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Label tags and Netscape 4.08

for

From: Terence de Giere
Date: Mar 20, 2002 3:51PM

Alas, I no longer have a copy of Netscape 4.08 on my computer. While
Netscape continued to refine the version 4 Communicator versions of the
browser, 4.08 developement stopped years ago and it is definitely not
the equivalent of the browser in the final Netscape Communicator 4.7
versions. Version 4.08 has trouble with complex nested tables and other
problems.

The Netscape 4.x browsers do not support the LABEL element. The LABEL
element can be used separately from the form element it is associated
with, or can be used to implicitly associate with the form element by
placing the form element within the label element, not including the
explicit association using the "for" attribute.

What a browser is supposed to do if it does not recognize an HTML
element is render the content of the element if possible. It would not
be possible to format the element with CSS if the element was not
recognized, but any renderable content in the element should display, if
only in default format. Double check and see if the HTML validator is a
real HTML validator such as the one at http://validator.w3.org/ or
http://www.htmlhelp.org/tools/validator/ . that Holly Marie mentioned on
the forum on March 17. These are the only online validators I know of
that do correct parsing of HTML.

The solution of removing the label element for pages meant for Netscape
4.0x, while violating 508 rules, sounds like an acceptable solution.
Since LABEL is not supported by this browser, explicit association of
the LABEL with the control will not work anyway because attributes to an
unrecognized element are also unrecognized, but having text immediately
before the form control it is associated with would be the best
solution, assuming someone is using Netscape 4.08 with a screen reader.

Since Anitra Pavka has used the lable element without problems on this
browser, it may be the conjunction of the use of the LABEL element with
other elements in the page in the particular layout of just that page.
When one follows Web standards strictly, certain older browsers like
Mosaic simply bomb sometimes and sometimes they don't. If tables are
used for format on this page, and dimensions for the tables are coded
into the HTML, do all the measurements of the table and table cell sizes
etc. add up to the correct amount? There are certain kinds of errors in
a Web page validation cannot check, and incorrect attribute variables
that are not specifically in the DTD are one of them. Anitra Pavka's
suggestion to put the page online so we can look at it would be best.

Terence de Giere
<EMAIL REMOVED>




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