Skip to main content

What is XHTML?

We have all heard of HTML. HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. What is a hypertext markup language, you ask? It is a language for specifying how certain text should appear. When you design a web page, you want certain content or text to be displayed in a specific way. You may want some text to appear in bold or italics, while other text you may want to display larger or in color.

HTML is not the only type of markup language. There are markup languages that apply to other types of applications, such as word processing or other software applications. However, HTML was by far the most important markup language ever created, as it became the standard for displaying information on what is now known as the world wide web, or internet.
However, HTML is not the only markup language being used on the internet today. Another, better version of HTML evolved as programmers began to realize that HTML was innately flawed in a variety of ways.

By 1999, a new specification was written in a language called XML, which forms the basis for XHTML. The World Wide Web Consortium says the following about XHTML:

The Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) is a family of current and future document types and modules that reproduce, subset, and extend HTML, reformulated in XML. XHTML family document types are all XML-based, and ultimately are designed to work in conjunction with XML-based user agents. XHTML is the successor of HTML, and a series of specifications has been developed for XHTML

XHTML is what is known as a meta-language, which is a language for defining a markup language. To put it simply, SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) is the basis for HTML. XML is a more refined subset of SGML, and forms the basis for XHTML. On the whole, XHTML allows for more flexibility than HTML.

XHTML was developed for two reasons: (1) to try to create a language that could more effectively convey the meaning of a particular webpage to a computer, and (2) to create a layout for webpages that would be universally understood by browsers running on different platforms or on different types of screens, whether it be a PC platform with a standard 800 X 600 monitor, a laptop, a cell phone, or any other device.

So, to all you web designers out there, it is probably time to start designing your most important web pages in XHTML. As almost every electronic device on the market is now equipped with internet access, it is important to use a versatile programming language like XHTML so that your web pages can be viewed and properly formatted across a wide variety of platforms.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why Flash Player is the best plugin ever

Cross-platform Availability and Portability Flash Player is available for all the major operating systems: Windows Mac OS Linux Solaris Also, it comes preinstalled with Mac OSX and Windows XP . So the users of these platforms don’t even need to download it! There is also Flash Lite , which enables the viewing of Flash content on mobile devices like cellphones and PDAs. Just take a look at all the mobile phone manufacturers that are incorporating Flash Lite into their devices (currently more than 140 cellphones are Flash-enabled): Fujitsu Hitachi Kyocera Mitsubishi Motorola NEC Nokia Panasonic Sanyo Sendo Sharp Siemens Sony Ericsson Toshiba Still not convinced? Well, there is even more - the PDAs : Microsoft Pocket PC and Sony CLIE. Can there be more? Sure. Let’s not forget the consumer electronics : the iRiver U10 media player and the Kodak Easyshare-One Zoom Digital Camera are Flash-enabled, like some set-top boxes too. Oh, wait, I didn’t tell you yet which bro...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why Google Apps is a Serious Threat to Microsoft Office

This is the perspective of a “skeptical, later early adopter”; the sort of person who Microsoft needs to retain and should have been able to retain easily. I don’t spend time on productivity tools that may at some date make me more productive, but which today are just a frustrating time sink. That describes the majority of people. MS Office can be annoying, but it does work. So any serious alternative has to offer a significant advantage and at the same time make adoption a total breeze. I think Google Apps has reached that point. The significant advantage is collaboration. Since I started working on a new project where we all agreed to use Google Docs from the start, I have hardly used MS Office at all - even on other projects. The lead product in Google Apps for me is their word processing product - i.e. the MS Word alternative. That may be because I am a wordsmith, but also because it is the most mature. I still use Excel, as Google Spreadsheet is both a pain to learn and not good e...
Post a Comment
Read more

Understanding the Pyschology of Color in Web Design

So you've bought the domain, you've got some great sales copy, ensure your meta and alt tags are doing they're job, have a few graphics thrown in for good measure and are all set to publish your design to the web. Right? Wrong. But though you're on the right track, you might have overlooked what research is now calling one of the most crucial elements in site design: color. Having the right color scheme might be one of the ways to make or break your site. Since you only have about the first ten seconds of a user's attention span, you need to ensure that what they first see catches their eye. The fact that the users are visiting your site means you've got the core elements of design on target, but now you have to keep them there. True, you'll need great a great sales pitch and copy but don't underestimate the importance of a color's pyschology. Colors mean different things to different people and can symbolise different things in different cultures. F...
Post a Comment
Read more