[whatwg] HTML5 DOCTYPE

Sat Dec 1 07:11:01 PST 2007

On 11/30/07, Yuhong Bao <yuhongbao_386 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> I agree that the HTML5 DOCTYPE should be optional

In Opera, goto opera:config#CompatMode%20Override and set the
CompatMode Override to 2. This will make Opera always use standards
mode for HTML even if there isn't a doctype.

So,

<html>
    <head>
        <meta charset="utf-8">
        <title>HTML5 document</title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <p>This is an HTML5 document.</p>
    </body>
</html>

would be rendered in standards mode.

Now, browse around the net and see what sites look funny.
Specifically, try Gmail (and other sites that normally invoke quirks
mode).

What you will see is that on some sites, forcing standards mode breaks pages.

So, basically, you can't have standards mode be active all the time
and get the disired results on existing pages.

Now, for HTML5 pages specifically, browsers could always force
standards mode, but without the HTML5 doctype, there would have to be
something like <html version="5"> so browsers would know when to force
standards mode. However, <!DOCTYPE html> already accomplishes that
behavior now.

So, to make the doctype optional, there has to be another/different
way to specify that the document is HTML5. Whether we want
another/different way though is the question.

> but how about expanding it to the full thing like the HTML 4.01 DOCTYPE?

For what reason?

-- 
Michael