On Sunday, August 15, 2010 02:35:42 pm Jirka Kosek wrote:
> > structure
> > navigation
>
> These elements are not supported in IE6/7 and they can't be CSS styled
> there without using supplement Javascript library.
So? That doesn't mean they are valueless. There's nothing wrong with using
those supplemental libraries if appropriate.
And while IE 6 may need Javascript to support them, search engines already
know all about the new tags...
> This is not well supported by all browsers, usually you have to use some
> additional Javascript library to get MathML support in wider range of
> browsers (http://www.mathjax.org/). (Btw, I hope to integrate support
> for MathJax into stylesheets soon.)
Ibid.
> > Equally, I'm curious to know how far back in the browser chain you'd
> > like to go with docbook support? Netscape?
>
> IE6 is still very widespread, especially in large corporations. Default
> stylesheets output should definitively work in it.
That varies widely depending on your market. The main site I use DocBook for
is 50% Firefox users and less than 2% IE 6; A few months ago I officially
announced that our software doesn't care about IE 6 any more, and I'm not
really going to bother with IE 7, either. That user base is using almost
entirely modern browsers.
Meanwhile, South Korea is stuck on IE 6 because of all the IE 6-specific
ActiveX in government and banking web sites. It varies super widely, even
though Microsoft would love for IE 6 to die, too. We're talking about a
decade-old browser. :-)
You make a valid point that many HTML 5 features are not well supported by the
existing install base... yet. There's a chicken and egg question there as
there always is with a new technology.
So what's the downside of an HTML5-based output option (not required for all
output, but an option alongside the various other targets) that people can use
when their particular user base is HTML5-capable enough? Wouldn't the easy
availability of such a target help push HTML5 forward by providing more HTML5-
dependent content, creating a demand among users for better HTML5-supporting
browsers? That would mean people viewing DocBook output would, when they
upgrade their browser, poof, get the new hotness because it's already there
waiting for them?
It seems a sensible idea to me.
--Larry Garfield
