The LambCutlet Disorganisation

They say that buses always show up in threes, but today it seemed to be CSS3 Candidate Recommendations that was showing up in threes, which are:

• CSS3 Color Module
• CSS3 Text Module
• CSS3 Ruby Module

I’m personally getting most excited about the CSS3 Color Module due to the fact the new features it’ll bring in such as ICC color profiles, transparency/opacity and an HSL color model to compliment the existing RGB one.

A colour profile example:

/* use the specified profile,
	even if the image contains an embedded profile */
img { color-profile: url(\"http://example.tld/profiles/eg.icm\") }
	

A transparency example:

p.seethrough { opacity: 0.5 }
	

HSL colour value examples:

/* red */
p { color: hsl(0, 100%, 50%) }
/* green */
p { color: hsl(120, 100%, 50%) }
/* light green */
p { color: hsl(120, 100%, 25%) }
/* dark green */
p { color: hsl(120, 100%, 75%) }
/* pastel green */
p { color: hsl(120, 50%, 50%) }

Both colour models also accept explicitly defined alpha values. An alpha value of 1 is fully opaque, and 0 is fully transparent. The transparent keyword as introduced in previous versions of CSS is the same as setting the opacity/alpha value for that property to 0.

RGBA example:

/* semi-transparent solid blue */
p { color: rgba(0, 0, 255, 0.5) }
/* very transparent solid orange */
p { color: rgba(100%, 50%, 0%, 0.1) }

HSLA example:

/* semi-transparent solid blue */
p { color: hsla(240, 100%, 50%, 0.5) }
/* very transparent solid orange */
p { color: hsla(30, 100%, 50%, 0.1) }

So lots of cool stuff in the works. The text and ruby modules mostly focus on i18n for Eastern and Arabic text and stylistic and formatting issues those bring up.

There are many other modules for CSS3, all in different states and you can keep track of progress at the CSS3 Roadmap page.

Feedback for the above three modules is welcome at www-style@w3.org (archive).

XHTML2 has reached it’s fifth working draft, and the blurb from the W3C:

XHTML2.0 is a markup language intended for rich, portable web-based applications. While the ancestry of XHTML2.0 comes from HTML4, XHTML1.0, and XHTML1.1, it is not intended to be backward compatible with its earlier versions. Application developers familiar with earlier its ancestors will be comfortable working with XHTML2.0.

XHTML2 is a member of the XHTML Family of markup languages. It is an XHTML Host Language as defined in Modularization of XHTML. As such, it is made up of a set of XHTML Modules that together describe the elements and attributes of the language, and their content model. XHTML2.0 updates many of the modules defined in Modularization of XHTML, and includes the updated versions of all those modules and their semantics. XHTML2.0 also uses modules from Ruby, XML Events, and XForms.

Public discussion of XHTML takes place on www-html@w3.org (archive). To subscribe send an email to www-html-request@w3.org with the word subscribe in the subject line.

The W3C has gone back to it’s roots with regards to document structure for XHTML2 and therefore not meant to be backwards compatable, as outlined in Section 1.1.1 and Section 1.1.2:

Because earlier versions of HTML were special-purpose languages, it was necessary to ensure a level of backwards compatibility with new versions so that new documents would still be usable in older browsers. However, thanks to XML and stylesheets, such strict element-wise backwards compatibility is no longer necessary, since an XML-based browser, of which at the time of writing means more than 95% of browsers in use, can process new markup languages without having to be updated. Much of XHTML2 works already in existing browsers. Much, but not all: just as when forms and tables were added to HTML, and people had to wait for new version of browsers before being able to use the new facilities, some parts of XHTML2, such as XForms and XML Events, still require user agents that understand that functionality.

The original version of HTML was designed to represent the structure of a document, not its presentation. Even though presentation-oriented elements were later added to the language by browser manufacturers, HTML is at heart a document structuring language. XHTML2 takes HTML back to these roots, by removing all presentation elements, and subordinating all presentation to stylesheets. This gives greater flexibility, and more powerful presentation possibilities, since CSS can do more than the presentational elements of HTML ever did.

Basically, it’s possible to use XHTML2 now as it’s “just” XML, and using XSLT either server-side or client-side to display the data. Obviously this isn’t recommended as being a specification in progress, things change.

Though long, the specification does make for interesting reading. :D

Ooh, here we go again, but whilst gandering on Xiven.com, I noticed there has been yet another round of XHTML advocacy in this blog entry.

Evan Goer has done a bit of digging round the WWW and written the following:

In the spirit of Marko Karppinen’s The State of the Validation, here are the results of testing 119 XHTML sites for standards compliance. This is not a rigorous scientific exercise; the methodology had several shortcomings, some of which I detail below.

The following was the validation criteria:

Level 1

The Simple Validation Test: The “main” page must validate as XHTML.

Level 2

The Laziness Test: Three secondary pages must validate as XHTML.

Level 3

The MIME-type Test: The site must serve up the proper MIME-type application/xhtml+xml to conforming user agents.

Regarding the MIME-type test required for “Level 3” validation, I had already done a little digging a while ago.

But anyway, Evan Goer’s findings were:

Of the 119 XHTML sites tested:

• 88 sites (74%) failed Test 1 (“Simple Site Validation”).
• 18 sites (15%) passed Test 1, but failed Test 2 (“The Laziness Test”).
• 12 sites (10%) passed Test 2, but failed Test 3 (“The MIME-type Test”).
• Leaving us with one site (1%) that managed to pass all three tests.

The single fully valid site was beandizzy. However, I know my own site is in the darkest corner on the Internet, rarely visited so probably overlooked, but I knew off-hand that Thomas “Xiven” Pike and Matthew “PhotoMatt” Mullenweg would pass, and Mark Pilgrim’s used to do so as well…

Evan Goer has written a follow up though. :D

In anycase, I personally think I’m more a “Pimp-Geek” than “Alpha Geek”… :P

Somehow missed this yesterday, but Mozilla.org has released a stable and beta of it’s browser, Mozilla 1.3.1 and Mozilla 1.4b respectively.

http://www.mozilla.org/releases/#1.3.1

Mozilla 1.3.1: This is their latest stable release. New to Mozilla? Get this.

http://www.mozilla.org/releases/#1.4b

Mozilla 1.4b: This is their latest beta release. You’ll probably find bugs here, but this is where you’ll find all the great new features and fixes as well.

So download whichever one you feel most comfortable with, sticking with a well behaved little beasty, or put up with one that’s a little more feisty. :D

Indeed, on the subject of bugs, those of you running variants of the 1.4 branch will have noticed rendering issues on this site due to the use of position: fixed; on the pinned menu, as noted in Bugzilla Bug 201442… so vote for it. ;)

Just had an E-Mail from Matthew “PhotoMatt” Mullenweg reminding why it’s always bad to assume too much… It appears that Eric Meyer has been using XSLT for his blog for over half a year now. :D

Most people would say “I’ll use Blogger!” or “time to install Moveable Type!” but I didn’t really want to run a CMS package just to store and syndicate my random mutterings. So I of course did the obvious thing, and decided to pour the whole archive into XML, using my own private markup, and then teach myself XSLT so I could take that archive and produce whatever output I wanted—the home page’s five most recent entries, the permalink archives, an RSS feed, whatever. Okay, there was an actual work-related reason: learning XSLT will make me better able to help manage DevEdge, which is driven by XML, XSLT, and CSS. But mostly I was doing my usual thing, and effectively learning how to fly a helicopter just to get to the corner grocery store.

Thanks for the correction and link Matt. :D