[Bug 278123] New: Investigating Konqueror Bugs, HTML/CSS problem section should use a doctype triggering web standards compliant rendering mode

Wed Jul 20 05:16:43 UTC 2011

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=278123

           Summary: Investigating Konqueror Bugs, HTML/CSS problem section
                    should use a doctype triggering web standards
                    compliant rendering mode
           Product: www.kde.org
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: Ubuntu Packages
        OS/Version: Linux
            Status: UNCONFIRMED
          Severity: normal
          Priority: NOR
         Component: general
        AssignedTo: kde-www at kde.org
        ReportedBy: browserbugs at gtalbot.org

Version:           unspecified (using KDE 4.6.4) 
OS:                Linux

Investigating Konqueror Bugs, HTML/CSS problem
http://www.konqueror.org/investigatebug/#html

offers to use a doctype declaration which is going to trigger Konqueror into
backward-compatible "quirks" rendering mode.

Now, by definition, backward-compatible "quirks" rendering mode is an
intentional violation of standards and specifications where mainstream browsers
(IE, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera) rendering vary greatly. 

This is why web standards compliant rendering mode is always preferable:
because the rendering is much more predictable, because the rendering is much
more consistent across browsers and because the browser tries to follow the
specification.

None of this happens in backward-compatible "quirks" rendering mode: the
rendering simulates the bugs in IE4 and IE5. There is no official,
authoritative specification of what happens or should happen in browsers when
triggered into backward-compatible "quirks" rendering mode.

Basically, backward-compatible "quirks" rendering mode is a rendering mode
where almost anything can happen in terms of page layout and there is no good
or bad rendering, there is no correct or incorrect rendering in
backward-compatible "quirks" rendering mode.

By definition, backward-compatible "quirks" rendering mode is a rendering mode
that does not necessarly tries to follow web standards: in fact, it often does
not and its quirks vary greatly from one browser to another. 

Also, the code section of item #6 suggests that the HTML code does not have to
be valid when the first step of any testcase trying to demonstrate a bug, a
problem of some sort would be to create a testcase using valid code.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
Load 
http://www.konqueror.org/investigatebug/#html
and read item #6

Actual Results:  
{
The HTML does not have to be valid, however it is still recommended to use
validator.w3.org (note that you can upload files there, they don't have to be
online) to check the basic structure of your document. Here's an example of a
minimal test case that's valid HTML:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
}

Expected Results:  
{
The HTML code should be valid and you can use validator.w3.org (note that you
can upload files there, they don't have to be online) to check the basic
structure of your document. Here's an example of a minimal test case that's
valid HTML:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN">
}

Load the sample code example into a webpage and then do
View/View document informations Ctrl+I

and here, the "Rendering mode" should say "Strict".

Additional reading:
1- 
What happens in Quirks Mode?
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/quirks-mode.html

2-
Debugging CSS - HTML validation
"It is useless to start debugging a page when the HTML is not valid."
http://css.tests.free.fr/en/html_validation.php

Debugging CSS - CSS validation
"Once HTML is valid, we must validate the CSS as it is useless to start
debugging a page when the HTML is valid but the style rules are not."
http://css.tests.free.fr/en/css_validation.php

With browsers (in particular IE8, IE9 and IE10 Platform previews) now
following, complying with web standards, leniency with regards to HTML
validation errors should be formally discouraged and using a best doctype
declaration triggering web standards compliant rendering mode should be
formally encouraged. Konqueror users and developers and bug reports will gain
from this.

regards, Gérard

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