Dynamic HTML: The Definitive Reference

Chapter 7. Looking Ahead to HTML 4.0

As the installed base of web browsers increases over time, that base becomes more and more fragmented. It is not uncommon for users to choose not to upgrade to the latest browser version or for organizations to prohibit individuals from upgrading beyond a corporate standard that may be one or two generations old. This makes the job of adopting new W3C standards difficult, for both web browser makers and page authors. The breadth of the changes from HTML 3.2 to 4.0 reveals the depth of the quandary facing web developers.

Regardless of the latest bells and whistles or the “preferred” way to apply certain content formats, there are still many thousands of web pages on the Net that use techniques long gone from the standards documents. Web browser makers bear the burden of this “ancient” baggage, as their browsers must continue to be backward compatible with previous versions of HTML, all the way back to HTML 1.0. Unfortunately, this continued support can lead casual page authors to believe that the old ways are just fine, so there is no incentive to use the latest tags.

The purpose of this chapter is to acquaint you with the changes that have been made to the HTML recommendation between Version 3.2 and Version 4.0. A large number of tags and attributes have been deprecated because their original functions are now covered by Cascading Style Sheets. It is clear that HTML document creation is moving toward the separation of content from format. This, ...