Re: New MCF pages

 >>> What use is there in alt text for a logo ? A logo is something
 >>> graphical, and putting an alt text in there is only going to ruin the
 >>> layout in lynx. And it's not just tricking the validator, as I
 >>> absolutely don't care about being 100% HTML conform. Lynx displays
 >>> [image.gif] as alt text if no alt property is specified. Setting alt=""
 >>> means lynx will not display anything, and make the page look cleaner.
 >>
 >> Yeah, that's what I said. It's a trick. Hopefully you're not making
 >> reusable
 >> code in C or C++ here ;) Now I know Mozilla can render pages without
 >> loading
 >> images. I wonder how it would render without them (never tested). Or
 >> maybe
 >> download the website in my Palm to browse the spec whenever I want ;)
 >>
 > Err, explain what you mean here ?

Using tricks when coding (PHP and HTML are coding languages) is NEVER a
good option in the long term. Following standards is usually a much
better option. Especially when it doesn't add much complexity.

 >> I think I'll have to look at the PHP source to correct that. This is
 >> really not
 >> nice/compliant. As I said, testing with Mozilla or MSIE is simply not
 >> enough.
 >> MCF is meant to be usable everywhere (portable), the website should be
 >> the same.
 >
 > Hikke and I are doing fine alone, thank you. I think MCF has some more
 > important issues than a PHP glitch.

Yeah. On MCF we already had Ingo and Tronic nearly leaving so I assume
you and Hikke might do so someday (I hope I'm not the cause of all these
"problems"). So please keep in mind your work has to be usable by
someone else, in order to avoid restarting from scratch.

Also I like XHTML and PHP coding, and if I can make the site XHTML 1.0
Transitional compliant, I will. (and needing PHP on my machine to test
before publishing is not going to help)

 > What's non-standard about HTML 4.0 Transitional ? I've never worked with
 > XHTML before, and as far as I know it's just normal HTML but with XML
 > tag rules. It's not that special.

OK, let's do it then :D

 >> The best (fast) way would be to "pre-strip" the data after every page
 >> upload. It
 >> can be done using a page.html.strip page next to page.html with the
 >> same time.
 >> If the time of page.html has changed, page.html.strip has to be
 >> stripped on the fly.
 >
 >
 > Not everyone uses Frontpage 2000 to design their pages. (If you didn't
 > get my hint: a proper editor doesn't need starting and closing tags.
 > Besides, can't you write HTML manually?)

Yes, I ALWAYS write HTML and PHP manually. But I'm sure Christian or
other people won't do that (and they shouldn't HAVE to).

 >> As for page stripping, you can also pre-process the site after every
 >> update, to
 >> create the static pages once for all. That will save SF's CPU and make
 >> the same
 >> site available to all. (only the dynamic parts would need to keep PHP)
 >>
 >> I suspect that's how big news site are doing.
 >
 > I meant serving a page specially for crawlers, /dynamically/.

If you can explain why it is necessary, it's OK.

 >> I don't understand the difference.
 >
 > The difference is that instead of writing [insert header] content
 > [insert footer], you do header [insert content] footer. In other words,
 > you only have to edit the content.

Well, with my proposition you just edit a web page, upload it, click on
a button and you're done. Don't you think it's better ? The HTML/PHP
coders can do complex things, that's not the content creator that should
do that.

 > Before ending, I'd really like to ask you to stop just going against
 > everything I've set up now. PHP is bad, dynamic is bad, including

I never said that. I said for dynamic content we need PHP. But on the
other side for static content there is no good reason to use it. Let's
not make something complicated when it's not needed. This is exactly
what we're trying to do with MCF too.

 > content instead of including header/footer is bad, my sourceforge logo
 > is bad, using gif is bad.. Why didn't you do it yourself then ?! We're

Why ? Because I don't have the time.

 > all a bunch of incompetent bastards, and next you're going to criticize
 > Christians texts too! Where does it end ? Besides, what you call
 > constructive criticism is still just enlarging neglectible details to a
 > point where you'd call them all-important, in my opinion. Have you ever
 > looked at the page with Lynx ? Or Opera, or Konqueror ? You complain
 > about compatibility, but I doubt you even ran the URL through the
 > validator to check first. I just did, and there aren't any errors that
 > will render the page unreadable or not properly readable in any
 > browsers. Just some untidy HTML, that 99% of browsers tolerate. So
 > puh-leaze. Stop this "is too!" -"is not!" fight.

I gave you some advice from what I SAW, without checking the code. That
was a few quick advices. Then you don't agree on everything I say. So I
say it again with more background and still don't agree on anything. You
have your point of view, I have mine. Aren't we here to discuss and
progress ? That's what we always do on MCF.

BTW, I never felt the need to change anything at Tronic's page, except
for checking XHTML validity. Changing to something I consider worse for
no apparent reason (easier to put content (how do you add a new main
section ?), harder to maintain, longer to "serve") probably need some
discussions first.





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