ISO-HTML

The ISO -- International Organization for Standardization -- consists of the national standards institutes of 151 countries, on the basis of one member per country, with a Central Secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland. It promulgates, develops and maintains world wide technical standards. The International standard for HTML (International Standard ISO/IEC 15445 prepared by Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology, Subcommittee SC34, Document description languages. JTC1/SC34), hereafter described as ISO-HTML or ISO/IEC 15445:2000(E) is prescribed by the Document:

https://www.cs.tcd.ie/15445/15445.html

The users guide is at:

https://www.cs.tcd.ie/15445/UG.html

ISO-HTML -- What is it? Why use it?

ISO-HTML is a sub-set of W3C HTML 4.01 and is the International Standard Markup language used to write content for web page documents on the World Wide Web. Because of its "strictness", ISO-HTML markup produces pages that can be easily modified to Validate as W3C HTML 4.01 (strict), XHTML Basic, XHTML 1.0 (strict) or XHTML 1.1. All that is needed is to substitute the appropriate DocType/DTD/Namespace data and run the pages through the TIDY online facility -- selecting the desired settings. I write all of my markup in lowercase as a matter of course. Those Web authors who use HTML-Kit (with Tidy plug-in) as their Editor will be able to easily effect the conversions.

Here is my summation of the salient features of ISO-HTML:

1. It is a more rigorous ("stricter") implementation of W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) HTML 4.01 (Strict).

For instance, the hierarchy of the header element .......

• H1 ..... Major section header
• H2 ..... Section header
• H3 ..... Subsection header
• H4 ..... Subsubsection header
• H5 ..... Subsubsubsection header
• H6 ..... Minor subsubsubsection header

....... is rigidly enforced. For example, H4 is not allowed to precede H3 at any place in a document.

2. Numerous W3C HTML 4.01 elements are refined in ISO-HTML.

3. Numerous W3C HTML 4.01 attributes are omitted from the standard or their use is restricted

To quote from the Users Guide:

"The W3C Recommendation for HTML 4.01 provides a number of attributes that are not supported by the International Standard. They have been omitted because they are used to describe appearance rather than structure, or because the feature is considered to be still too unstable or immature for an International Standard:"

Those attributes that are omitted altogether are:

• ALIGN
• ALINK
• BGCOLOR
• BORDER
• CHAR
• CHAROFF
• COMPACT
• HEIGHT
• HSPACE
• ONBLUR
• ONCHANGE
• ONCLICK
• ONDBLCLICK
• ONFOCUS
• ONKEYDOWN
• ONKEYPRESS
• ONKEYUP
• ONLOAD
• ONMOUSEDOWN
• ONMOUSEMOVE
• ONMOUSEOUT
• ONMOUSEOVER
• ONMOUSEUP
• ONRESET
• ONSELECT
• ONSUBMIT
• ONUNLOAD
• STYLE
• TARGET
• VALIGN
• VLINK
• VSPACE
• WIDTH

Those attributes that are ommitted for specific elements are:

• ALT ..... omitted from INPUT
• ARCHIVE ..... omitted from OBJECT
• BACKGROUND ..... omitted from BODY
• CELLPADDING ..... omitted from TABLE
• CELLSPACING ..... omitted from TABLE
• CLEAR ..... omitted from BR
• COORDS ..... omitted from A
• FRAME ..... omitted from TABLE
• LINK ..... omitted from BODY
• NAME ..... omitted from FORM
• NAME ..... omitted from IMG
• NOSHADE ..... omitted from HR
• NOWRAP ..... omitted from TD and TH
• RULES ..... omitted from TABLE
• SHAPE ..... omitted from A
• SIZE ..... omitted from HR
• SRC ..... omitted from INPUT
• START ..... omitted from OL
• TEXT ..... omitted from BODY
• TYPE ..... omitted from LI, OL and UL
• USEMAP ..... omitted from INPUT
• VALUE ..... omitted from LI
• VERSION ..... omitted from HTML

Note in passing ....... HEIGHT and WIDTH parameters for IMG are designated in style sheets which must be externally linked -- embedded style constructs are not allowed.

CAVEAT: The above list is my own compilation -- I do not guarantee its completeness -- check the current Users Guide for verification.

4. The ISO standard clearly separates content from presentation as delineated in the following quote from the Users Guide:

"The International Standard is based on the well established principle that it is good document design to separate the content of a document from the intended style in which it is to be presented to a reader ..... "

5. Finally, the methodology for accomplishing presentation is outlined in the following quote from the Users Guide:

"Although the International Standard does not specify a style sheet language, this User's Guide recommends that authors of ISO-HTML documents use Cascading Style Sheets as specified by the World Wide Web Consortium."

This page was composed using validated ISO-HTML Markup

This page, which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution, Noncommercial, No Derivative Works, 3.0 United States License was created by JFP (jp29@cox.net) and should be so attributed. Be sure to comply with copyright requirements accompanying externally linked pages and materials.

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