For once I feel that the Internet might be becoming slightly structured!  I’m in preference of XHTML, it’s well structured, it’s unambiguous (assuming people actually validate it, but then there’s absolutely no point in using a language if you’ve not used the correct syntax, nobody releases source code with 20 compile errors in it on the basis that “well, some compiler out there will be able to guess what I meant”), and it’s extensible.

That was it really.  I just thought I’d proclaim my adoration of XML

Blogged with Flock

Goto http://www.plfc.org.uk/ and look at the first link on the page, “FIEC”. Notice (in IE7) that there’s a little gap after it, like there’s a . Well, look at it in FireFox, Opera, Konqueror or Safari and you’ll see a (correctly rendered) image indicating an external link (as used on Wikipedia). Now look (in IE7) on the Missionary Support page and you’ll see what it should look like on the home page. The CSS is completely valid (I set a padding-right and a background-image, it’s the same CSS behind both pages), yet IE7 insists on not displaying the image on the home page. Why? Because it’s full of bugs. Is FireFox? Yes. But they get fixed quickly and regularly. IE7? Every webmaster has to just hack their way around them.

Go, go now and download FireFox.

Update: I just had a look on IE5, and the links render completely wrong. However the home page one does work. Interesting. I then had a look at wikipedia to see how they get around these problems, and I noticed that in IE5 the links don’t render the external icon at all. A quick baz at the source, and I notice they have a bunch of IF statements in the HTML, each one referring various IE versions to alternative CSS “fixes”. Seems a good idea, so I’ll ditto it.

If you’re too lazy to go find the HTML yourself, wikipedia uses this:

 <!--[if lt IE 5.5000]><style type="text/css">@import "/skins-1.5/monobook/IE50Fixes.css?90";</style><![endif]-->
 <!--[if IE 5.5000]><style type="text/css">@import "/skins-1.5/monobook/IE55Fixes.css?90";</style><![endif]-->
 <!--[if IE 6]><style type="text/css">@import "/skins-1.5/monobook/IE60Fixes.css?90";</style><![endif]-->
 <!--[if IE 7]><style type="text/css">@import "/skins-1.5/monobook/IE70Fixes.css?90";</style><![endif]-->
 <!--[if lt IE 7]><script type="text/javascript" src="/skins-1.5/common/IEFixes.js?90"></script>
 <meta http-equiv="imagetoolbar" content="no" /><![endif]-->