Comparison of layout engines (HTML)

The following tables compare HTML compatibility and support for a number of layout engines. Please see the individual products articles for further information. This article is not all-inclusive or necessarily up-to-date. Unless otherwise specified in footnotes, comparisons are based on the stable versions without any add-ons, extensions or external programs.

Only HTML 4 and XHTML 1 served as text/html (so called HTML compatible XHTML) are considered. XHTML 2 is not considered as it is a redefinition of XHTML, which is not backward compatible. For more XHTML-related comparisons, please refer to comparison of layout engines (XHTML).

Version number, if possible, is provided for feature that is fully supported (based on HTML 4.01). Proprietary extensions are not included.

=DOCTYPE sniffing=

The way that the engines determine #general_standards_mode, #general_quirks_mode, or #gecko_almost_standards_mode.

==General DOCTYPE sniffing notes==

# Quirks mode — Emulates non-standard behaviors in Navigator 4 and MSIE. Generally used in HTML without DOCTYPE and HTML 3 or below. The amount of emulation differs between the layout engines, e.g. Presto uses the standardized W3C box layout model even in quirks mode. Thus the results are quite unpredictable in this mode. # Standards mode — Follows W3C s recommendations.

==Gecko DOCTYPE sniffing notes==

# Almost standards mode — Implements the vertical sizing of table cells traditionally and not rigorously according to the CSS2 specification. Almost standards mode was created after 1.0 and 1.1alpha, but before 1.0.1 and 1.1beta. This mode is, however, similar to the standard modes of Trident, Presto and WebCore. Before almost standards mode was created these DOCTYPEs triggered standards mode.

=Global structure elements=

The global structure of the document.

=Text elements=

Elements that represent text.

=List elements=

Elements that represent lists of information.

=Table elements=

Elements that represent tabular information.

=Link elements=

Hyperlinks, one of the primary forces driving the success of the World Wide Web.

=Multimedia elements=

Multimedia features including images, applets , video clips, and other HTML documents.

==Trident multimedia element notes==

# object — For images, a frame will be added to the object. Other content types are not supported and the element is incorrectly implemented as an ActiveX wrapper. Nested objects fallback mechanism is not supported [http://petesguide.com/WebStandards/tests/object/fallback.html].

=Frame elements=

Elements to present documents in multiple views, which may be independent windows or subwindows. Frame layout is only available in the frameset profiles. All frames are not available in XHTML 1.1 (use generic object elements instead for inline frames).

=Form elements=

The user interface controls for interacting with the web server.

== WebCore form elements notes ==

# label — Clicking on label does not focus on the corresponding form control.

== KHTML form elements notes ==

# label — Label is focusable prior to 3.4.2.

=Presentational elements=

Elements that specify presentational information. Although not all elements are deprecated, their use is discouraged in favor of stylesheets. Deprecated elements are not available in the strict profiles and XHTML 1.1.

=Stylesheet elements=

The ways to apply stylesheets (Cascading Style Sheets) to the document.

=Script elements=

Elements for embedding client-side script (JavaScript). See also DOM Events for a list of attributes used to attach an event handler to an element.

=Language elements=

Elements related to language information.

=Generic attributes=

Attributes that can be used in any elements.

=References=

* * * * * *

=See also=

*Comparison of layout engines

=External links=

*[http://hsivonen.iki.fi/doctype/ Activating the Right Layout Mode Using the Doctype Declaration] *[http://gutfeldt.ch/matthias/articles/doctypeswitch/table.html Doctypes and their respective layout mode] *[http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/html/supportkey/a.htm HTML Support History] *[http://nanobox.chipx86.com/browser_support_html.php Web browser HTML support] *[http://www.w3schools.com/xhtml/xhtml_reference.asp W3Schools XHTML 1.0 Reference]