- What is the World Wide Web?
-
The World Wide Web is a medium designed for sharing information over the Internet.
- What is the World Wide Web Consortium?
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The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the regulatory body for web technology standards. Its first and present director is the inventor of the Web (together with Robert Cailliau), Tim Berners-Lee.
- Why do we need standards?
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In order for the Web to fulfill its purpose, all applications must use a common language (whether it is HTML, XHTML, XML or CSS). If every browser used its own language, we would in fact not have one World Wide Web, but an Internet Explorer Web, a Netscape Web, an Opera Web etc.
- Why don’t some browsers adequately support W3C standards?
-
During the years when a few corporations were fighting for the browser market, they were focused on adding new features and introducing additional standards of their own to a basic set of W3C standards, rather than on following closely all W3C recommendations. The peak of this era was the generation 4 of Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator browsers. In many cases, these two browsers displayed a same page in very different ways. Fortunately, these times are behind us and these browsers are very rarely seen today.
- What is CSS?
-
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a technology that evolved after HTML (but still a long time ago). It is a powerful layout tool, which allows not only to set the text size and color, but also to position blocks on the page and take care of all other aspects of design.
Before CSS, web designers had to use extensively HTML [code]]czoxMzpcIiZsdDt0YWJsZSZndDtcIjt7WyYqJl19[[/code]s, nesting them one inside another in order to achieve the layout they had in mind. (This was not the initial prupose of the [code]]czo1OlwidGFibGVcIjt7WyYqJl19[[/code] element that HTML creators had in mind.) Such an approach results in a lot of redundant code and pages adapted only to screen view.
With CSS, a complete separation of content and layout is possible. Thus, the HTML (or XHTML, or XML) page itself contains only pure content, which, if properly structured, can be easily read by many other devices, such as handheld devices and applications for visually impaired persons. A separate CSS file - the stylesheet - takes care of all the layout of this content on the page. CSS files can even target specific media, so that it is possible to have separate stylesheets for screen, print, handheld and other media as well.
For an impressive demonstration of how different CSS stylesheets can display one and the same HTML page (content) in different ways (layouts), see the CSS Zen Garden.
- Why don't older browsers fully support CSS?
-
Sadly, it took a long time for browsers to start implementing CSS seriously. In fact, browser support for CSS has been sufficient for developers to start using it properly for complete page layout only in the past few years.
- Which browsers are "standards compliant"?
-
Browsers that support CSS sufficiently for CSS-based sites to be displayed properly, and which comply with other W3C standards to an acceptable degree include the following:
(This list is not exhaustive. Internet Explorer was intentionally put last in the list for its notorious number of bugs and lack of support for advanced CSS features.)
-
-
While a page with a simple layout can be displayed almost identically in all browsers and all versions, this becomes impossible when the layout reaches a certain complexity.
The solution applied by web designers at the time of the war between Internet Explorer 4 and Netscape Navigator 4 had been to develop one version of the site adapted to one browser, and another to the other one. Nowadays, when the W3C standards regained the authority that is rightfully theirs, web designers are discouraged from such practice. Instead, they should ensure the conformity of their pages with the standards, while browser developers are to implement these standards in their applications - that's the beauty of standards!
The problem is in the older browsers, which are no longer developed or supported by their creators. But that is the price to pay as in any evolution. This was the motive behind the Browser Upgrade Campaign, which was most active a few years ago.
It should be pointed out though that for sites in which the separation of content and layout has been fully applied, as it is the case with this site, when the stylesheet is stripped, the site remains perfectly usable in older browsers that do not support CSS. That is why, if you are viewing this site with a non-standards compliant browser, you are seeing a simplified layout that is compatible with all existing browsers, including textual browsers.
Web Standards FAQ
The World Wide Web is a medium designed for sharing information over the Internet.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the regulatory body for web technology standards. Its first and present director is the inventor of the Web (together with Robert Cailliau), Tim Berners-Lee.
In order for the Web to fulfill its purpose, all applications must use a common language (whether it is HTML, XHTML, XML or CSS). If every browser used its own language, we would in fact not have one World Wide Web, but an Internet Explorer Web, a Netscape Web, an Opera Web etc.
During the years when a few corporations were fighting for the browser market, they were focused on adding new features and introducing additional standards of their own to a basic set of W3C standards, rather than on following closely all W3C recommendations. The peak of this era was the generation 4 of Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator browsers. In many cases, these two browsers displayed a same page in very different ways. Fortunately, these times are behind us and these browsers are very rarely seen today.
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a technology that evolved after HTML (but still a long time ago). It is a powerful layout tool, which allows not only to set the text size and color, but also to position blocks on the page and take care of all other aspects of design.
Before CSS, web designers had to use extensively HTML [code]]czoxMzpcIiZsdDt0YWJsZSZndDtcIjt7WyYqJl19[[/code]s, nesting them one inside another in order to achieve the layout they had in mind. (This was not the initial prupose of the [code]]czo1OlwidGFibGVcIjt7WyYqJl19[[/code] element that HTML creators had in mind.) Such an approach results in a lot of redundant code and pages adapted only to screen view.
With CSS, a complete separation of content and layout is possible. Thus, the HTML (or XHTML, or XML) page itself contains only pure content, which, if properly structured, can be easily read by many other devices, such as handheld devices and applications for visually impaired persons. A separate CSS file - the stylesheet - takes care of all the layout of this content on the page. CSS files can even target specific media, so that it is possible to have separate stylesheets for screen, print, handheld and other media as well.
For an impressive demonstration of how different CSS stylesheets can display one and the same HTML page (content) in different ways (layouts), see the CSS Zen Garden.
Sadly, it took a long time for browsers to start implementing CSS seriously. In fact, browser support for CSS has been sufficient for developers to start using it properly for complete page layout only in the past few years.
Browsers that support CSS sufficiently for CSS-based sites to be displayed properly, and which comply with other W3C standards to an acceptable degree include the following:
(This list is not exhaustive. Internet Explorer was intentionally put last in the list for its notorious number of bugs and lack of support for advanced CSS features.)
While a page with a simple layout can be displayed almost identically in all browsers and all versions, this becomes impossible when the layout reaches a certain complexity.
The solution applied by web designers at the time of the war between Internet Explorer 4 and Netscape Navigator 4 had been to develop one version of the site adapted to one browser, and another to the other one. Nowadays, when the W3C standards regained the authority that is rightfully theirs, web designers are discouraged from such practice. Instead, they should ensure the conformity of their pages with the standards, while browser developers are to implement these standards in their applications - that's the beauty of standards!
The problem is in the older browsers, which are no longer developed or supported by their creators. But that is the price to pay as in any evolution. This was the motive behind the Browser Upgrade Campaign, which was most active a few years ago.
It should be pointed out though that for sites in which the separation of content and layout has been fully applied, as it is the case with this site, when the stylesheet is stripped, the site remains perfectly usable in older browsers that do not support CSS. That is why, if you are viewing this site with a non-standards compliant browser, you are seeing a simplified layout that is compatible with all existing browsers, including textual browsers.