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Zeldman's Transitional Redesign

Tuesday 4 May, 2004 (11:26AM GMT)

I feel compelled to draw attention to the fact that Zeldman has redesigned his site. Again.

Apart from the near invisible links in the navigation bar I think it looks pretty damned good. I really like it. Much better than the previous incarnation.

[ Hmmm... Zeldman should do a Zen Garden design. That would be good. ]

What I don't understand however is the insistence on using the XHTML Transitional doctype. I mean, the new design's not far off XHTML Strict (all that is needed is to put those input elements in containing blocks) and for such a renowned standards evangelist isn't Transitional a bit of a cop out? Go the whole hog man! Embrace XHTML!

Comments

Comment 1

He doesn't want people who are still learning to copy the DOCTYPE from his site. They need an easy going DOCTYPE. Those who know, like you, will make their own choice anyway.

So said Anne on Tuesday 4 May, 2004 at 1:12PM GMT.

Comment 2

And yet the site admin can't implement the mime type outlined in RFC 3236. My browser is requesting application/xhtml+xml over text/html for XHTML documents and the site should give my browser what it wants. Visit http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-media-types/#summary and http://hixie.ch/advocacy/xhtml

So said lisa on Tuesday 4 May, 2004 at 7:01PM GMT.

Comment 3

And lisa brings up one of the biggest hassles with XHTML - most servers serve it as a trumped-up HTML, not as XML. As such, all benefit is lost.

Patrick, what this site sorely needs is an explanation to the intermediate and advanced users on how to get their XHTML documents served properly so they can get more out of XHTML than HTML4.01.

So said Neal on Wednesday 5 May, 2004 at 5:15AM GMT.

Comment 4

Another thing I noticed is that he uses <dl> with <dd> instead of <ul> with <li> for his list menu's ... that's the first time I've seen this.

So said Bart N on Wednesday 5 May, 2004 at 6:54AM GMT.

Comment 5

Hmm. Interesting way of doing the menu list. I can see the logic in it, but I think I prefer using 's and heading tags myself.

So said Andrew on Wednesday 5 May, 2004 at 9:39AM GMT.

Comment 6

Semantically menus are lists and not really definitions, so I'd prefer to stick to the lists. Interesting use though, and nice site design.

So said Chris on Wednesday 5 May, 2004 at 2:20PM GMT.

Comment 7

He explains it on the ALA about page.

I assume he uses Transitional for the same reason ALA does.

So said Dante on Sunday 9 May, 2004 at 7:28AM GMT.

Comment 8

The only thing I don't like about the site is the header image, which looks like a dead, attractive young woman. It makes me feel weird for looking at the site at work, in case someon is watching over my shoulder.

So said Will on Monday 24 May, 2004 at 9:41PM GMT.

Comment 9

Prude >=)

So said Deselect on Wednesday 26 May, 2004 at 10:57PM GMT.

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