Html Vs Xhtml

[Fledermaus]

Over the last few months I took a vacation from Geocaching and computers. However, since then I have been upgrading my knowledge of HTML and learning XHTML. However, it appears that Geocaching.Com is lagging behind the times.

 

Several of my caches have been compromised with various HTML commands cut and trashed. Most of them seem to be associated with Image Linking, the STYLE command and more.

 

1. The "http://img.Groundspeak.com/caches/#####-200.jpg" link has been totally changed. I had to review the uploaded graphic and capture it's Address and re-edit my cache pages, while online.

 

2. The commands <font style="font: 14pt ARIAL" color="#000000"> Has been removed. I have changed what lines I can so far to <font face="ARIAL" size="5" color="#000000">. In many cases and after removal, all that was left was <font>. What's up with this?

 

3. I attempted to use a couple of simple animated .GIFs, but they just sits there frozen! WHY?

 

4. Having uploaded a 100% Compatible XHTML cache page, all of the NEW <br /> were changed to OLD <br> , and that's only the beginning.

 

Are there any correct answers out there? Jeremy Irish hasn't answered my last E-Mail. I was told by someone, Moun10bike I believe, that some changes were made to stop or prevent hackers from damaging the system.

 

I hope someone out there knows what's going on!

 

FLEDERMAUS

[+bons]

However, it appears that Geocaching.Com is lagging behind the times.

Probably not the best way to start a thread. And failing to give links so we can see what you mean doesn't make this any easier.

 

So please forgive me if I fail to say this in a better way.

 

1) In my humble opinion, geocaching.com is not behind the times. Whatever the latest and greatest thing on the net is (and I've seen a lot over the past 10 years), almost none of them are worth tearing down your site and doing a rebuild to support a feature that you don't need, especially when a good portion of your site is a database of HTML pages created by people all around the world. I'd rather Jeremy was working on virtuals and locationless than making sure everything the database hits works with the latest fads in tags.

 

2) The last thing you want to do in a site like this is put inline stylesheets in your HTML or go with full blown XHTML. Even if the system accepted it, you're asking for some bad rendering is anything goes wrong. Keep it simple and it will work on everyone's browser including the WAP feeds, the GPX pocket queries, etc. That web page data is served in a lot of different ways and I'm betting that old fashioned HTML works with all of them and still does everything needed. The onle thing I've learned in the past two years is that the big advantage of old fashioned HTML is that it works. Always.

 

3) Since animated gifs work on other people's pages and you don't have a link I'd guess that either you have animated gifs turned off on your browser or you're now pointing at a file that's been converted to a .jpg. I'd need a link to have more than a random guess though.

 

Again, I'm sorry if that was too blunt. I just couldn't find a better way to say it. (I probably need a nap...)

[robertlipe]

There's a happy medium between chasing the bleeding edge and hacking on HTML until it happens to work right in the browser you care about. It's called "standards conformance". HTML 3.2 was blessed on Jan of '97. HTML 4 and XHTML were ratified in early '99; even if you factor in browser "catch up" time, they're not exactly radical stuff.

 

Bring up about any page on this site and click on the "about page" and you'll see that every one of them render in "Quirks mode" which invites WAY more trouble than actual standards-conforming markup. Instead of writing conforming pages, telling the browser "the following bytes are a stream of XXX" and letting everyone obey the rules of the markup, they browser is left to guess its "quirks" and render it the best it can.

 

Spot-checking pages - old or new - on this site with http://validator.w3.org/ and 'tidy' show what I had already learned the hard way: this site uses a hodgepodge of markup instead of the formal grammars. Since I've spent hours this week modifying GPSBabel to try to deal with this, this is a subject dear to me right now.

 

And don't even start me on the dogmeat that so many people make of the pages once they click on the "I'm providing the HTML" button...

[Fledermaus]

I can no longer provide an example of the problems I encountered, since all of the files have been edited to remove the problems they had. I did notice one very interesting thing though. Image Mapping seems to fail when implemented. I had it in one of my caches and it worked, and then one day it went away, all by itself?

 

I am not using style sheets nor do I know anything about them. From what I've seen of them, I don't really care to study that subject for the time being. I wonder why <font style="font: 14pt ARIAL" color="#000000"> (not part of STYLE sheets) isn't recognized?

 

I use HTML Validator and X-HTML-Kit and they allow me to validate in all formats, as well as convert from one to the other. I wonder why <br /> is not regognized by this system. I wonder about so many things that maybe I should just stop wondering and give up! Everytime I turn around, the HTML is changing with this added and that added and this and that deleted. Oh well!

 

As for the Animated GIF subject, The files worked on my system, but failed to work after upload. The reason they didn't work was quite obvious, it had been converted by the website and not by my own hand. When you upload a file and then check on it's link, as displayed in the address window, it comes out as a long string of characters and terminating in the JPG suffix. My system did not convert it.

 

As for the the HTML vs XHTML issue, it was my understanding that the latter was created to help the evolvement of PDAs and other related devices. Have I been wasting my time studying XHTML? HTML may be the greatest thing to hit the internet, but it still has it's faults.

 

I am by no means a highly skilled individual on HTML or XML or XHTML, but what I do know is what I have seen and what has happend. Maybe I have had one of those alien encounters, where I saw it, don't have a witness and have no physical evidence.

 

The next time you are typing in your newest cache page, incorporate some of the new XHTML and see what happens. The next time you want to use an animated GIF, upload it and see what happens.

 

I have already discussed this with a prominent and well-known geocacher, who is part of the "upper crust" so-to-speak. In a previous E-Mail he stated that even he had to repair some of his caches after changes were made to the system and that's when all the problems began. I have tested the system and found the chink in the armour!

 

Sometimes I feel that "I'm just banging my head against some dadgum bugger's wall".

 

FINI / NNNN / 73s / ENDIT / 30

[+bons]

As for the Animated GIF subject, The files worked on my system, but failed to work after upload. The reason they didn't work was quite obvious, it had been converted by the website and not by my own hand. When you upload a file and then check on it's link, as displayed in the address window, it comes out as a long string of characters and terminating in the JPG suffix. My system did not convert it.

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...ndpost&p=764436

 

If you want an animated gif of your own creation, the best thing to do is upload it to your own website. The system converts it to .jpg for now. For related reasons it's best if you simply upload all your images to your own website in order to keep jpg images from being resized/recompressed.

Edited February 6, 2004 by bons

[+Cornix]

You may want to read these historic threads:

• HTML not displaying
   
  
• Uploading Animated Gifs To Cache Page
  

Cornix

[+Prime Suspect]

As for the Animated GIF subject, The files worked on my system, but failed to work after upload. The reason they didn't work was quite obvious, it had been converted by the website and not by my own hand. When you upload a file and then check on it's link, as displayed in the address window, it comes out as a long string of characters and terminating in the JPG suffix. My system did not convert it.

Don't upload it to the cache page. Upload it to your profile. That will keep if from being converted.

[+Right Wing Wacko]

Actually, if you use the STYLE modifier, you ARE using style sheets, you just don't know it.

 

I am not using style sheets nor do I know anything about them. From what I've seen of them, I don't really care to study that subject for the time being. I wonder why <font style="font: 14pt ARIAL" color="#000000"> (not part of STYLE sheets) isn't recognized?

 

The proper syntax for your FONT statement would be (and I hope this makes it thru the editor)

 

<font face="ARIAL" size="14" color="#000000">

 

as soon as you added "style=" to your font tag, you created an embedded style sheet.

 

I really don't see why the style was included within a FONT tag, it would have been more appropriatly included within a <P>, <DIV>, or <SPAN> tag. (Or course it wouldnt have worked there either, because gc.com would have stripped it out).

Edited February 6, 2004 by Right Wing Wacko