The right thumb doesn't know what the right index finger is doing, much left the left hand.
Witness my frustration with bulleted lists on webpages. A bulleted list on a web page should be done with a <UL> and a bunch of <LI>'s like so:
<UL>
<LI>List Item A</LI>
<LI>List Item B</LI>
<LI>List Item C</LI>
</UL>
Which should look like this:
- List Item A
- List Item B
- List Item C
However many people use Microsoft's Word product to create their copy, and then just copy and paste into a WYSIWYG jobby and post it. The Word team doesn't like the <UL> tag, or it just doesn't suit their needs or some such nonsense. So what they create for a list looks more like this:
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol">· </span><!--[endif]--> List Item A</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol">· </span><!--[endif]--> List Item A</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol">· </span><!--[endif]--> List Item A</p>
What's that? Conditional comments? Microsoft invented those, right? So they'll work flawlessly with my Microsoft products, right? Check again. MS explains 3 types of conditional comments:
|
Comment Type |
Syntax or Possible Value |
|
standard HTML comment |
<!-- Comment content --> |
|
downlevel-hidden |
<!--[if expression]> HTML <![endif]--> |
|
downlevel-revealed |
<![if expression]> HTML <![endif]> |
Wait, the conditional comments that were created above don't match any of the MS recommendations, but I'm sure that's an oversight on the part of the specification writers, and none of Microsoft's' programs will choke, right?
Wrong.
I created a bit of test HTML:
<P><!--[if !supportLists]-->· <!--[endif]--> List Item "wrong"</P>
<P><!--[if !supportLists]>· <![endif]--> List Item "downlevel-hidden"</P>
<P><![if !supportLists]>· <![endif]> List Item "downlevel-revealed"</P>
This should work flawlessly in all Microsoft products, and might cause a hiccup in a non-Microsoft product would be anyone's best guess, I suppose. Let's test it:
IE 6:
IE 7:
FF 1.5:
FF 2:
Feel free to use my simple test page to see how your browser stacks up.
Now for the whole truth, the IE HTML that is above wasn't created by me, that's because my Word doesn't seem to write HTML like that. I'm guessing that it is a previous version of Word that is writing the "bad" comments, but I'm still going to fault Microsoft. Why is this particularly irritating to me? Some people use Word to author their emails, and now that I have IE7 installed, that's the engine that my Outlook uses to render HTML emails. Therefore anyone with some certain installation of Microsoft products on their Microsoft OS will always show the stupid "should always be hidden" comments in my Microsoft products on my Microsoft OS, and there is nobody outside Microsoft that can be to blame.
Will this stop me from using Microsoft products, or get on the great anti-Microsoft bandwagon? Nope. But it won't help to convince me that Microsoft is the end-all be-all either. I'm still stuck happily in between the two camps where I can happily complain about both sides.