Writing HTML 4.0

[Thomas Dowling]

[Can anyone clue me in on how to use the Unix version of nsgmls to validate
HTML 4.0?  My copy keeps whining about numeric (256 and above) entities not
being characters in the character set.]

In reading through the HTML 4.0 spec, I was intrigued by the number of
items that have been deprecated since version 3.2.  Deprecated, as defined
in the spec, means an element or attribute has been outdated, it may become
obsolete in future versions of HTML, and authors are strongly recommended
to stop using them in favor of suggested alternatives.


BODY attributes background, text, link, vlink, and alink.  Stylesheets are
recommended in their place.

BLOCKQUOTE used solely to indent text.  Use stylesheets.

OL and UL compact attribute.  Browsers never did anything with this
anyway.

DIR and MENU elements.  Use UL.

TH and TD nowrap attribute.  Use stylesheets.

All align attributes, in favor of stylesheets.

IMG and OBJECT height, width, vspace and hspace attributes in favor of
stylesheets.  APPLET itself has also been deprecated in favor of OBJECT.

CENTER.  "Shorthand for DIV with ALIGN=CENTER?!?!  What were we thinking?" 
Or words to that effect.

STRIKE, S, U elements.

FONT and BASEFONT are not only deprecated, but each of their attributes is
separately listed as deprecated.  I get the feeling the W3C was feeling a
little testy the day they handled that one.

HR size and width attributes.

FORM "get" value for the method attribute.  It's the default value, but
specifying it is deprecated: "This value has been deprecated for reasons of
internationalization."  Well, I'm sure someone understands that.

ISINDEX element, along with its prompt attribute.  Use a FORM input
instead.

SCRIPT language attribute.  Use the type attribute instead.


It's pretty obvious that the W3C is trying to re-separate structure and
presentation and put them in HTML and styles respectively.  Since Netscape
and Microsoft have had lukewarm support for CSS so far, it will be
interesting to see when and whether they ever get behind the spirit of HTML
4.0, or if HTML 4.0 lightens up on some of the presentation items in its
final release.


Thomas Dowling
tdowling at ohiolink.edu