B.7 Hypertext

Status

XHTML 1.0 became a W3C Recommendation in January 2000, with a Second Edition in August 2002. The specification is published at http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/. Modularization of XHTML, which became a Recommendation in April 2001, is published at http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-modularization/. XHTML 1.1, module-based XHTML, which became a Recommendation in May 2001, is published at http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/. A subset of XHTML 1.1, XHTML Basic, became a W3C Recommendation in December 2000, and is published at http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-basic. Finally, work on XHTML 2.0 has started, and working drafts are available at

Description

XHTML 1.0 is a reformulation of HTML 4 as an XML 1.0 application. The specification defines three DTDs corresponding to the ones defined by HTML 4. The semantics of the elements and their attributes are defined in the W3C Recommendation for HTML 4, and provide the foundation for future extensibility of XHTML. Compatibility with existing HTML user agents is possible by following a small set of guidelines. XHTML 1.1 reformulates HTML as a set of modules, and XHTML Basic creates a subset of XHTML for use on smaller devices. XHTML 2.0 is now under development, and represents the first major changes to the HTML vocabulary since HTML 4.0.

Status

HTML 4.01 is the latest version of the W3C Recommendation, dated December 1999. The specification is published at http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/.

Description

In addition to the text, multimedia, and hyperlink features of previous versions, HTML 4 supports more multimedia options, scripting languages, and stylesheets, as well as better printing facilities and documents that are more accessible to users with disabilities. HTML 4 also takes great strides towards the internationalization of documents.