On 2017-08-25 12:17 PM (-4), Bald Eagle wrote:
> clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
>> Am 25.08.2017 um 16:04 schrieb Bald Eagle:
>>
>>> I think xhtml - which I believe is now just "xml" had a feature to automagically
>>
>> XHTML and XML are not the same.
>
> [x] check.
>
>>> gray-out invalid/broken links.

This is certainly not XML, nor its derivative XHTML.  Such a burden 
would place an unreasonable burden on the client, not to mention making 
the user wait while the client checks all those links.  I've created 
pages in XHTML, and it certainly did not check my links.

>> That would be beyond the scope of (X)HTML, and fall into the scope of CSS.

CSS can gray out links, but it has no power to check whether or not they 
are valid

> Well, I remember that I was able to do it back in 2000/2001, when I was working
> on a project and wanted the automatic greyed-out behaviour. I had never even
> heard of CSS back then - if it even existed.
> It was a special something-html, and I just can't think of what it was off the
> top of my head.

It was probably a server-side feature, orthogonal to what flavor of HTML 
you were using.

P.S.  Back in 2000/2001, there were versions of HTML that /could/ gray 
out links (HTML 3.2 and HTML 4.01 Transitional).  CSS was developed 
around 1997, though the first browsers to take advantage of it, MSIE 3 
and Netscape 4, did an unfathomably horrific job of implementing it. 
(Microsoft rushed to market before CSS was even defined, and Netscape 
pretty much ignored the standard.)  By 2000, both browsers had halfway 
decent implementations, though Web designers were slow to take 
advantage, due to legacy use of the older browsers, particularly 
Netscape 4.  HTML 4.01 Transitional was a concession to developers who 
were skittish about CSS (and also to those who were lazy about their 
HTML, but that was a separate issue).

There was also a transitional version of XHTML, introduced in parallel 
with HTML 4 Transitional, although I don't recall how much obsolescence 
it would let you get away with.

Netscape 4 created a vicious cycle: it had more bugs than any other 
software I was aware of at the time, but because it was so popular among 
the users, Web designers put in a *lot* of work to keep NS4 from turning 
their Web pages into ersatz Picassos.  And due to the developers' hard 
work, the users never found out what a POS Netscape 4 was, so they kept 
on using it!

I've seen Web pages that use HTML 4.01 Transitional as late as 2015. 
Some are probably still around.

Still, regardless of the state of the art, it was almost certainly not 
the job of the coding language to check links.  I think you just lucked 
out on a conscientious server provider.

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