Valid HTML (or not)

[Ross Gardler <rg...@apache.org>]

Let me be controversial...

Forrest should not be concerned with outputting valid HTML

---

Now let me clarify, I'm not talking about a complete free for all. I'm
talking about conforming to standards where possible, but allowing
flexibility where necessary. Specifically I am talking about
additional attributes that are not in HTML.

Why?

To create Ajax interfaces we need to have attributes that are not
valid HTML. For example, my DOAP plugin cannot use Exhibit properly
because we do not allow arbitrary attributes in our output, such as
"ex:facets='.category'"

The future?

Since we are moving to XHTML2 this will not be a problem as we can use
namespaces.

What does this mean?

At this stage it means we allow namespaced attributes from a source
doc to pass through to the output HTML.

Any objections to me making this change?

Ross


--
Ross Gardler

OSS Watch - awareness and understanding of open source software
development and use in education
http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk

Re: Valid HTML (or not)

[David Crossley <cr...@apache.org>]

Ross Gardler wrote:
> Let me be controversial...
> 
> Forrest should not be concerned with outputting valid HTML

Forrest does not enforce it. So people are already
free to mangle it however they want.

I use various tricks to inject extra elements
into the internal stream, and extra elements and
attributes in invalid input.

We already do refer to the ability to use
non-standard html.
http://forrest.zones.apache.org/ft/build/forrest-seed/samples1/embedded_html.html#Other+non-standard+html-type+abilities

Your proposal goes one step further. Good.

> ---
> 
> Now let me clarify, I'm not talking about a complete free for all. I'm
> talking about conforming to standards where possible, but allowing
> flexibility where necessary. Specifically I am talking about
> additional attributes that are not in HTML.
> 
> Why?
> 
> To create Ajax interfaces we need to have attributes that are not
> valid HTML. For example, my DOAP plugin cannot use Exhibit properly
> because we do not allow arbitrary attributes in our output, such as
> "ex:facets='.category'"
> 
> The future?
> 
> Since we are moving to XHTML2 this will not be a problem as we can use
> namespaces.
> 
> What does this mean?
> 
> At this stage it means we allow namespaced attributes from a source
> doc to pass through to the output HTML.
> 
> Any objections to me making this change?

No objections. Looking forward to it.

-David

Re: Valid HTML (or not)

[Tim Williams <wi...@gmail.com>]

On 7/18/07, Ross Gardler <rg...@apache.org> wrote:
> Let me be controversial...
>
> Forrest should not be concerned with outputting valid HTML
>
> ---
>
> Now let me clarify, I'm not talking about a complete free for all. I'm
> talking about conforming to standards where possible, but allowing
> flexibility where necessary. Specifically I am talking about
> additional attributes that are not in HTML.
>
> Why?
>
> To create Ajax interfaces we need to have attributes that are not
> valid HTML. For example, my DOAP plugin cannot use Exhibit properly
> because we do not allow arbitrary attributes in our output, such as
> "ex:facets='.category'"
>
> The future?
>
> Since we are moving to XHTML2 this will not be a problem as we can use
> namespaces.
>
> What does this mean?
>
> At this stage it means we allow namespaced attributes from a source
> doc to pass through to the output HTML.
>
> Any objections to me making this change?

Nope, it's reasonable.  Have you thought through what introducing some
of these technologies means for our static build?  Just curious.

-- 
--tim

http://williamstw.blogspot.com