News

SVGWG (Scalable Vector Graphics Working Group) hits its second year

Our congratulations go out to the Scalable Vector Graphics Working Group, for their obvious long-term committment to the job.

They've been working for over a year now, which is a record. Most other working groups release a complete specification in approximately a week. I think the longest time we've ever had for a specification so far was 3 months for the Voice Browser Working Group; and that standard ended off being stored in the same place we keep our Beta videotapes and Virtual Boy goggles.

The SVGWG held a presentation night recently, and we are very impressed by their progress. In summary, they told us that last year, they wrote four quarterly reports, two half-yearly reports, and a yearly report! We were even more impressed by the fact that the group plans to write 26 fortnightly reports as well next year.

Maybe when we celebrate our 20th anniversary, the SVGWG will release a standard for vector graphics on the web?

Pronounciation Specification Working Group released

Yes, we've finally released the Pronounciation Specification Working Group (from their prison). And what have they given us? Nothing! No acronyms, no big incomprehensible reference guides, not even any numbers we can add to our counter.

But now they're all talking in exactly the same way, which is quite spooky. It's all "Al-oo-min-um" and "tom-ar-do" and "j-if" and "d-ay-tah". Maybe they didn't quite understand what we meant when we told them to come up with a pronounciation specification...

Choreography Services Markup Language released!

CSML is a completely new, XML-based standard for portraying dance movements through the Internet.

Just in case anyone finds any sort of use for this language, an example of the syntax can be found on the CSML page.

New language

No, actually this news item is not about today's latest standard! (for information about that, see "CSML")

We would like for one of the Ws in our name to stand for "Webster". However, this cannot be. All the same, what's stopping us from attempting to influence the English language?

How many times have you gone to a search engine and in the search results gotten a NOFRAMES message instead of a page description? Those usually say "Sorry, your browser doesn't have frames so you can't view this page". My uncle's mother-in-law's dog's original owner's 8-year-old child gets confused by this, as she thinks that the message relates to HER browser. Or maybe it's because she doesn't know what frames are. I dunno.

So that everyone can understand these NOFRAMES messages, we have decreed that the word "browser" is not to be used; replace it instead with the phrase "user-agent". Henceforth, when little Caitlin surfs the web, she will now be told that her "user-agent doesn't support frames", which should be a hellova lot more simple for her to understand.

Clarification: How to insert an image

Last week when we pulled XXHTML out of our... I mean, created the standard, many people e-mailed us asking why we left the <img> tag out of the specification. After we wrote back to them and told them that their HTML 4-formatted e-mails crashed our whizz-bang XML-parsing e-mail client, we decided to clarify how to insert an image into an XXHTML document.

There is indeed no longer an image tag. You must use any other tag, with a src attribute, to insert an image. For example:

<p src="image.jpg"> or <span src="image.jpg">

We're not entirely sure yet how the web coder is supposed to flow text around this image. We think this new standard may also break the embed, bgsound, frame, and layer tags; plus all Javascript which is being used for Dynamic purposes... but hey, everyone should've converted their documents to XXHTML immediately, then we wouldn't have these problems!

How to use XML Events (not that anyone has implemented them...)

In previous versions of HTML, a Javascript command could be attached to an object using the "onXxxx" attributes of an element, for instance:

<input type="button" name="myButton" onClick="doEvent()" />

On the weekend, we sat down and complained about this. Clicking is not the only way to activate a button, you know. And what if the web designer wanted to use a proprietry scripting language like VBScript as well as Javascript, attaching different scripts to the same event? (this is hypothetical of course - in 12 years of the web, nobody has ever wanted to do this).

So now, because we just LOVE XML, we've confused the whole process by using substandard syntax:

<script type="ascii/text/script/dotsyntax/javascript" ev:"DOMActivate" listener.ev:"document.myButton">

doEvent()

</script>

We will continue to complain next weekend if XML Events have not been implemented in all browser releases.

Depriciated: The document.write() command

In XXHTML 1.0, the document.write() Javascript command no longer works. This is because the XML parsing standard we created is so shoddy it does not allow for dynamic writing of strings.

Instead, you should use the createElement() command, like thus:

document.createElement("<p>")
document.createElement("<b>This is some")
document.createElement("<a href="page.html>linked text</a>")
document.createElement("</b>")
document.createElement("</p>")

Of course, this example should not be attempted, as the bold command has been depreciated in favour of stylesheets.

XXHTML 1.0 released!

The W3C is pleased to announce a new standard for the web. XXHTML offers the same features of XHTML but with more complicated syntax. It is designed to seamlessly integrate with half a dozen other completely different languages, including CSSSSS (Confusing SubStandard-Syntax Style Sheets). The FONT tag has been depreciated and we recommend you should use CSSSSS or the <big> and <small> tags, which are still supported.

Notification of alteration to SCRIPT tag

The recommended attributes of the SCRIPT tag were altered last week. Previously, a valid SCRIPT declaration contained the type attribute, usually set to "text/javascript". However, the W3C's Committee to Destroying Sensible HTML reported some confusion about what "text/javascript" actually means. Their survey found that approximately 1.5% of users did not find it blindingly obvious that a JavaScript would be text.

Now a valid type attribute contains the string: "ascii/text/script/dotsyntax/javascript". The W3C recommends that all browser manufacturers implement the new standard in their next versions, or we'll sit down and have a good cry.

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