Xhtml

by Chris Minnick and Chelsea Valentine

If youre a Web developer who has worked with HTML, you will find much of XHTML instantly familiar and readily usable. However, there are parts of XHTML that are derived from XML, which may be... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0735710341
• ISBN13: 9780735710344
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: New Riders Pub
• Length: 408 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.0" x 7.0"

Customer Reviews

Ashmith.com Web Designer Review

This book has good explanations. If you are planning to migrate from HTML to XHTML this is a good choice. Other than migrating, this book offers great working examples in the provided CD. The book covers CSS with XHTML, Intoduction to XML technologies like XForms, Xlink, and XSL. So get this book to be ready for the future. Note : Some chapters are hard to understand. You might have to read again to understand it correctly.

Is it an intro, migration guide or reference?

What is XHTML? Is it just another trendy acronym for web developers to toss around? Is it the child of a marriage between Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and Extensible Markup Language (XML)? Is it worth worrying about?The authors of XHTML have chosen to answer in a variety of ways. This book takes several approaches to explaining XHTML. They range from a high-level view of "Where did XHTML come from?" to an attribute-by-attribute listing of valid XHTML syntax to an in-depth look at Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). There are also several chapters of "What's next?" topics, each touching on an aspect of internet development (multimedia, forms, graphics, and scripts).So what is XHTML? It is the Extensible Hypertext Markup Language. It's brings order to chaotic world of HTML by forcing adherence to XML standards. It promises to separate presentation from information (data). It can force a web page to act like data, with the benefit that anything that can access data can use your web page (like text-to-speech devices, mobile devices, and more). It's a W3C standard that has progressed beyond the 1.0 specification referred to in this book (and this book was published in 2001!). This book could have easily been called XHTML and CSS - because they devote many pages to the key role that CSS will play in the deployment of XHTML. CSS is the way that the presentation elements are extracted from the HTML document - leaving only the data behind.The book mostly succeeds in bringing XHTML to a wide audience. It tries to be an introduction, migration guide, and language reference. I recommend it to anyone interested in taking their internet development to the next level.

a good place to start

XHTML, by Chelsea Valentine and Chris Minnick is a useful book; it gives the reader an overview of XHTML. The book does not cover all details, but refers to web sites and other books for more information. The choice not to dive in all the details makes this book an introduction into XHTML, and not an XHTML reference, although the reader can find a lot of details in the book. It's true, you learn all the predefined XHTML markup elements, including element and attribute usage as well as syntax. After reading the book, you understand the need for converting from HTML to XHTML, and the importance of using CSS, and XSL. The book also provides a picture of how XHTML is going to develop. Readers already familiar with books such as Steven Holzner's Inside XML would not benefit from this book. Readers looking for an introduction to XHTML would find XHTML a good place to start.

Keeping Up with Languages

XHTML or Extensible Hypertext markup Language is one of the Internet's newer languages. XHTML begins by giving a basic overview of what it is. The authors devote 70 pages to elements such as big, cite, superscript and subscript plus many, many others! They go on to explain the major differences between HTML and XHTML and browser requirements and compatibility issues.Other subjects included in XHTML are XSL (one chapter), Xforms (a very brief discussion), Creating Dynamic XHTML Pages (18 pages) and Working with Multimedia and Graphics (Chapter 10). In comparing XSL to CSS, there is a graphic to show when and where to use each language. Don't forget to read the chapter on converting existing HTML to XHTML.With a 100 plus pages of reference material AND a CD-ROM, XHTML should provide the reader with a solid footing in this up and coming language.

Taking the transistion down an easier road.

HTML is the underlying code for every web page your see today and XML is fast becoming the best way to produce web pages so why not combine the two and see what happens? That's exactly what the authors of this book have done and the result is a book that makes XHTML understandable and easy to use.Understand the book is only 400 pages and that is more than enough o make sure you have an in depth coverage of the subject matter. The authors are truly experts in the field and their use of real world examples are proof positive.Starting with an explanation of how XHTML came to be is only the tip of what this book covers. Then you go onto covering the conversion of HTML documents to XHTML in a step-by-step process.The authors also cover tools, CSS, XSL, xFroms, scripts, objects, multimedia and finally advanced techniques. The appendixes included with the book give you a very complete listing of XHTML elements and attributes as well as CSS properties, resources and tools. Finally there is a cd-rom included with ready to use examples and some demo software and tools and web resources. Overall this is the first book I have reviewed on this subject and it may very well be the only one I need.