What Doctype should I be using?

Question

I'm having trouble making my site work with a doctype - so far the only way I can get it to work is without one.

The current Declaration is of course not valid at all. But if I change the doctype to anything else the small clouds disappear and I cant work out why. I'm assuming the javascript that Ive used for the effects is not to blame, could it be the sizing i'm using (100% etc)?

Any help massively appreciated!

EDIT: -- So My Issue now is why the small clouds (#clouds1) are not showing up on the site with the html5 doctype - what isn't valid about them or the positioning i've used for them!?

Thanks again in advance

you put jquery and Yahoo , and too much unnecessary css, might be conflicting with eachother on different browsers. — Ali Çarıkçıoğlu, Aug 10 '13 at 13:11

Nicklas Nygren · Answer 1 · 2013-08-11T19:30:28.260

1

One probable cause for the problem is that on line 90, you have a <script> tag after the </body> endtag. That might give weird effects on any doctype. If you fix that, then the site might work fine on HTML5, which is what you get if you use a plain doctype:

<!DOCTYPE html>

EDIT: That script is the one you use to move the clouds, so yes, this is probably the cause. Not declaring doctype would put the browser into quirks mode and it may run the script even despite it's erroneous placement.

EDIT 2: Have you accidentally removed the <html> start tag, or was it always that way. Check if that might be some cause of trouble.

edited Aug 11 '13 at 19:30

answered Aug 10 '13 at 13:27

Nicklas Nygren

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`script` tags works ok after `body` (not sure about `html`) – kirilloid Aug 10 '13 at 13:33
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It *might* work OK, but it's not valid and it's a confirmed cause of quirky behaviour: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3037725/is-it-wrong-to-place-the-script-tag-after-the-body-tag – Nicklas Nygren Aug 10 '13 at 13:37
@kirilloid that wouldn't make for valid HTML. `... – Matt Ball Aug 10 '13 at 13:37
Yes, but "not working" and "not valid" are different things. Not using DOCTYPE may cause more bugs in js (esp. in IE). – kirilloid Aug 10 '13 at 13:40
Yes, that's why I mentioned that it is known to have caused errors, on top if it not being valid. – Nicklas Nygren Aug 10 '13 at 13:45
Cheers for the help so far... I've changed this which has got rid of a warning in the validator but the main problem still persists - I think a better question would be - what is it in the HTML related to #clouds1, that's not valid with html5? – user2670436 Aug 11 '13 at 15:53
For one thing, i just discovered that there's no `` start tag. – Nicklas Nygren Aug 11 '13 at 19:30
The missing start tag was accidentally removed - added back now and the issue remains. – user2670436 Aug 12 '13 at 09:26

What Doctype should I be using?

1 Answers1