<doctype> tags screwed up my menu!!!!! - Page 4 - HTML Forums

Kravvitz · 09-18-2006, 04:21 PM

Only the top-level is accessible in IE5/Mac with that CSS Play menu.

The Position Is Everything menu does require that JavaScript be enabled in IE5-6/Win for the dropdowns to work but degrades gracefully by showing them all of the time when JavaScript isn't enabled. (IE7 doesn't need the JavaScript because it has better support for the CSS that makes the JavaScript unneeded.)

Leilani · 09-18-2006, 04:33 PM

i did do a test run with the "hacked version" css menu that you didn't like, the other one I have just started on....

http://leilanimunter.com/index3.html

i haven't made any changes to it, just plugged it in to see if it worked....

Leilani · 09-18-2006, 04:37 PM

one think i don't understand is why the font changed to times roman when it seems to be arial or verdana on the example page:

http://cssplay.co.uk/menus/basic_dd.html

weird???

when i tried to plug in the css one that you gave me, i saw the expanded version, with all the menu links below it, when i clicked "show active content" it showed just the top menu links, but none of them worked: when i hovered over them, nothing dropped down. ???

i'm useless at this!!!

Leilani · 09-18-2006, 04:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kravvitz

Only the top-level is accessible in IE5/Mac with that CSS Play menu.

The Position Is Everything menu does require that JavaScript be enabled in IE5-6/Win for the dropdowns to work but degrades gracefully by showing them all of the time when JavaScript isn't enabled. (IE7 doesn't need the JavaScript because it has better support for the CSS that makes the JavaScript unneeded.)

the problem with that is when it is expanded it looks awful.... i know you don' t like the hacker version menu:

http://cssplay.co.uk/menus/basic_dd.html

but will this menu show up without JavaScript enabled. That is the whole reason I was switching from my current JS menu:

http://leilanimunter.com/index2.html

Because my sister and the 3000 people that work with her cannot enable JS on their work computers, which is how I found out about the problem.

Kravvitz · 09-18-2006, 04:50 PM

That CSS Play menu will work with JavaScript disabled. But that does not justify the nasty hack it uses when you could just create a site-map to compensate.

I suggest you get a complete doctype[1], remove all of the<font> elements[2], and fix your HTML errors before you get much further with either of these menus.

[1] You should use a complete doctype (one that includes a URL) to get browsers to render as close to the same as possible. I recommend HTML 4.01 Strict. A doctype is not a magic fix. It is the first step in the process of fixing your page.
Activating the Right Layout Mode Using the Doctype Declaration
Fix Your Site With the Right DOCTYPE!
Choosing a DOCTYPE
Doctype switching
Rendering Mode and Doctype Switching
http://www.w3.org/QA/2002/04/Web-Quality
http://www.w3.org/QA/2002/04/valid-dtd-list.html

[2] This is a bit old, but much of what it says is relevant -- What's wrong with the FONT element?
Beyond the FONT tag: Practical HTML text styling

Leilani · 09-18-2006, 11:59 PM

this is the one that was suggested and about 1/2 my pages are changed to it already, though not launched b/c of the menu issue:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"><html>

should i change them all to strict? i don't have much knowlege about this stuff, but tell me what you think and i will do it. thanks

Leilani · 09-19-2006, 12:27 AM

what about this one? seems impressive if you read the page...

http://www.grc.com/menu2/invitro.htm

Kravvitz · 09-19-2006, 08:39 AM

Well do you want to go to the effort of removing all of the deprecated code so you can validly use Strict or do you want to go the easier way and just use Transitional?

This menu from grc.com is just a 3 level version of the one on CSS Play.

Leilani · 09-19-2006, 02:35 PM

i guess i am looking to spend as little time as possible but still making it work. i am not a professional at this, i have kept my own racing site since i put it up, and just don't want to have to pay someone to do it. once i get a nice working menu, that functions in all browsers, then i will be done with the hard stuff. why is it important to have strict instead of transitional? what is the difference? if my site looks clean in all browsers, that's all i care about.

Leilani · 09-19-2006, 02:36 PM

if transitional is easier that's what i want to do, but I am assuming there are some downsides to it or why would i go to the trouble to use strict instead?

Pegasus · 09-19-2006, 02:46 PM

Transitional allows you to use deprecated code, but strict doesn't. It also has a few other things, like tag closures and the fact that all the tags and commands have to be in lowercase. There's also a hitch with javascript functions, but that's easily sorted out.

Actually, strict isn't that hard to do. You just have to remember that *every* tag has to be closed, either with a closing tag like </p> or like this: <img information />. Any javascript has to be placed inside [[!CDATA]] tags (I'm not sure exactly how they're written, but it's similar to that). Oh, and your CSS style information has to be on a separate stylesheet and linked to, not placed on the page.

If you put a complete doctype on your page, you can use the http://validator.w3.org to check the code for you. It'll give you the errors and explain what needs doing to fix them.

Does that help?

Peg

Leilani · 09-19-2006, 10:55 PM

yes, but my real question is-- why would i use strict when I can use transitional with the same results and not have to go through as much work? is it unecessary? is it just to be *perfect* with code and for no other use? I mean if transitional works, why go through the pain of doing strict? I know i have code in my site which uses caps and honestly i just don't want to spend another day on this fix....

Pegasus · 09-19-2006, 11:24 PM

From what I can understand, some people are looking at getting the W3C standards back to it's original "programming" form. XHTML strict is a lot closer to that format than transitional is. I don't think that's going to happen any time soon, so transitional will work until that happens.

Peg

Thirsty Ferret · 09-20-2006, 01:07 AM

Leilani, I think that the strict doctypes (e.g. html 4.01 strict) are more reliable cross-browser and cross-platform because they only use certain tags and formatting. The transitional doctypes use all kinds of old stuff too, hence increasing the probability that the page will be displayed differently on different browsers...

Hope this helps,

Chris

Kravvitz · 09-20-2006, 02:28 AM

The reason to use Strict instead of Transitional is because of semantics and separating presentation and behavior from structure content.

The Content vs. Presentation Argument
Are They Really Separated?
The Incomplete Divorce
How to use CSS to go beyond separation of content and presentation
The Behavior Layer
Separating behavior and structure
Behavioral Separation

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pegasus

Transitional allows you to use deprecated code, but strict doesn't. It also has a few other things, like tag closures and the fact that all the tags and commands have to be in lowercase. There's also a hitch with javascript functions, but that's easily sorted out.

Actually, strict isn't that hard to do. You just have to remember that *every* tag has to be closed, either with a closing tag like </p> or like this: <img information />. Any javascript has to be placed inside [[!CDATA]] tags (I'm not sure exactly how they're written, but it's similar to that). Oh, and your CSS style information has to be on a separate stylesheet and linked to, not placed on the page.

Peg, you're confusing HTML 4.01 vs. XHTML 1.0 with the Transitional variant of each of those vs. the Strict variant of each of those.

Stylesheets may be embedded in XHTML documents with the <style> element, however, if you use certain characters, like ">" and "&" you need to use the CDATA tags.

XHTML 1.0 Differences with HTML 4

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thirsty Ferret

Leilani, I think that the strict doctypes (e.g. html 4.01 strict) are more reliable cross-browser and cross-platform because they only use certain tags and formatting. The transitional doctypes use all kinds of old stuff too, hence increasing the probability that the page will be displayed differently on different browsers...

The difference in reliability isn't very significant.