Helping to once again promote adventure games

[plamdi]

When I purchased SCUMMGAMES.NET it was a very spur of the moment impulse decision.

 

How am I going to use it?

 

To promote Adventure Games, primarily. Obviously not everything that I would like will be there initially, but I'm going to use it to (ultimately) 1. distribute freeware/shareware/demos/videos/tools... 2. track and promote new and developing adventure games, 3. provide access to other fan-pleasing material (for instance, shortly before or after MI:SE I will have created DVD artwork, so that everyone who purchases the game can print it, burn the game to disc and put it on their shelf).

 

But I'm also open to suggestions before I finalize the plan for the website. Any comments?

 

Oh, and as I'll be using an entirely CSS-based design (yes, I've completely switched to 100% CSS designing - no script, as little html "structure" as is possible) I'm just starting with a simple design that I know I can completely change later very easily - because I think it's more important to get the content complete.

[LordTrilobite]

Walkthroughs, trivias, behind the scenes and such, of course these things can always be found on other sites, but it's good to have everything you need in one place.

[Ascovel]

Walkthroughs, trivias, behind the scenes and such, of course these things can always be found on other sites, but it's good to have everything you need in one place.

 

Nah, too much work. It's better to focus on having something special and things you like and know than putting in a bit of everything.

 

Btw I'd gladly hear your opinions about my own indie adventure gaming blog hardydev.com, plamdi.

[Snugglecakes]

Quite a good read of a blog you have there Ascovel

[plamdi]

Thanks for the feedback, I'll be sure to check out that blog when I get a chance. The website design is done, and I'm getting the first pages completed... this is one of them:

 

http://scummgames.net/miposters.php

 

I've just added my scan of the Classic Tales box while I wait for the complete copy I bought off ebay to arrive. I'll add a few other artwork pages - which will be in HTML 3.2 for the time being until I get a chance to put them into their own correct category and integrate it into the (relatively) simple HTML 4.1+CSS design. They will have their own design in terms of how each downloadable image is presented, hance I haven't designed that yet in CSS - once I have I can remove all the img tags and use a standard list with links in it and use CSS to insert the images - as I've done with all the other images. I'm not completely against img tags, I'd just rather avoid them until they're necessary. Plus I'll probably use an img rollover and the best way in the world to do that is using a single image that you shift the position of as background element so that the browser never has to download an additional image. Thus it's instant and never needs to cache first.

 

To give you an idea this is the complete HTML:

 

http://scummgames.net/htmlonly.php

 

from there it is "transformed" using CSS. This is what it looks like with css (this is the same HTML code, the only thing changed is the style-sheet):

 

http://scummgames.net/withcss.php

 

The other two initial pages will be MI:SE and Tales of MI. Then I'll add other developing adventure games, as well as pages on oldies too.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Looking good, although you have a very confusing way of developing websites. (What are you using the PHP for??)

[plamdi]

Thanks for the feedback!

 

I don't see what's so confusing about it. It's simple, straightfoward correctly structured HTML and then CSS - nothing could possibly be simpler (except HTML 3.2 that doesn't support CSS... but then writing in tables etc is a more complicated HTML structure anyway). I'm using php (mainly) to insert the links (so I only have to edit one thing to update all pages). Thanks for asking, cause I made a typo in the previous post and wrote "php" instead of "css" (fixed). Same thing with images and php - you change the size of an image and the file with one edit, rather then individually editing the pages.

 

I may later add XHTML support through php too (I completely detest XHTML being used in place of HTML, I think it's noob, ignorant, useless, stupid, and above all arrogant. Webmasters that don't understand that XHTML is an XML format and not an HTML format shouldn't touch it in the first place - they're like a virus infecting correct coding of webpages. I hate it so very much!)

[ThunderPeel2001]

Good lord... I love XHTML and those that don't code in it don't know what they're doing, IMO. The fact that it's written in XML makes absolutely no difference to anybody anywhere ever.

 

So, that's what I think.

[s-island]

XHTML smells nice.

[Snugglecakes]

XHTML & CSS... the best thing since sliced bread.

 

I've had a few tries (one very successful) at these fans sites, and found that messing with complicated stuff is a bit of a waste most of the time. For something like Mojo, sure, it's a regularly updated news source and obviously requires database access etc, but for the static sites that most of us should be making (having a news section that never gets updated is worse than not having one at all), rather use simple clever CSS & includes.

[ThunderPeel2001]

PHP and MySQL is actually really easy, so there's no real reason not to include them if they'd be useful to you.

 

Well, maybe they're not *really* easy, like if you're new to programming or something, but it's certainly not too difficult.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I may later add XHTML support through php too (I completely detest XHTML being used in place of HTML, I think it's noob, ignorant, useless, stupid, and above all arrogant. Webmasters that don't understand that XHTML is an XML format and not an HTML format shouldn't touch it in the first place - they're like a virus infecting correct coding of webpages. I hate it so very much!)

 

I've got a little more time to properly respond to this now, plamdi. I'm not sure where you got your idea that XHTML isn't HTML from, but you've been misinformed by somebody or something. There's certainly no reason to hate it or the people who use it. I'm sure you'll be pleased to hear that it's not as bad as you thought.

 

XML is just a series of rules. XHTML is just HTML that follows those rules (all lower case, every opening tag has a closing tag, etc.). They could have called it HTML 5.0, but they didn't. It makes no difference to your browser or to your server or to anyone. XHTML does add some kickass features, too, if you ever decide to use them, and, in theory, it's more future-proofed than older versions of HTML (and it's not even new, it's been around since 2000, so those older versions you're using are even older!).

 

It's nothing like a virus and there's no reason to hate it.

[s-island]

PHP and MySQL give you more than enough rope to hang yourself with, security wise. The trick is to avoid that.

 

HTML 5 and CSS 3 have some nice features. I look forward to when they're supported by the major browsers. After waiting years for IE to implement SVG, I'm not holding my breath though...

[Thrik]

The W3C has said that it does consider XHTML an updated, better version of HTML 4.01, which resolves a number of issues it felt were present in the language — in fact, for a while they intended it to replace HTML and its implementation via SGML altogether.

 

So while it is based around XML and is ideally served as such for performance reasons, it's not strictly an XML format. It was specifically designed to be backwards compatible with HTML agents and served as such.

 

What confuses me a bit more than your petty HTML/XHTML issue is the fact that you use HTML 3.2. Why are you using a standard that the W3C specifically created HTML 4 to replace and is truly antiquated?

 

Of course, you're not the first guy I've seen find out about the whole 'XHTML should be served as XML' thing and then become an arrogant moron towards anyone who uses XHTML. Ironically, these same types typically got into web standards because of the internet-wide push for XHTML compliance.

 

Like it or not, XHTML did get people interested in standards compliance; it pretty much abolished the days of tag soup and table-based structure. For that it does not deserve to be detested — and besides, once HTML 5 is finalised and adopted people will naturally transition to that anyway. No harm, no foul.

[plamdi]

I've got a little more time to properly respond to this now, plamdi. I'm not sure where you got your idea that XHTML isn't HTML from, but you've been misinformed by somebody or something.

I got the idea from W3C:

 

http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/

 

XHTML™ 1.0 The Extensible HyperText Markup Language (Second Edition)

A Reformulation of HTML 4 in XML 1.0

W3C Recommendation 26 January 2000, revised 1 August 2002

1. What is XHTML?

This section is informative.

 

XHTML is a family of current and future document types and modules that reproduce, subset, and extend HTML 4 [html4]. XHTML family document types are XML based, and ultimately are designed to work in conjunction with XML-based user agents. The details of this family and its evolution are discussed in more detail in [XHTMLMOD].

 

XHTML 1.0 (this specification) is the first document type in the XHTML family. It is a reformulation of the three HTML 4 document types as applications of XML 1.0

. It is intended to be used as a language for content that is both XML-conforming and, if some simple guidelines are followed, operates in HTML 4 conforming user agents. Developers who migrate their content to XHTML 1.0 will realize the following benefits:

 

XHTML documents are XML conforming. As such, they are readily viewed, edited, and validated with standard XML tools.

XHTML documents can be written to operate as well or better than they did before in existing HTML 4-conforming user agents as well as in new, XHTML 1.0 conforming user agents.

XHTML documents can utilize applications (e.g. scripts and applets) that rely upon either the HTML Document Object Model or the XML Document Object Model [DOM].

As the XHTML family evolves, documents conforming to XHTML 1.0 will be more likely to interoperate within and among various XHTML environments.

The XHTML family is the next step in the evolution of the Internet. By migrating to XHTML today, content developers can enter the XML world with all of its attendant benefits, while still remaining confident in their content's backward and future compatibility.

Mind you this was changed in 1.1 where they claimed it is not "backwards-compatible with html". At any rate, here is a fully compliant XHTML page:

 

http://scummgames.net/xhtmlwcss.php

 

Please excuse my laziness in not changing the HTML4.01 compliancy icon - click it and you can validate it as XHTML 1.0 Transitional (supposedly the XHTML version cloest to HTML 4.01). You cannot open that page in any browser that does not understand XHTML because it is sent using the correct MIME Type. But, even if sent as text/html it wouldn't open correctly anyway, here is the same page sent using the xtext/html MIME Type:

 

http://scummgames.net/xhtmlwcss-astexthtml.php

 

Notice that if you open it in IE6 (or any browser incapable of reading it as an XML document) or even in FireFox the page is completely blank (This is because Firefox ONLY opens it as XML if the correct MIME Type is sent). Test it yourself, the first one will open because it’s read as XHTML – the second one will not because FF is reading it using its HTML pharser. Opera is the only browser that will actually open it as XML.

 

As before the page validates perfectly:

 

http://scummgames.net/xhtmlwcss-astexthtml.php

 

This proves that what is valid in XHTML is not always valid in HTML.

 

Oh and in case you're wondering what's breaking the HTML compatibility - it's the self-closing script tag <script ... />. It is not understood by HTML parsers that are expecting a </script> to appear.

XML is just a series of rules. XHTML is just HTML that follows those rules (all lower case, every opening tag has a closing tag, etc.). They could have called it HTML 5.0, but they didn't. It makes no difference to your browser or to your server or to anyone. XHTML does add some kickass features, too, if you ever decide to use them, and, in theory, it's more future-proofed than older versions of HTML (and it's not even new, it's been around since 2000, so those older versions you're using are even older!).

 

It's nothing like a virus and there's no reason to hate it.

No, that's completely false.

 

This is HTML 5: http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html

 

That is the exact reason I have every reason to hate it when XHTML is used as HTML. It is an XML format designed to provide HTML functionality in XML - that's it. That's what it is. It isn't HTML, and it's not supposed to be used as HTML that's of no benefit to people using XML-based phasers to read a website.

[plamdi]

So while it is based around XML and is ideally served as such for performance reasons, it's not strictly an XML format. It was specifically designed to be backwards compatible with HTML agents and served as such.

I believe that can best be answered by W3C:

 

http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/2004/xhtml-faq

Why is it disallowed to send XHTML 1.1 documents as text/html?

 

XHTML 1.1 is pure XML, and only intended to be XML. It cannot reliably be sent to legacy browsers. Therefore XHTML 1.1 documents must be sent with an XML-related media type, such as application/xhtml+xml.

Yes they've since "relaxed" that rule due to the fact that XHTML 1.1 was released in 2002 and it hasn't caught on due to the fact that it hasn't been allowed to be sent as html. XHTML 1.0 didn't catch on properly either - as ThunderPeel2001 said there are literally thousands of webmasters out there who think XHTML is an updated form of HTML!

What confuses me a bit more than your petty HTML/XHTML issue is the fact that you use HTML 3.2. Why are you using a standard that the W3C specifically created HTML 4 to replace and is truly antiquated?

There's nothing wrong with HTML 3.2, it is simply a much easier and faster version to write.

Of course, you're not the first guy I've seen find out about the whole 'XHTML should be served as XML' thing and then become an arrogant moron towards anyone who uses XHTML. Ironically, these same types typically got into web standards because of the internet-wide push for XHTML compliance.

Ah, but as you can see in my previous post I actually do know exactly how to use XHTML properly. I can code it as easily as HTML. And when I do I don't see the point in closing ANY self-closing tags with anything other than /> ever.

[Thrik]

I'm sure you can, because like I said most people who get on their high horse about this kind of thing tend to start with XHTML, then later find out about the technicalities of how it's served and begin chastising others for doing the very thing that got them into web standards in the first place. Maybe that's not your story, but I've seen it enough times in my (considerable) years of doing web development.

 

With regards to your other stuff, I'll clarify that I was talking about XHTML 1.0 and not 1.1. The W3C is perfectly happy with 1.0 being served as HTML, even if it isn't the optimal way to do it.

 

It's a slightly confusing topic because the W3C basically changed its stance. It initially considered XHTML a successor to HTML and the future of how websites would be rendered, but later decided to back away from the purely XML route because it was a bit too ambitious to expect people to be able to adhere perfectly at all times — an XML page will completely fail if there're any errors as I'm sure you know. Hence the more recent repositioning of the HTML 5 spec, which is actually both HTML and XHTML in a single specification.

 

I'm not going to disagree that HTML 4.01 is a good way to build pages, but I really hate it when I see people going around and dissing people because they've made the effort to start writing structured, coherent, semantic code. Even if XHTML isn't necessary to do that, the fact it's encouraged many, many people to do it is nothing but good IMO.

 

In short: stop being such a snob!

[ThunderPeel2001]

Interesting stuff! But it doesn't change anything I said (or make it wrong, either). I didn't know about HTML 5 (it's so new!), but coding in XHTML makes no practical difference to the user, and helps the designer, so where's the problem exactly?

 

As I said before, using the XML parts allows you to do some pretty nifty stuff, too, if you feel like it. You can essentially skip PHP and MySQL and use XML to construct your pages on the fly based on input from the user, for example. (Of course you can't write anything back to the "database", as it were, but in your case this isn't necessary.)

[QueZTone]

lot's of talk, little sugar

 

more sugar please!

[plamdi]

With regards to your other stuff, I'll clarify that I was talking about XHTML 1.0 and not 1.1. The W3C is perfectly happy with 1.0 being served as HTML, even if it isn't the optimal way to do it.

When you write XHTML you're supposed to be thinking "XML" not "HTML". All XML documents, as I'm sure you're aware, should begin with the XML declaration. That alone breaks compatability with HTML browsers. Next after the XML declaration comes the XHTML doctype.

It's a slightly confusing topic because the W3C basically changed its stance. It initially considered XHTML a successor to HTML and the future of how websites would be rendered, but later decided to back away from the purely XML route because it was a bit too ambitious to expect people to be able to adhere perfectly at all times — an XML page will completely fail if there're any errors as I'm sure you know.

Yes I know. The advantage of XML over HTML is that you don't need a highly complicated purpose-written browser to read it; as XML is much much more simple. That said, HTML 4.x and XHTML are fully compatible with CSS which allows for continuity between pages (you can make the same design in both HTML and XHTML). The entire purpose of XHTML isn't to succeed HTML - it is to allow XML-based client software to read the page.

 

I reiterate my point - incorrect usage of XHTML is noob and does not help anyone.

I'm not going to disagree that HTML 4.01 is a good way to build pages, but I really hate it when I see people going around and dissing people because they've made the effort to start writing structured, coherent, semantic code. Even if XHTML isn't necessary to do that, the fact it's encouraged many, many people to do it is nothing but good IMO.

 

In short: stop being such a snob!

Because it's not writing XHTML it's writing HTML with errors that has an XHTML doctype. An XHTML page is readable by XML-based pharsers... not a page that Opera opens and interperates as XHTML (because it could have read it using its HTML pharser).

[s-island]

All XML documents, as I'm sure you're aware, should begin with the XML declaration. That alone breaks compatability with HTML browsers. Next after the XML declaration comes the XHTML doctype.

XML, yes, but not necessarily with XHTML. As W3C says:

An XML declaration is not required in all XML documents; however XHTML document authors are strongly encouraged to use XML declarations in all their documents. Such a declaration is required when the character encoding of the document is other than the default UTF-8 or UTF-16 and no encoding was determined by a higher-level protocol.

and

...some user agents interpret the XML declaration to mean that the document is unrecognized XML rather than HTML, and therefore may not render the document as expected. For compatibility with these types of legacy browsers, you may want to avoid using processing instructions and XML declarations.

 

Hell, they even have a section with guidelines on how to make your XML document work with HTML parsers. If W3C says it's okay, it's okay.

[Fealiks]

All these strange acronyms... my mind... I can't... process... argh

[LordTrilobite]

The mind boggles.

[plamdi]

BUT, and I stress this point STRONGLY, W3C in context talks about how to make it HTML-compatible as secondary to being XML:

Why is it allowed to send XHTML 1.0 documents as text/html?

XHTML is an XML format; this means that strictly speaking it should be sent with an XML-related media type (application/xhtml+xml, application/xml, or text/xml). However XHTML 1.0 was carefully designed so that with care it would also work on legacy HTML user agents as well. If you follow some simple guidelines, you can get many XHTML 1.0 documents to work in legacy browsers. However, legacy browsers only understand the media type text/html, so you have to use that media type if you send XHTML 1.0 documents to them. But be well aware, sending XHTML documents to browsers as text/html means that those browsers see the documents as HTML documents, not XHTML documents.

I'd use a PHP function for this:

  $usexhtml=stristr($_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT'],'application/xhtml+xml');
 if($usexhtml && preg_match("/text\/html;q=0(\.[1-9]+)/i",$_SERVER["HTTP_ACCEPT"],$qtest2)){
   if(preg_match("/application\/xhtml\+xml;q=0(\.[1-9]+)/i",$_SERVER["HTTP_ACCEPT"],$qtest1))
     $usexhtml=($qtest1[1]>=$qtest2[1]);
   else
     $usexhtml=false;
 }
 if ($usexhtml) {
   $conttype='application/xhtml+xml';
 }
 else {
   $conttype='text/html';
 }
 header('Content-type: '. $conttype);

[Fealiks]

It's so crazy it just might work!