DOCTYPE Disaster.

**puffnstuff** · 02-22-2007, 04:54 PM

I have created a website with several pages. There is a combination of HTML, a little JavaScript, and an external CSS style sheet. Currently, NONE of the pages have a DTD statement at the top.....and everything works fine (I think).

However, in reading many sites, I am under the impression that each page MUST have a DOCTYPE statement. So, I attempted to add the one that was most recommended:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">

This gave disastrous results, with images disappearing everwhere. I tried other versions of DTD's, like 4.01 strict, and some of the text colors defined in my CSS disappeared! What's going on? How do I know which DTD is the right one?

**BLiZZaRD** · 02-22-2007, 05:03 PM

When you do not have a DOCTYPE, the browser goes into quirks mode, and basically this is what is screwing up.

If you validate you pages You will see the errors, where they are and can fix them.

Once the page is valid you should notice that it looks great.

You can also validate your CSS there

**puffnstuff** · 02-22-2007, 06:38 PM

So.....which DOCTYPE should I be using? I have seen so many different ones, and I don't really know which one is right.

The pages all display and behave properly WITHOUT a doctype. But as soon as I add any sort of doctype declaration, the whole site goes haywire.

And I can't validate the pages without the doctype.

**jscheuer1** · 02-22-2007, 06:53 PM

You don't need a DOCTYPE but one day (in a universe far far away) you may. However, if you are just starting out, a strict HTML 4.01 DOCTYPE is the way to go:

Code:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title></title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">

</head>
<body>

</body>
</html>

You may think your page looks OK without it and without validation but, that is probably just in one version of one browser (the one that you check your work in). To code effectively with no DOCTYPE across browsers is actually a more advanced technique than using the strict DOCTYPE and can have certain advantages. Coding with no DOCTYPE for only one browser is easy but, then your pages must be viewed in that one browser.

**BLiZZaRD** · 02-22-2007, 08:00 PM

Agreed.

Also, if you are just starting out you can use the transitional doctype to get your page up and viewable.

Then force the validation to check as strict, fix those errors then switch to Strict when it all works right.

As John says, you can get away with none right now, but probably not for very much longer.

**Twey** · 02-22-2007, 10:11 PM

Also, if you are just starting out you can use the transitional doctype to get your page up and viewable.

Not a good idea -- you might use (and possibly hinge your design on) something that has no Strict equivalent.

**BLiZZaRD** · 02-22-2007, 11:29 PM

No, but for someone that is learning, and going from no doctype, using the more forgivable trans type will give them something to look at while they adjust.

I know for me it really helps. I have had pages act just the way the OP describes, couldn't get it for the life of me. But then putting it in trans first I could see the spots in question.

Making the move to strict was simplified going from trans type than from no type at all.

**puffnstuff** · 02-23-2007, 08:45 PM

Thanks for your sage advice. I have managed to (so far, I think....LOL) put in a Transitional DTD, that does not bugger up the page layouts.

One more question: (Perhaps this should be a new thread?)

Why is it that when I do a google search on keywords within the site (words that are text on the main page), as well as keywords that have been placed in the meta name "keywords" statement, the page never comes up on google? What do I have to do to make it detectable by various search engines? Can you tell I'm really really green at this?

**puffnstuff** · 02-23-2007, 08:48 PM

At first I thought the lack of search engine success was due to the complete lack of DTD. But now that I have the DTD in there, it's still not coming up with a google search. So what else am I missing, here?

**Tristan S.S.** · 02-23-2007, 08:50 PM

Hey Hey!

Visit this page and submit you site to google's engine, that should fix your problem, however it does take some time to be indexed by google, sometimes weeks, sometimes months!

http://www.google.com/addurl/

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