[Typo3-dev] XHTML compliancy, old TypoScript and beyond..

[Michael Scharkow]

[this is basically a reply to an old post by Masi but I wanted it to be 
on top in your newsreaders ;)]

Martin Kutschker wrote:

 > I'm a bit disappointed that besides a few use "xhtml compliancy" quite
 > often nobody bothers to point out any specific bugs. Especially as it 
 > is said that some users have even patches.

Hi Masi,

we've just discussed the compliancy issue in the bugfixers list, but I 
have not found any definitive decision on the issues of what should be 
supported. Maybe we can re-animate this thread in order to get stuff 
sorted out for 3.8

1. What is the current policy for TYPO3 3.8+?
According to the T3 CGL, we require XHTML (transitional) / CSS 
compliance. Practically, at the moment, we semi-support HTML4 and XHTML 
1.x in TYPO3, resulting in things like xhtml_cleaning and various 
conditional stuff which is either implemented already, or requested for 
cases in which valid xhtml is invalid html4.
Various people, including Wolfgang Klinger and me, have proposed to 
concentrate on XHTML only, dropping HTML4 support. I find no sensible 
objections to that, other than the typical legacy issues ("We started 
with HTML4 in 1999 and want to continue that...")
Supporting both valid HTML4 and XHTML still requires a lot of work I'd 
rather spend somewhere else.

2. Once we do settle on a policy, can we provide the users with the 
appropriate, consistent, valid, bug-free content rendering? CSC has come 
a long way, but there still seem to be quite a lot of issues with 
"buggy" TS.

As a result, I see the following todos:

1. Making -core and sysexts completely XHTML 1.x compliant real soon now.
2. Removing the obsolete, non-XHTML TS from default installations (like 
content(default), cSet, basically most of the static templates, as 
listed in http://typo3.org/documentation/document-library/doc_statictmpl)

3. Creating new example templates that are XHTML, use CSC for rendering 
and show more of the new features, thus replacing the old glück, green, 
business templates. Can we distribute those with the new import 
extension, or should we create an example templates extension, like the 
accessibility template?

I know this has been discussed a few times, but solving this issue would 
spare us a lot of user requests ("I want to XHTMLize my 
content(default)") and bug reports. Plus, a more rigid approach (like 
the plone people have) would make it newbie-friendlier with valid and 
modern out-of-the-box-templates.

Greetings,
Michael