I think an improvement for EE would be an admin option to change the output of the HTML to fit doctypes other than XHTML.

I personally use an HTML 4.01 strict DTD.

Frequently Asked Questions About XHTML vs HTML

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Should I use XHTML or HTML?
That depends on who you ask. There are a number of technical issues with this question, which preclude a simple and short answer. In reality, the latest W3C recommendation with widespread support is HTML 4.01. Unless you actually need any of the features that XHTML offers over HTML, there is no technical reason to use XHTML.

In order to actually benefit from using XHTML, you really need to understand the fundamental differences between XHTML and HTML. Such a site will only be available to a small minority of the surfing population, however.

Some web designers and developers prefer XHTML’s syntax rules over HTML’s. By following certain guidelines, you can use this syntax without technically using XHTML at all (see below). There are a number of potential pitfalls with this approach, but it is a possible way forward for those who absolutely want to type <br /> instead of <br>.

For ‘future-proofing’ your documents, using a Strict doctype is more important than whether you use XHTML or HTML.

Why do so many books and sites recommend XHTML over HTML?
When the XHTML 1.0 specification was released, many designers and developers were quite excited about it. It was XML, which was all the rage back then, yet could be used as if it were HTML, and it ‘worked in all browsers’. People saw countless possibilities with the extensibility mechanism, and when W3C stated that there would be no more versions of HTML, XHTML was seen as the future-proof alternative.

Eventually some less palatable aspects of using XHTML were uncovered and the extensibility myth was debunked, but this didn’t receive quite the same amount of publicity. Many authors thus still advocate XHTML over HTML out of ignorance or because of personal preference.

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Thanks for your consideration.

There’s certainly merit to that type of formatting plugin, mhulse, thanks for the suggestion.  I’m waiting patiently for HTML5 myself (and am using it on my personal site, heh).

Many authors thus still advocate XHTML over HTML out of ignorance or because of personal preference.

The XHTML vs. HTML debate is one of the more polarizing, particularly among standardistas, so I won’t try to elevate either side, but would point out that the above statement not-so-subtly correlates personal preference with ignorance, if that personal preference is to use XHTML.  I choose XHTML because I enjoy the clarity of every tag having a closing element.  It’s the nature of programming and scripting, and so that’s how my mind works with markup as well, even though it’s not “code” at all.  I’m just used to phrases having a clear start and stop marker.  It has nothing to do with ignorance of whether or not I or the user-agent is actually “using” it.

Derek Jones - 01 September 2008 12:48 PM

There’s certainly merit to that type of formatting plugin, mhulse, thanks for the suggestion.  ...<snip>... It has nothing to do with ignorance of whether or not I or the user-agent is actually “using” it.

I totally hear what you are saying… I definitely think the wording of that quote/article could have been written better.

Me personally, I am definitely not a standardista… :D

... I am just in a situation where my company is running a couple different CMS apps (EE is one) and they share many templates…. Long story short, I built things using the other CMS first, and I did not think about the output of HTML when it comes to the EE side of things… I am kinda committed to HTML 4.01 strict (I actually prefer this DTD.)

On a side note, Textpattern is in this same boat… XHTML output.

Sorry, I can barely think straight right now… Been working by butt off.

TBTH, I hate seeing validation errors over little things like HTML formatting… :(

So, with all that said (sorry, I am rambling), does EE have some sort of central HTML output method? In other words, is there one core method that EE sends HTML through to be formatted? :D

Thanks for the reply Derek!

Even with the XHTML output (which, is not a bad thing), I still love EE to death!

Have a great day!
Cheers,
Micky

So, with all that said (sorry, I am rambling), does EE have some sort of central HTML output method? In other words, is there one core method that EE sends HTML through to be formatted? :D

The Typography class, yes, and Auto-XHTML and pMcode will both add XHTML markup; between the two of them, that is where most of this would come from.  Some other tags, such as nested categories, generate their own markup which is also XHTML, but for the most part, ExpressionEngine doesn’t output its own markup.

Hey!

Thanks for the reply.

As soon as I get some free time I will poke around in those parts…

Maybe I have it in me to write some sort of extension… Then again, not sure if I have the smarts for that. :(

Lol, anyway, many thanks for all of your attention!

Have a great night,
Cheers,
Micky