HTML vs. XHTML?

Freeway
1

Should I set my pages up as HTML or XHTML? And, in a nutshell, what’s the difference?

Thanks,
Jamie

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2

On 13 Apr 2008, at 01:55, Jamie Turner wrote:

Should I set my pages up as HTML or XHTML? And, in a nutshell,
what’s the difference?

Hi Jamie

Ten days and no-one’s replied. Perhaps everyone’s too busy.

Personally, unless specifically asked otherwise, I set my pages to
XHTML 1.0 Transitional these days.

W3Schools’ explanation of HTML:
http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_intro.asp

…and XHTML:
http://www.w3schools.com/xhtml/xhtml_intro.asp

The key difference is that XHTML is supposed to be a cleaner and
stricter version of the original HTML specification. These days,
there are very few browsers that can’t handle the XHTML code.

So, if you care about your web site designs meeting the latest
recommendations for CSS and HTML standards, choose XHTML.

I think that covers the basics. The links above give more detail.

Hope that helps.

Heather

“Freeway - Web Design for All”

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Thanks, Heather. I appreciate your help.

Quick question: If I want to link to another page using hypertext, but don’t want to have the blue underline type, is there a way to do that without using graphic type? In other words, I’d just like to use regular black Helvetica.

Thanks,
Jamie
P.S. I’m an American, but was born in Walton-on-Thames (outside London) and did a term of study with a program at Oxford. I miss The Bear pub!

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On 23 Apr 2008, at 20:56, Jamie Turner wrote:

Quick question: If I want to link to another page using hypertext,
but don’t want to have the blue underline type, is there a way to
do that without using graphic type? In other words, I’d just like
to use regular black Helvetica.

Yes, you can.

Make sure nothing is selected on the page (and for preference, do
this on a master page so it affects every page in your site). Go to
the Inspector, click the Appearance button (the paintbrush), and
click the Links section header.

You can now choose the colour for the various states of your links.

To explain the various states:

  • Normal should be self-explanatory. I usually match it to the main
    colour of the text I’m using;
  • Visited is to show a link has been clicked through in the browser;
  • Hover is how it appears when the mouse pointer hovers over the link;
  • Active is the split second when someone clicks it.

You can also press the little underlined U buttons to turn off the
underline if you prefer. Each button has three states, so experiment
to find what they do (if I’m honest, I’m not too clear myself!).

By clicking the More… button, you are taken to an Edit Styles
dialog just for the links, where you can set up things for each link
state in a pretty comprehensive way. My particular fave at the moment
is to add a background colour to the hover style.

For bonus points, you can apply different settings for links in
different items, such as navigation blocks for example, by selecting
the item and changing the settings using the Inspector.

I have a friend who lives not far from Walton-on-Thames. I was born
in Guildford, but moved away to Kent over 20 years ago now. I hardly
know the town where I grew up now.

Cheers

Heather

“Freeway - Web Design for All”

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5

Thanks, Heather!

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