What does an browser understand? What does an HTML document contain?
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2008-09-15 15:29:44 - Graham Ellis
What would I expect a browser to understand?• HTML (To describe how the page is marked up)
• Images - .jpg .gif .png (Photos, diagrams, etc)
• Style Sheets - .css (To set the look and feel)
and probably (but progressively less likely:
• JavaScript (for local helpers such as form validation)
• Flash (Dynamic graphics)
• ActiveX Components (For running code within a sandbox)
• Java Applets (for running code in a restricted area)
What would I expect to find in a file of HTML?• HTML (Instructions for browser text layout)
• Style (How particular tagged types are to be rendered)
• PHP (Code to be run on the server)
• JavaScript (For running on the browser)
• MySQL (For the PHP to use to access the database)
• English (For the web site visitor to read)
* The PHP and MySQL will only be present in the HTML if you're applying a filter such as PHP to the code
and I would HOPE to find comments in the code / file to tell me how it all works.
I see the top of my first 'board' says "KISS". Although I've described what the user's browser is likely to accept, that's not to say that all user's browsers will accept all possibilities of HTML, Javascript and CSS. In fact with so many different browser types, written by so many different authors, each with their own idea of the specification and extensions we say Keep It Simple, Stupid!