Obfuscated HTML Contest? 81
ptaff asks: "We all know the nightmare of typical HTML developer: you get different results on different browsers/platforms (and we're talking HTML only, no CSS/scripts). To make matters worse, MSIE has this ability to render completely invalid HTML code (missing tags, invalid nesting, you get the point). Mozilla and its many cousins are trying hard to keep up with the inconsistencies of today's 'web-optimized-for-MSIE', but where is the limit?
As an exercise, can you build the most malformed HTML document that can be rendered in MSIE but will choke on others browsers?"
You can use this to find contest entries (Score:2, Funny)
Theory & practise (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe also the time required for a feature to become standard HTML plays a role, think people are gonna wait some months to have a feature, when the browser (broken or anticipating the new standard) can make it already ?
Isn't that after all also how the Internet itself works usually ? ie people do something in different ways, usually without any standard, or extending one, then some mix of everything becomes 'the' new standard (RFCs & so on) ?
Re:Theory & practise (Score:1)
Meaning, they care what people have to say. They want to get community input to make this a community standard, not just something they make up.
Has MS ever made an RFC?
Re:Theory & practise (Score:2)
Re:Theory & practice (Score:1)
No.
It could merely be that the only reference "the community" used was written by the same company that made the browser that "the community" used to "test" the page with, and the same company also wrote the software they used to "write" the page with.
IOW... some company took advantage of the clueless drones that they created. That is, after all, their biggest asset.
After that, other browsers have to implement the same "errors" because it is easier than educating managers that *their* own sites are wrong and the one *you* made isn't... Even tho *their* site works in *their* browser, and *your* site does not.
You are in a maze of specialized tags, (Score:4, Interesting)
My sympathy goes out to the judges of this contest.
Re:You are in a maze of specialized tags, (Score:3, Funny)
I mean, the winner of the original contest's question is already decided anyway: I'm sure nobody's as good as Microsoft in writing obfuscated code that runs only on their own platforms!
Wanna see something really hairy? (Score:3, Funny)
I dare you to glance through it.
You'll not sleep tonight.
What am I missing? (Score:2)
Re:What am I missing? (Score:1)
Re:What am I missing? (Score:1)
Re:What am I missing? (Score:1)
Re:What am I missing? (Score:2)
Re:Wanna see something really hairy? (Score:1)
how do you quantify "malformed-ness"? (Score:1)
The use of this excersise (Score:2)
I _know_ mozilla is more standards compliant than ie, but this is not about standards. It's about acceptance by the masses. The more sites that are rendered right, the better the chances are.
Re:The use of this excersise (Score:4, Insightful)
Following the "standards" as laid down by Internet Explorer will mean those writing HTML documents will continue in bad habits learnt during the so-called browser wars between Microsoft and Netscape. If you take 10 random sites and check the source code of the home page, I'd wager than none of them are using valid HTML 4, although the standard has been public for over four years!
Re:The use of this excersise (Score:1)
Re:The use of this excersise (Score:2)
Uhm, given that Galeon uses Mozilla's rendering engine, are you sure there isn't an installation problem or something? :-)
BTW, it does happen that what is supposed (as of the standards -- remember that both IE and Mozilla-based browsers go into `standards mode' when rendering XHTML) to happen often isn't very intuitive... What happens if you declare the page as HTML4.0 Transitional (not HTML4.01; Mozilla goes into standards mode for that as well) and check again? :-)
/* Steinar */
Re:The use of this excersise (Score:1)
That does not sound like valid CSS to me:
Also, I'm not sure that "border: none" is allowed, but it might very well be. :-)
It's naturally quite hard to try to fix or trace your problem with nothing but a CSS fragment, though. I'd advise you to set up a full test page and isolate the problem a bit further, then post it to Bugzilla -- you might not like it, but it's probably the only way of getting your bug fixed ;-)
/* Steinar */
Re:The use of this excersise (Score:2)
That would solve a lot of problems. It woulc create some problems for people who shouldn't be coding in the first place, but I won't lose sleep over that one.
Re:The use of this excersise (Score:2)
But the message is usually rendered correctly.
Re:The use of this excersise (Score:2)
>grammer and not too many around here follow it.
>(Well, not me at least.
s/grammer/grammar/
>But the message is usually rendered correctly.
No offence, but bad spelling and grammar make you look dumber. This can distract the reader from your message, and affect your credibility.
Gratuitously bad HTML makes a person or company look dumber. This can distract the reader from their message, and affect their credibility.
Re:The use of this excersise (Score:2)
communication (Score:2)
Yup, I shore did.
But if you are trying to sell me something, and you can't spell, I wonder how good your product is.
If you are trying to convince me of something, and you have poor grammar, I wonder if your ideas are well thought out.
If you are trying to present tech info (a HOWTO etc.) with poor spelling/grammar, I wonder if your facts are sound.
It all comes back to credibility, I reckon. Ain't life a bitch?
Just export a Word doc to HTML (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Just export a Word doc to HTML (Score:1)
Re:Just export a Word doc to HTML (Score:3, Informative)
I make no guarantees that it works. Or that it's very well written, it was a quick and dirty hack.
Re:Just export a Word doc to HTML (Score:2)
Thank you. I've been looking for a script like this.
Re:Just export a Word doc to HTML (Score:2)
HTML Tidy [sourceforge.net] does this as well.
Nightmare Combination (Score:2)
I once (a few years ago) inherited a web project that was managed by Net Objects Fusion. That was bad enough, except that the hosting server only allowed uploading via Frontpage Extensions (go figure). So once any updates were done, the pages had to be exported out of Net Objects, then brought into the Frontpage project so they could be uploaded.
If you can imagine the HTML that came out of that little combo. Not pretty.
I also saw one site that looked to be a combo of MS Word and Net Objects. I still have nightmares about that one.........
The code used to get the java plugin? (Score:4, Funny)
Old Style:
<APPLET code=XYZApp.class codebase=html/ align=baseline width=200 height=200> <PARAM NAME=model VALUE=models/HyaluronicAcid.xyz> No Java 2 SDK, Standard Edition v 1.3 support for APPLET!! </APPLET>New Style:
<EMBED type=application/x-java-applet;version=1.3 width=200 height=200 align=baseline code=XYZApp.class codebase=html/ model=models/HyaluronicAcid.xyz pluginspage=http://java.sun.com/products/plugin/1Re:The code used to get the java plugin? (Score:1)
You know that embed is no longer in the HTML w3c specs, and the applet ist deprecated in HTML 4.01 and not in the XHTML 1 strict? It is deprecated and not allowed, but still needed by many browsers. The reason you have to write that embed object applet kombination comes from the browser wars.
But you are right, that's really bad code and it is needed to make it cross-browser compatible. Sad part is that it wont validate against any common HTML standard - but i don't know who to blame for this, w3c had to set one tag as standard for embedding objects (Media-files, Flash, JavaApplets, you name it) and browsers exist that wont be changed for some time cannot be blamed. I wonder when Mozilla will display a flash movie without using the embed tag. so this obfuscated (or redundant) code will be in pages for a long time from now on...
Re:The code used to get the java plugin? (Score:2)
Sun's description [sun.com] shows you the nitty gritty, but explains less of the 'why'.
The worst of this is the jsp:plugin tag, which generates code for the 1.3 plugin. Saves a lot of typing, but won't it get out of date pretty fast?
-Baz
it already does (Score:2)
LOL... "HTML DEVELOPER" (Score:1, Funny)
Just use Microsoft's HTML obfuscator ... (Score:5, Funny)
Step 2: save as a web page.
The result:
Of course, it breaks the rules because it uses style sheets, but who's counting...Re:Just use Microsoft's HTML obfuscator ... (Score:1)
Re:Just use Microsoft's HTML obfuscator ... (Score:1)
Sorry but this article obviously wasn't posted to insight yet another standards debate.
Re:Just use Microsoft's HTML obfuscator ... (Score:1)
I didn't miss anything. There's nothing obfuscated about that code he posted as it is W3C HTML 4.01 Strict compatible - assuming you remove that XML crap. So, if (following the rules of the original post) you remove style sheets and the XML, you have HTML standards compliancy.
Re:Just use Microsoft's HTML obfuscator ... (Score:1)
Re:Just use Microsoft's HTML obfuscator ... (Score:1)
The posted code (MS Word HTML export) is definitely not W3C HTML 4.01 Strict. (Transitional? Most probably).
Furthermore, the XML code segment is not valid inside an HTML 4.01 document. So, it should have been XHTML and by no means is it XHMTL compliant (no quotes around attribute values, empty elements are not closed etc.)
However, at least some of the following aspects are much better compared to prior versions and in some respects even Mozilla Composer.
Thanks for your patience.
2002-12-18 17:46:26 UTC (2002-12-18 12:46:26 EST)
How about this one... (Score:5, Funny)
It just looks dumb in Mozilla, but you can use IE to truly experience the horror.
I believe this was originally designed as an object lesson that HTML email and usenet posts are a bad idea.
There is no author identified, but I'd love to know who came up with this one.
Re:How about this one... (Score:5, Informative)
Nice one, thanks
b.
Re:How about this one... (Score:2)
Oh, now that is a work of art!
Re:How about checking the SOURCE CODE (Score:2)
-wjc.
Re:How about this one... (Score:2)
Re:How about this one... (Score:2)
not writing obfuscated - find it (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it's better to find pages that use such code. example - the www.europcar.com .de .fr pages the use a javascript menu that does ONLY work in MSIE on windows. No MacIE, Mozilla(choose your platform), Opera 7 or other alternative browsers. You simply cannot see the menu or cannot use it - therefore you cannot navigate. There are more pages out there, writing this code on purpose is pointless, because it has already been written ;) Find those pages and complain, make a publicly available list of invalid non-working HTML pages. Write the webmasters about your problems. And of course show workarounds so that those "programmers" can see and change their mistakes.
A good reason for coding obfuscated (be it valid or invalid) HTML would be to create a repository of "real world" code for Browser developers out there to check if it works with their product. Then of course a "desired output" image should be attached to the code.
Creating a blacklist of corporate pages using invalid html is my favourite idea, but the mentioned repository would help a lot coders out there...Re:not writing obfuscated - find it (Score:2)
"request.form("logon_user")"
Re:not writing obfuscated - find it (Score:2)
Mozilla beat you to it [mozilla.org].
the5k.org (Score:1)
They even have a 5k version of Wolfenstein.
And most of the entries work in IE only. :(
Joe
http://josephgrossberg.blogspot.com [blogspot.com]
Re:the5k.org (Score:2)
I checked out the 5k site. Most of the entries were Flash, not that impressive. But the 5k Wolfenstein [the5k.org] (will only work in IE on Win, yadda yadda) game you mentioned... (h,j,k,n to move, space to shoot).
Yikes! It's a small fps entirely done in JavaScript(!), including multiple independantly moving foes, and the ability to shoot them. And in less than 5 kB! I spent an hour or so reverse-engineering the program.
As far as I can tell, it works by generating the (1 bitplane BW) graphics into an array p, then creating a JavaScript source code string that contains a definition of the image (im="... static char t_bits[]={(things based on p)}"), then inserting that back into the page with document.images[0].src="javascript:count;im;", where im is the name of the variable containg the above-mentioned string...
Do check out the source code! This is heavy !!
PS. I played it a little bit more. Oh no, the thing even has scoring, multiple levels with increasing numbers of foes... (/me looks suprisedly at his once rampant, now wilting ego.)
PPS. Oh, and Window Pong [the5k.org] (keypad numlocked 8+2) was good for a laugh, and seems more compatible.
Doing my part (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm setting up a value web-hosting system in the next 6 months using Fractional T1.. and one of the plans is to run all submitted HTML code through the validator script, and add a warning message at the bottom of the page if it has errors. This will be mentioned in the SLA.
Just doing my part to put the standards back into the web.
Re:Doing my part (Score:1)
Re:Doing my part (Score:1)
the real challenge would be.... (Score:1)
Re:the real challenge would be.... (Score:2)
WYSIWYG Editors Are Guilty Too (Score:1)
There's only one 403 website for the W3 Validator. (Score:2)
(waives around Slashdot-logo emblazoned flag)
May I suggest change to the rules? (Score:2)
I think you could get pretty interesting results by layering elements one over another and creating resulting images with interfere patterns caused by letters laid over other letters. Use CSS features that MSIE doesn't implement, or has bugs in, to correct the positioning in correctly behaving browsers and @import trick for keeping NN4.x in the game.
Creating page that works only in one nonstandard browser is too easy. Creating standards compliant page that works in every browser but one buggy one should be hard enough.
Screaming arrogance (Score:1)
The arrogance of "downlevel" infuriates me. They couldn't just say "other" or "non-Microsoft". The implicit assumption is that if it's not using IE, it's crap.
Re:May I suggest change to the rules? (Score:1)
I got a an ascii-art from the fortune on my rh7.2 machine of an atomic bomb blast (just happened to be the one the cgi-bin picked to spit out) that had every space repalced by a . (oh and of course the & replaced by &, the > replaced by > ^I characters replaced by 8 spaces, which happens right before the part, ect). Only styling was a <P STYLE="font-family: monospace"> so it would line up properly. Plays just fine in Mozilla 1.2, and Lynx, Netscape 7, Opera 5 on my box. Haven't tested in any others, but when run against the w3 HTML 4.01 Strict validator it works, although the source hurts to read (although if I knew a bit more with sed/aw/tr ect I could make it even harder to grok the HTML source).
If you really wanted your HTML to be hard to read you could always give the ascii number (or unicode for fun) of every character on the page, so reading the source you would just see the tags in the clear. AB is written is HTML as AB and it is perfectly HTML/4.01 strict valid from my tests.
Just my 2 bits.
Re:May I suggest change to the rules? (Score:2)
I wouldn't rate such hack as a good contestant simply because the method is way too simple. But if you prefer to do such a thing, just use this perl script [uni-sb.de].
Note that HTML tidy can easily clean up such simple hacks. Truly unreadable source cannot be fixed with something as simple as HTML tidy. You can try the above perl script on some HTML file and then inputting that file to HTML Tidy Online [infohound.net].
And just for the record, numeric character entities always refer to unicode character code positions [cs.tut.fi]. For example, — (0x97) is undefined (reserved), even though many people try to use that in HTML source to represent emdash [www-f9.ijs.si].
Be conservative in what you generate, liberal in.. (Score:2)
I don't like Internet Exploder. I don't really like Netscrape, either. But I won't fault either for rendering a page that's not completely standards compliant; I'd guess that 95% of the pages out there wouldn't render if the browsers were as strict as, for example, the HTML validator [w3.org].
Front Page (Score:1)
This is backwards... (Score:3, Interesting)
Wouldn't an un-obfuscated HTML contest where the code is judged by how well it plays and demonstrates advanced features on multiple browsers be more challenging?
Some reusable bits may actually come about as the result of this sort of contest.
geocities (Score:1)
New subsection (Score:1)
Obfuscate HTML.. (Score:1)
Re:Obfuscate HTML.. (Score:1)