Mozilla/Firebird & bold type

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Toneboy
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Mozilla/Firebird & bold type

Post by Toneboy »

Well, after years of nearly always using IE I finally downloaded the Mozilla/Firebird package. At first it was just to check cross-browser functionality, but after being a bit sceptical at first I'm warming to it.

Anyway, I took a look around trulybizarre.co.uk with Firebird, and for the most part I was breathing a sigh of relief. Just one small thing...

If you take a look at the front page in Firebird you'll see way too much of it looks like it is in bold, which isn't the way it is meant to be. For Firebird purposes, is it better to use <strong> instead of <b> tags, or should you go a whole different way and use <div> tags instead?
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patrikG
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Post by patrikG »

The reason why that website looks as if the letters were in bold is because they are ;)

<strong> or <b> both work fine in Firebird.
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Toneboy
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Post by Toneboy »

Just double-checked the source code. No closing </b> tags on either of the offending paragraphs.

As Bill Simmons might say, "The lesson, as always: I'm an idiot." :oops:
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Post by Unipus »

<strong> is supposed to be used in place of <b> which has been deprecated. So from now on, start using <strong> instead of <b> and <em> instead of <i>.
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Post by Unipus »

But to clarify, that has nothing to do with your issue, which has already been resolved; Firebird can render <b> tags just fine.
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no_memories
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Post by no_memories »

you can also use a css rule.

<div> the sentance is here and this is <span class="b">bold<span></div>

the style will look like this: .b { font-weight: bold; }
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Post by Unipus »

You can, but the example you've given is non-intuitive, more work than it needs to be, and fairly useless. So hopefully you were just proving a point. :)
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Post by d3ad1ysp0rk »

why did they deprecate <b> and <i>?

There's so nice and short.. and everyone knows what they mean.. :(
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Post by Unipus »

It implies a visual connection that's not necessarily relevant (for screen readers, etc.). So instead, to be semantically accurate, you should move to (and define your own styles for, when appropriate) <strong> and <em> (for EMphasis). A tiny bit more typing, yeah, but not that hard to get used to.
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no_memories
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Post by no_memories »

ok,

I was looking at the original post, and it simply was in regards to creating a bold or strong type within a given sentence, if I am correct?

The reason I posted the CSS rule was in reference to the W3C's own recommendations that markup gradually give way to CSS. Older HTML markups are being brushed aside in recent versions of XHTML in favor of CSS.

Firebird is a reflection of these standards being implemented. It doesn't let you get away with open ended tags. I.E. is a bit more forgiving, but if you simply code for I.E. alone, it's almost guaranteed that your site will not display properly in other top browsers. And, as we all know, CSS class selectors take out the redundant nature of older markup.

lol, that was a mouthful.. No pun intended. :)
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Post by Unipus »

Heh. I think you're over-zealously misinterpreting W3C recs. There's absolutely no reason to code a CSS class for a style that's already handled by a perfectly valid, non-deprecated html tag. This is not the same thing as separating style from markup, because with the use of the <strong> tag you still have all the styling options in the world. But making a new class that does basically nothing is neither more efficient nor recommendable.
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no_memories
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Post by no_memories »

lol, you're correct. Most markup is perfectly acceptable in today's standards.

I was simply pointing out an alternative to markup, for what its worth. I am experimenting with layouts based totally on CSS, so I am partial to its use.

But on the other hand, XHTML 2.0 will be cutting out certain markup. http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml2/

Then there is future versions; 3.0 and beyond.

http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#prohibitions <-- Interesting to look into.

ok, I leave this topic alone now.. lol :) peace
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Toneboy
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Post by Toneboy »

Got it sorted. :)

By the way, I don't mean to set off a massive discussion every time I post here, it just seems to happen that way.

Interesting that IE let me get away with some sloppy code. Over the past few days I've come to like Mozilla more and more. At the very least I'll be using it for a lot of testing.
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Post by Unipus »

That's what IE does, and that's why I ALWAYS design to test in Firebird and then, when all is good, check in IE. Usually everything lines up okay. Trying to do it going the other direction is a much bigger hassle.
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Post by twigletmac »

Even big sites are guilty of sloppy coding - Firebird underlines <a name="xx"></a> links so if someone forgets to put the closing </a> I get loads of underlined paragraphs, the BBC news site has been guilty of this a few times. IE is way too forgiving.

Mac
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