Closed Bug 36045 Opened 24 years ago Closed 23 years ago

Existence of quirks mode needs to be documented

Categories

(Documentation Graveyard :: Web Developer, defect, P3)

Product:
Documentation Graveyard
Component:
Web Developer
Type:
defect

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
VERIFIED FIXED

People

(Reporter: hsivonen, Assigned: rudman)

References

Details

(Keywords: relnote, Whiteboard: [nsbeta2-] relnote-devel) 

Even if the exact details of the Quirks mode are currently undocumented, the

existance of the Quirks mode (and how to force Standard mode) should be

documented conspicuously ASAP on www.mozilla.org to ease the work of Web

designers who are testing their markup and styles with Mozilla.



(Note: this is not a duplicate of bug 31932 which is about documenting the

details of different modes.)
Blocks: 31932
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
Nominating nsbeta2, because more Web designers are likely to try their pages with a 
Mozilla-based browser once PR2 is out.
Keywords: nsbeta2
Putting on nsbeta2+ radar.  verah, can you release not that quirks are now in 
for developers to use in beta2 please.
Keywords: relnote
QA Contact: rudman → verah
Whiteboard: [nsbeta2+]
Vera, I'll provide some content for this. The relnotes, when posted for beta2, 
can link to the mozilla.org item, which will appear sooner than beta2.


Okay -- I have this in the list for the PR2 release notes. Copying Sammy so he 
can add this to the M17 release notes.
has any work been done yet for this nsbeta2+'er?
Per today's PDT mtg, moving from [nsbeta2+] to [nsbeta2-]
will not hold PR2 if this is not done.
Keywords: relnote → relnote2
Whiteboard: [nsbeta2+] → [nsbeta2-]
I actually wrote some documentation (more intended to stimulate discussion about
the remaining issues than document for all time) on this:

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~dbaron/mozilla/modes

It does document the current state of these things.
dbaron, rickg is it safe to publish the following points?

* There are different parser and layout modes for standards compliance and Nav quirks
* To make sure a document is considered quirky, leave the doctype declaration out
* To make sure a document conforming to HTML 4.01 Strict is handled according to the 
specs, put in the strict doctype declaration with the URI
* To make sure a document conforming to HTML 4.01 Transitional is handled according 
to the specs, put in the transitional doctype declaration with the URI
* Use the above-mentioned doctype declarations if and only if the document comforms to 
the relevant parts of the HTML 4.01 spec.
(Answering my own question)
It appears it is not safe to publish anything definitive about the handling of
Transitional doctypes with the URI at this time. :-(

Still, it would be a good idea to relnote that a transitional doctype
declaration shouldn't be used to mean "I want quirks". (And that one should use
a particular doctype declaration if and only if the document really complies
with the relevant spec.)
rudman, could you, please, add the following item to the release notes of the next 
milestone and to some documentation page on mozilla.org?

Suggested documentation item that describes the situation as of 2000-10-19 (now that 
the fix for bug 42525 has landed):

Mozilla has two layout modes: quirks and standard. The quirks mode mimics the 
behavior of Netscape Navigator 4.x while the standards mode aims to comply with the 
Recommendations of the World Wide Web Consortium. The mode is picked based on the 
doctype declaration (or the lack thereof) at the beginning of an HTML document.

Here are simple guidelines for picking a doctype declaration:

- For documents that rely on behavior of old browsers:
no doctype declaration

- For documents that comply with the CSS2 box layout model* and validate as HTML 
4.01 Transitional (may contain deprecated markup for legacy browsers):
HTML 4.01 Transitional doctype declaration full with the URI ie.
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" 
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">

- For documents that comply with the CSS2 box layout model* and validate as HTML 
4.01 Strict:
HTML 4.01 Strict doctype declaration ie.
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" 
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">

* Please note that in the CSS2 box layout model the default vertical sizing of layout 
boxes and the default vertical alignment of images is different from the behavior of old 
browsers and the quirks mode.
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/visudet.html#q15
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/visudet.html#propdef-vertical-align
These aspects of the layout can be changed by explicitly overriding the default
values via a CSS style sheet.
Keywords: relnote
Keywords: relnote2
Whiteboard: [nsbeta2-] → [nsbeta2-] relnote-devel
reassigning to rudman's correct user id
Assignee: rudman → rudman
Status: ASSIGNED → NEW
Yes, this one is fixed.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 23 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
Summary: Existance of quirks mode needs to be documented → Existence of quirks mode needs to be documented
v
Status: RESOLVED → VERIFIED
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