XHTML – What It Is, Why You Should Use It and How it Differs From HTML

admin — Sun, 29 May 2011 09:47:10 +0000

Another web page language is XHTML. The acronym stands for eXtensible Hyper Text Markup Language. In context, XHTML looks like standard HTML. The difference is that this language has more rules that MUST be followed to achieve the desired outcome. In that sense, XHTML is more exacting and a bit cleaner.

A worthy note here is that the two languages, HTML and XHTML, can work side by side in the same document. That is to say that you can write a web page using both languages and it will work just fine. This is because XHTML is a combination of HTML and a les lenient markup language called XML. XML is designed as a descriptive element to data while HTML is designed as a display element. Therefore, the two are compatible.

The reason we want to use a clean language on our web pages is cross browser applications. Technology has given us many different types of browsers. Some of these run on our laptops and home PCs. Others run inside mobile devices like phones, blackberries and PDAs. These browsers are not able to read and effectively display bad or broken HTML. So the exacting syntax of XML makes XHTML compatible across all these browsers.

There are four main differences between the two languages. First, elements in an XHTML document need to have proper nesting syntax.

This means that you need to close the LAST tag first in nested tags, like this:

This text is underlined and italicized

Notice how I closed the “underline” tag first even though it was opened last.

Next, all elements in an XHTML document MUST be closed. Each and every opening tag you write HAS to have a closing tag. This is not the case with standard HTML.

Third, all XHTML tags or elements are ALWAYS written in lower case. No exceptions. No upper case letters in any tags.

Last, you must have one root element. This is usually the tag you put at the top of the document. Everything else must be nested between that opening root tag and the closing tag at the end of the document.

Several more rules apply here as well, as follows:

All tags or commands in lower case.

All values called or designated in the tags must be enclosed in quotation marks.

Making tags smaller, or minimizing them, is not acceptable.

There are mandatory elements that MUST be present in the document, ie…a doctype declaration and tags for html, body and title. These MUST be include in the document.

You can get started on switching your HTML pages to XHTML very easily. Start looking for open tags with no closings. Then look for capital letters in the attributes (tags) and make them lower case. Finally, be certain that you have a doctype declared BEFORE the HTML tag.

Do this and you’re on your way to writing your pages in one of the most widely accepted markup languages on the planet. Your pages will be visible to all users regardless of the device they are using. This gives you a larger audience and the possibility for more visits and success.

Semantic Code for your Website – A Necessity

admin — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 01:58:15 +0000

You must have wondered what all these jargons are that web-designers use? Even if you don’t know about web designing, you probably know that your site is coded in HTML – a programming language. In any programming language, the code should be correct in two ways: syntax and semantic. Here we will talk about semantic code of HTML and why semantic code for your website is a necessity.

HTML was developed for the purpose of describing the content of a website. It was never intended to be visually pleasing. Semantic content is this concept of describing the content, and does not focus on the visual aspect of a page.

The syntax of a code refers to the correctness of the code, if the code is executing things correctly, that there are no mistakes in the code. However the semantics refer to doing the correct things, if only those things are done which need to be done. It ensures that no unintended tasks are accomplished correctly. Please note that the difference between the two lies between doing the task correctly and doing the correct task.

For e.g., in HTML, we can give heading of a page as:
this is a heading

This will be interpreted by HTML as a common statement with different font. The syntax of the statement is correct as it is accomplishing the correct thing. But we want here is the browser to understand and interpret the statement as a heading and not as a normal statement. The browser will be able to process it as title only if it understands that it is one.

So for the computer to understand that this is a title, you can write the following code:

this is a heading

A file called CSS (cascading style sheet) can then be created to define the appearance of the heading separately.

Both of the codes above give the effect of the statement being a title, then why there is need to write it in the latter manner? Here are some of the reasons:

Placement in Search Engine: It helps in understanding the content properly and thus affects the page rank. It is easier for ‘search engine spiders’ to understand and thus improves your placement in the search engine.
Aids Accessibility: Speech browsers (mainly used by visually impaired) rely on the semantics to understand the content.
Semantic code is easier to download as it is shorter, as shown in the example above.
By using semantic code, the site updates becomes easier, as you can apply changes to all the headings in the site simultaneously by changing the CSS.
It is easier to understand.

Coming to the step of ensuring that your website is written semantically, there is no automated tool to ensure this. You will have to go through the code to check if it contains colors and font tags instead of describing the content. Or the other way out could be to directly ask your designer if they use semantic code. If he looks at you blankly, then you can be sure that he is not adhering to it. This way you can easily get to know that its time either you push your designer that semantic code for your website is a necessity or change the designer.

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XHTML – What It Is, Why You Should Use It and How it Differs From HTML

Semantic Code for your Website – A Necessity

this is a heading