by Hayesha somarathna

Let’s Follow Web Standards 2

My first article was dedicated to give the reader a quick run down through the history of WWW and how things got evolved to a more of a user centric, feature rich and dynamic arena. The Internet  that got emerged over the WWW has come so close to our life, in a way that it has being part of our day-to-day life. Although you are just a passive user its better to know the basics and how thing are working inside your favorite Web Browser to generate the content you are viewing. Having a good understanding of the basics helps you to get the best out of it. Don't worry you don't have to understand all the code crunching that is taking place behind scene because its better to know what you are dealing with rather letting others to control your freedom. With the recent boom of Web 2.0  the Internet got itself centered around the individual's choice and increased involvement towards content generation by the user. So its better to have an understanding about the basics of what you are dealing with.  

Hypertext Markup Language is designed to specify the logical organization of a document, with important hypertext extensions. It is not designed to be the language of a WYSIWYG word processor such as MS Word© or Open Office© – Writer© . This choice was made because the same HTML document may be viewed by many different browsers, having very different abilities. Thus, for example, HTML allows you to mark selections of text as titles or paragraphs, and then leaves the interpretation of these marked elements up to the Web browser. For example one browser may indent the beginning of a paragraph, while another may only leave a blank line. HTML instructions divide the text of a document into blocks called elements. These can be divided into two broad categories, those that define:

• How the body of the document is to be displayed by the browser, and
• Information `about' the document, such as the title or relationships to other documents are organized in the head section which comes at the top.

The detailed rules for HTML (the names of the tags/elements, how they can be used) are defined using another language known as the standard generalized markup language, or SGML. SGML is wickedly difficult, and was designed for massive document collections, such as repair manuals for F-16 fighters, or maintenance plans for nuclear submarines. Fortunately, HTML is much simpler!However, SGML has useful features that HTML lacks. For this reason, markup language and software experts have developed a new language, called XML (the eXtensible Markup Language) which has most of the most useful features of HTML and SGML.

Evolution of HTML Standard

As discussed in my previous article initially the HTML got itself entered into the scene as a medium  or the enabler, providing a means of organizing and to pool together the information among researchers from remote locations. It was far from just make available a pool of collection of research publications which can be downloaded to individual computers. Instead it was to actually keep a link to respective documents in the file itself. In other words, maintaining internal links from one research publication to another. The effort was to come up with a mechanism that enables the readers of research publications to easily navigate to the respective research article which holds the original and elaborated explanation including diagrams, figures, etc. His concept provides a way to transform the documentation of scientific and mathematical knowledge (resources) into a pool of interconnected knowledge network in the means of electronic form which can be easily accessed through computers scattered around the world.

As the usage and the popularity got  increased along with that new requirements got into it and the existing versions could not cater for the demand. Initially the requirement was just to make available a collection of research publications maintaining internal links form one research publication to another. In most cases theses documents largely got limited to text only versions apart form few tables and diagrams in black on the white background. Later the necessity of using different colors, colored images, sound clips, animates, etc came into the big picture when  considering the usability aspects. Following is a quick run-down of how HTML standard got itself evolved over the time.

HTML 1.0

This is the first release of HTML to the world. Not many people were involved in website creation at the time, and the language had limited capability. There really wasn’t much you could do with it, helps you getting some simple text onto the web.

HTML 2.0

HTML 2.0 included everything from the original 1.0 specification, but added a few new features to the mix. This standard was there for website design until January 1997 and defined many core HTML features for the first time.

HTML 3.0

More and more people were getting into the use of HTML, and while the previous standards offered some decent abilities to Web-masters (as they became known), they thirsted for more abilities and tags. They wanted to enhance the look of their sites. This is where trouble started. Netscape at the time was the clear leader in the browser market. To appease the cries of the HTML authors, they introduced new proprietary tags and attributes into their Netscape Navigator browser. These new abilities were called Netscape extension tags. This caused big problems as other browsers tried to produce the effects of these tags so as not to be left behind but most could not made it meet the demand.

HTML 3.2 (wilbur)

The browser-specific tags kept coming, and it became obvious for everybody about the requirement of a standardization. To this end, the World Wide Web Consortium (also called as W3C) was founded in 1994 to standardize the language and keep it evolving in the right direction. Their first work was named wilbur, and later became known as HTML 3.2. This was a toned-down change to the existing standards, leaving many of the big steps forward for later versions. Most of the extensions tags that had been introduced by Netscape (and to a lesser-extent, Microsoft) did not make it into these new standards. It soon caught on and became the official standard in January ’97, and today practically all browsers support it fully.

HTML 4.0 (cougar)

This was a large evolution of the HTML standards, and the last iteration of classic HTML. Early in development it had the code-name cougar. Most of the new functionality brought in this time is from the ill-fated HTML 3.0 spec, as well as a host of trimmings on old tags, a focus on internationalization, and support for HTML’s new supporting presentational language, cascading stylesheets(CSS).

HTML 4.0 was recommended by the W3C in December ’97 and became the official standard in April 1998. Browser support was undertaken surprisingly earnestly by Microsoft in their Internet Explorer browser, and the market-leading IE5 (and current successor IE7) have excellent support for almost all of the new tags and attributes.

HTML 4.01

Once HTML 4.0 had been out for a little while, the documentation was revised and corrected in a few minor ways and was entitled HTML 4.01. The final version of the specification released. After this version the evolution of the HTML got slowed or stopped and a new approached came into use based on XML specification called XHTML.

XHTML 1.0

It is an entirely new branch of SGML which is based on the specification of XML. There aren’t many new or deprecated tags and attributes in this version of HTML, but there are things that have changed with a view of increased accessibility and functionality and XHTML relies on HTML 4.01 spec for meaning of tag. It’s mainly just a new set of coding rules.

It defines different groups of tags, and a device can say what group(s) it implements and permits embedding of markup tags specific to vector graphics, multimedia, math, ecommerce, etc. The XHTML 1.0 docs can still be read by HTML browsers, if a few conventions are followed.

XHTML 1.1

This is the currently evolving version of XHTML in use, which is geared with some new features to enhance the usability for handheld devices with the use of new user agents. In the coming decade the peoples' prime choice would be handheld devices over standalone PCs because it provides them with anytime and anywhere connectivity to Internet with less or no hazel. So more focus and effort has put forward by W3C in this specification.  

General rules for XHTML over HTML

• XHTML is case-sensitive, HTML is not.
• XHTML is XML, which means that the  syntax rules are slightly different.
• XHTML elements must

Properly nested

Always be closed

In lowercase

One root element

• All documents must have a DOCTYPE
• All documents must be well-formed
• Include HTML element attributes
• All attribute values must be quoted
• Attributes cannot be minimized
• Name attribute replaced by id  attribute

In the beginning of the article I have introduced to reader about the HTML and later the discussion is focused on the evolution of HTML and XHTML to the present status. It provides a quick run down into the history, how requirements got fulfilled as an when the it occurs and the entering of W3C recommendations. Latter part of the discussion I have introduced the general rules all Web-authors should adhere and with the next months issues I'm going to discussed little bit more into  W3C recommendations in details that every Web-authors should keep in mind. Lastly I would like to give a big thank to all the readers and hope you have learn something valuable that will guide you to have a better Internet experience.  BTW I would like to hear your comments and suggestion on what I have discussed so far and it'll help me to focus effort on them as well to provide a better clarification and understanding.   

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