[thelist] BROWSERS: quirks mode and standards mode

Tue Jul 23 12:44:05 CDT 2002

hi.

i'm not sure where to start, so i'll just dive right in.

i'm building a website right now for work and until recently i had been
using the quirks mode[0] doctype, using IE 6 for 95% of the development.
periodically though, looking at the site in nn4.7, moz 1.0, nn6.2, and
opera 6.03 and trying to make any corrections i can.

in quirks mode[0] moz, nn6.2, opera6.03[1], and ie6 load the page fine.
(nn4.7 looks like crap.)

in standards mode[0] nn6.2, opera, nn4.7(understandably) and ie6 look
exactly the same as they did before. moz, however looks a lot different.
in cells where there should be nothing and they should be collapsed[2],
there is now a large space as if a &nbsp; is occupying the cell.

my problem is with mozilla in standards mode[0]. i'd like to use
standards mode[3] but i'm not sure if it's worth modifying the code i've
written so far just to get all the spaces to go away. i'm also not sure
what to do about it, hence my writing to theList.

please kind sir's(and mam's) if you would take the time to divulge any
information you've got regarding anything in this email i'd appreciate
it greatly. i'd also like to hear opinions on what people think is more
worthwhile. going with standards mode and trying to get it to work, or
continue in quirks mode and try to reach the broadest audience as
possible with as nice a looking website as possible.

thanks for the input,
chris.

[0] from what i've read, quirks mode is achieved by using
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> as your
doctype instead of the full correct doctype which is
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
    "http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/loose.dtd"> and puts
the browser into standards mode.

[1] opera does some funky left aligning of a menu which i have yet to
investigate.

[2] not being an expert with what the w3c says about this and how
mozilla follows their recommendation, i'm assuming that when a cell is
defined as <td></td> in your html it should not look on screen as if it
is defined as <td>&nbsp;</td>. let me know what the truth about that is
though.

[3] why do i want to use standards mode? well i guess i don't have a
good reason (or any reason at all) other than i'd like to more closely
follow the standards.