BalearWeb has started an important reform of all their web pages, to
adapt them to the standards of XHTML (Extensible Hypertext Markup
Language) recommended by the
W3C
(World Wide Web
Consortium). The aim is to offer greater accessibility and
functionality to the system, an essential requisite for a portal based
on contents and with much traffic.
The language XHTML is the new version of HTML and is designed to offer
a greater accessibility to all kinds of platforms, including from PDAs
and televisions, to the specialised browsers used by people with
disabilities or the web spiders, such as the Google bot.
This new system separates the contents from the design via the use
of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), allowing these
pages to be read with and without al graphical presentation. All the
tables that
were
used for layout, disappear making the source code much simpler and
the pages download much quicker.
Very few webs in the Balearics and throughout the world have
adapted to this system. The majority of government and written
press
have not followed yet the new standards recommended by the W3C, nor
bear in mind the subject of accessibility.
The old navigators had many difficulties to interpret correctly the
pages of the CSS style, but the recent versions that the majority of
cybernauts use let the web master foresee more exactly the aspect that
the web documents will have. It is possible that users with very
old
versions can see the page without any style, but even so, they will be
able to access their contents.
For the moment, only the new front pages of MallorcaWeb in
Catalan,
Spanish,
English and
German have been put onto
the Net. At present work is taking place to adapt the front pages
of
MenorcaWeb, EivissaWeb and FormenteraWeb, and also the search engine
for webs and news and the remaining areas. All users are invited
to
communicate any defect they see in the web pages via the forum
Table or CSS
layout?