Velocity Reviews - The right DOCTYPE?

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The right DOCTYPE?

I haven't given much thought to DOCTYPE before. I have a vague idea of
what it is and why it's there: to tell the browser what rules to follow
when rendering the page.

I have a ASP.net 1.1 application that has a little added JavaScript in
it, but is by no means what I'd consider JavaScript intensive. It makes
use of a stylesheet in fairly conservative ways and in general uses the
html generated by VS.NET 2003.

Now one of our clients says our doctype is out of date and "causing
problems". I haven't heard what the problems are, but thought I'd better
get some background on the subject.

Should I not be using the default DOCTYPE that VS.NET 2003 automatically
inserts? If not, what should I use (or how do I decide)? If so, then
what do I say to convince this client that it's OK?

Here's is what all the current pages have:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">

Thanks for any suggeastions or ideas!

Matt

Re: The right DOCTYPE?

Hello MattB,

DOCTYPE specify the version of HTML for browers
Read about it here http://htmlhelp.com/reference/html40/html/doctype.html

You need to use it to keep your html as much possible compliant to browsers

---
WBR, Michael Nemtsev [.NET/C# MVP].
My blog: http://spaces.live.com/laflour
Team blog: http://devkids.blogspot.com/

"The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we
miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it" (c) Michelangelo

M> I haven't given much thought to DOCTYPE before. I have a vague idea
M> of what it is and why it's there: to tell the browser what rules to
M> follow when rendering the page.
M>
M> I have a ASP.net 1.1 application that has a little added JavaScript
M> in it, but is by no means what I'd consider JavaScript intensive. It
M> makes use of a stylesheet in fairly conservative ways and in general
M> uses the html generated by VS.NET 2003.
M>
M> Now one of our clients says our doctype is out of date and "causing
M> problems". I haven't heard what the problems are, but thought I'd
M> better get some background on the subject.
M>
M> Should I not be using the default DOCTYPE that VS.NET 2003
M> automatically inserts? If not, what should I use (or how do I
M> decide)? If so, then what do I say to convince this client that it's
M> OK?
M>
M> Here's is what all the current pages have:
M> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
M> Thanks for any suggeastions or ideas!
M>
M> Matt
M>