Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 00:54:15 +0900
Subject: Re: CSS and XHTML
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From: Michael Glaesemann <grzm@myrealbox.com>
To: pgsql-www@postgresql.org
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Message-Id: <22625006-1396-11D8-A04E-0005029FC1A7@myrealbox.com>

Hello all!

On Monday, November 10, 2003, at 01:46 AM, Andreas Grabm=FCller wrote:

> You can find some stats at
> http://www.postgresql.org/stats/

Thanks for the stats. I noticed that the Report Magic analysis dates=20
from March. Is there anything more recent? Or might not it matter?

> I think it would be good to have a XHTML compatible site. But as it=20
> seems the site structure will change (if we decide to merge the=20
> sites), it might be better if you wait for this new structure before=20
> redoing the (X)HTML to avoid double work...

I'm all for avoiding double work. When is a decision to be made on=20
merging sites? With the merge, will there by a style redesign as well?

On Monday, November 10, 2003, at 04:49 AM, Andreas Grabm=FCller wrote:
>
> If we decide to do this changes it might be the easiest way if Michael=20
> takes the current CVS source and applies the changes in test2.htm in a=20
> XHTML compatible way...


On Monday, November 10, 2003, at 06:05 AM, Josh Berkus wrote:
> Also, re: the XHTML issue, are there potential browser problems?=20=20
> Never forget
> the number of people in the world using I.E. 5.0 or Netscape 6.2.=20=20=
=20
> There's a
> lot.

Netscape 6.2 shouldn't be a problem at all. IE5/Win can be handled=20
quite easily. As Marc pointed out, XHTML is just HTML defined as XML.=20
Big differences include closing tags, lowercasing tags (XML is=20
case-sensitive), and quoting attributes. Nothing really major. As such,=20
any browser that can handle HTML shouldn't have a problem with XHTML.

Presentation via CSS is another thing. Briefly, really old browsers=20
just don't do CSS. They'll ignore all of the presentation, but the=20
content will be just fine. Very basic :) but just fine. And most recent=20
browsers handle parts or most of CSS just dandy. Speaking to IE5/Win=20
directly, there are well-documented ways to work around it's particular=20
CSS bugs without resorting to custom pages or browser detection.

Looking at the list of browsers, the areas I'm a little concerned about=20
are the ~3% using 4.x browsers, the ~3% identifying as Netscape=20
compatible, and the ~3% not providing any browser identity. That's six=20
percent we really don't know about, and 3% we'd probably end up hiding=20
some of the CSS from.They wouldn't get the full glory of the site, but=20
it wouldn't be plain Jane either. (I'm currently looking for a place to=20
get a version of Netscape 4 to test with.)

There are a few identities I'm not familiar with, but they don't=20
account for much (less than 1.5%). And I'm ignoring the bots and=20
text-only browsers, since presentation doesn't really matter to them.

The three things on my mind are answering any other questions people=20
may have, getting my computer wrapped around a more recent version of=20
the code, and somehow connecting to the database or hosting a sample of=20
it myself to work on the content section. And a fourth thing. I'd like=20
to get people's reactions to what I've done so far and to test it with=20
browsers I don't have access to (mostly the IE/Win versions, Galeon,=20
and Konqueror).

Michael
grzm myrealbox com