtml.html In the Header section I have used <br/> (example) to close empty elements while in the Main Content I have used <br /> to illustrate either form is acceptable. A detailed explanation of the above is contained here .......... http://jp29.org/test.php .......... which is also a version of my home page served to Browsers according to their rendering capabilities via Content Negotiation. Note that content type serving is not determined by Meta tag call-out -- it is determined via Server software configuration. All of my above pages written using validated XHTML 1.0 Strict Markup. The following facility enables you to check how your pages are being served: http://web-sniffer.net/ You can check your XML for well-formedness here: http://www.xml.com/pub/a/tools/ruwf/check.html
Since this seems to be more of a statement than a question, I'll pose my own question: Why bother if 80%+ of the world can't even access your site? Not that I see ANYTHING on that site which warrants the need for it to be an application - though I do see lots of paragraph abuse with classes instead of actual header tags, horizontal rules, CSS column techniques KNOWN not to work cross browser (which is why the right column is missing on my machine in BOTH Opera 9.23 and IE), etc. etc. No offense, but what the devil does serving it 'properly' actually GET you? I've NEVER understood this 'web application' nonsense as it applies to XHTML 1.0 - especially since I've never seen a page that actually DOES anything with it. But then, XHTML 1.0 was supposed to be backwards compatable to BOTH SGML and XML - it's the whole point. If you are doing actual applications, you should probably be using 1.1
I have not been able to replicate that in those Browsers on my or other computers. Good to know, however -- I will have friends and family members check that out. Anyone else here experiencing that problem? Yes, there is indeed some pretty crummy coding on the test.php page -- I tend to use this page like a sandbox, playing around in it testing Markup, constructs, CSS, scripting, etc. Anyway, I have cleaned it up some. BTW, I personally employ HTML 4.01 Strict Markup for my primary pages. None taken. Just general information: http://hixie.ch/advocacy/xhtml