About the XHTML code generated by Dreamweaver

Dreamweaver generates new XHTML code and cleans up existing XHTML code in a way that meets most of the XHTML requirements. Dreamweaver also provides you with the tools that you need to meet the few XHTML requirements that remain.

Note: Some of the requirements described in this section are also required in various versions of HTML.

The following table describes the XHTML requirements that Dreamweaver meets automatically.

XHTML requirement Actions Dreamweaver performs to meet this requirement

When the character encoding of a document is other than the default UTF-8, the document must have an XML declaration.

Adds an XML declaration to an XHTML document and specifies the encoding; for example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>

There must be a DOCTYPE declaration in the document prior to the root element, and the declaration must reference one of the three Document Type Definition (DTD) files for XHTML (strict, transitional, or frameset).

Adds an XHTML DOCTYPE to an XHTML document:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

Or, if the XHTML document has a frameset:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Frameset//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-frameset.dtd">

The root element of the document must be html, and the html element must designate the XHTML namespace.

Adds the namespace attribute to the html element, as follows:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

A standard document must have the head, title, and body structural elements. A frameset document must have the head, title, and frameset structural elements.

In a standard document, includes the head, title, and body elements. In a frameset document, includes the head, title, and frameset elements.

All elements in the document must nest properly:

<p>This is a <i>bad example.</p></i>
<p>This is a <i>good example.</i></p>

Generates correctly nested code and, when cleaning up XHTML, corrects nesting in code that was not generated by Dreamweaver.

All element and attribute names must be lowercase.

Forces HTML element and attribute names to be lowercase in the XHTML code that it generates and when cleaning up XHTML, regardless of your tag and attribute case preferences.

Every element must have an end tag, unless it is declared in the DTD as EMPTY.

Inserts end tags in the code that it generates, and when cleaning up XHTML.

Empty elements must have an end tag, or the start tag must end with />. For example, <br> is not valid; the correct form is <br></br> or <br/>. Following are the empty elements: area, base, basefont, br, col, frame, hr, img, input, isindex, link, meta, and param.

And for backwards-compatibility with browsers that are not XML-enabled, there must be a space before the /> (for example, <br />, not <br/>).

Inserts empty elements with a space before the closing slash in empty tags in the code that it generates, and when cleaning up XHTML.

Attributes can't be minimized; for example, <td nowrap> is not valid; the correct form is <td nowrap="nowrap">.

This affects the following attributes: checked, compact, declare, defer, disabled, ismap, multiple, noresize, noshade, nowrap, readonly, and selected.

Inserts full attribute-value pairs in the code that it generates, and when cleaning up XHTML.

Note: If an HTML browser does not support HTML 4, it might fail to interpret these Boolean attributes when they appear in their full form.

All attribute values must be surrounded by quotation marks.

Places quotation marks around attribute values in the code that it generates, and when cleaning up XHTML.

The following elements must have an id attribute as well as a name attribute: a, applet, form, frame, iframe, img, and map. For example, <a name="intro">Introduction</a> is not valid; the correct form is

<a id="intro">Introduction</a> or
<a id="section1" name="intro">
Introduction</a>.

Sets the name and id attributes to the same value, whenever the name attribute is set by a Property inspector, in the code that Dreamweaver generates, and when cleaning up XHTML.

For attributes with values of an enumerated type, the values must be lowercase.

An enumerated type value is a value from a specified list of allowed values; for example, the align attribute has the following allowed values: center, justify, left, and right.

Forces enumerated type values to be lowercase in the code that it generates, and when cleaning up XHTML.

All script and style elements must have a type attribute.

(The type attribute of the script element has been required since HTML 4, when the language attribute was deprecated.)

Sets the type and language attributes in script elements, and the type attribute in style elements, in the code that it generates and when cleaning up XHTML.

All img and area elements must have an alt attribute.

Sets these attributes in the code that it generates and, when cleaning up XHTML, reports missing alt attributes.

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