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3
Posted by:
Timo Breumelhof
Saturday, January 03, 2009
To be honest, the DNN skinning community in general is not that concerned about XHTML compliant skins.
For most other (open source) CMS systems XHTML is default.
Although not all DNN core modules are fully XHTML compliant yet, DNN 5.0 is a lot more compliant then previous versions.
I know there is a group of DNN skinners that don't really care about XHTML, but we do and with us a lot of users / governements.
DNN 5.0 introduces a new Host setting, for the Default Skin Doctype.
This will set the doctype of the page if no doctype was supplied in the skin (using the SkinName.doctype.xml file or server side code).
The advantage is that you don't have to set the doctype in the skin anymore, but you can set it through the administrative interface.
We even discussed making this the default, but decided not to since some legacy skins will break using an XHTML doctype.
There are two main reasons for this.
1. IE behaves a lot nicer with an XHTML doctype and all the IE hacks needed for HTML 4.0 will still be there while not needed.
2. CSS classes in XHTML are Case Sensitive (this has nothing to do with DNN, it's a W3C standard)
This means any user can now switch the doctype even using a legacy skin, this potentially means you can expect support issues for your skins if they don't work well with an XHTML doctype. This will become more important if the install base of DNN 5 increases.
There are two possible solutions:
1. Convert your skins to XHTML
Advantages:
This makes the CSS much cleaner and less complex since you need a lot less CSS hacks.
(I'm not talking about Tableless here, there is no real relationship between XHTML and Tables for layout)
XHTML is more professional.
2. Set the doctype of the skin to HTML 4 transitional
Advantage: less work
And please, don't complain about Modules not being XHTML compliant (I'll do that for you ;-).
If skinners wait for the modules to become XHTML compliant and the modules wait for the skins, nothing is going to change...
We must move forward!
3 comment(s) so far...
Re: The Fallback Skin Doctype and skinning
Thanks for info. :) XHTML is quite nice, especially with IE 8 approaching. For those that don't know IE 8 default runs in standards mode instead of quirks mode. With my XHTML skins now I can build 99% of my skins without any IE hacks, except for sites where I need to support back to IE 6/7. But even then it's few and far. It is worth the work to me, even on the sites not required. If you are a skinner I suggest doing what I have done and make a skin template, its an empty shell but it has the DNN elements I typically override in all my skins, and it has CSS blocks pre-setup, really helps. Of course Timo and Shaun like to keep us on our toes, and change up our skinning options. :) By the way love the new objects based approach, and the new menu options. :) Overall though I am finding myself getting Dinged very few times when it comes to XHTML compliance, on my required sites with DNN5. A very welcomed item, in my line of government work.
Thanks for the work and keep it up.
By CityofSalemVA on
Monday, January 05, 2009
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Re: The Fallback Skin Doctype and skinning
Yes you are right, XHTML does actually make skinning easier. Glad to hear you like the skinning changes in DNN 5.
Timo
By Timo Breumelhof on
Monday, January 05, 2009
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Re: The Fallback Skin Doctype and skinning
Here, here! I agree whole-heartedly!
By Will Strohl on
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
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