About a month ago when I started to create my template portfolio I had to bring all the code for the designs up to scratch. Now, I chose to make all of them XHTML 1.0 Strict simply because it meant that it was guaranteed to be displayed identically (or near enough) in nearly every modern browser. When I was designing I had 7 windows open: Mozilla Firefox 1.5, Opera 8.5, Opera 9, Internet Explorer 5.5, Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7 and Notepad2 (I wish Notepad2 had tabbed editing). I also use a service called iCapture to test my site in Safari, as well as getting a friend to feed me screenshots from his Mac.
There’s an organisation that every web designer knows about and that’s the World Wide Web (W3) Consortium. It creates and maintains the standards that we [should] follow and that all mainstream browsers follow to some degree. My view is that the stricter I code, the more chance my site will work as intended in any browser that follows the same standards. For me, I only want to design with 2 standards. These are XHTML 1.0 Transitional and XHTML 1.0 Strict. But, I’ve been noticing a lot of sites now using the XHTML 1.1 standard. Is it worth moving to this standard? Going on what I know, I don’t think so at the moment. My blog validates as XHTML 1.1 (besides the doctype being wrong).
What’s your view on the standards available to you? Which one(s) do you use and why? I’d apreciate your insight into this – especially why and when you use them.
