Re: Front Page Fussy

[Scott McClare <smcclare -at- DY4 -dot- COM>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kris Olberg [SMTP:kjolberg -at- IX -dot- NETCOM -dot- COM]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 1999 3:29 PM
> To:   TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
> Subject:      Re: Front Page Fussy
>
> From: Tracy Boyington
> >I'm not sure anyone has said FrontPage creates invalid HTML. What it
> >*does* create is really crappy HTML that gives wildly different results
> >on different browsers, while making the novice user think that what you
> >see really is what you get. Which is just as bad, if not worse.
>
> HTML is a standard. "Crappy" can only describe something that does not
> conform to the standard. Ergo, because FP creates standard HTML, it cannot
> be described as "crappy." Find a different argument.
>
This is the first time I've heard that crappy == noncompliant.  If it's
obfuscated, inefficient, or redundant, then it's crappy, no matter how
"legal" it is.  Over the course of this thread, I've seen someone say FP
changed his IMG tags to point to absolute files, rather than relative ones;
I've seen someone else say it's turned <b>efficiently bolded text</b> into a
<b>b</b><b>i</b><b>g</b> <b>m</b><b>e</b><b>s</b><b>s</b>.  I don't care how
many HTML validators pass this, it's unreadable and obfuscated.

While I've not used FP personally, I've seen other editors - Adobe PageMill
and Netscape Composer - do similar things to my own pages.  Usually they
reformat the page or add unnecessary tags or entities, such as closing
</P>'s, superfluous &nbsp;'s, and &quot;'s in the body text (where plain old
"" will suffice).  Just today Composer re-HTMLized an entire page into a
hardly-editable mess, just because I wanted to correct a single spelling
error.  No wonder people are recommending Notepad.

>><LI>
>>Text
>><P>
>><LI>
>>Text
>><P>
>
>KO say: Now that's crappy.

But it's valid HTML (though it's "cheating" to force a particular layout)
and therefore by your own definition, not crappy.

Take care,

Scott

--
Scott McClare - Technical Writer
DY 4 Systems Inc., Kanata, Ontario, Canada
(613) 599-9199 x502 smcclare -at- dy4 -dot- com
Opinions are my own


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