= Agnostic HTML in Django =

This page aims to document and discuss the output of either HTML4, HTML5, or XHTML from Django.

== Background ==

Currently, Django biased to producing XHTML output in the various places that output HTML, such as comments, formtools, CSRF, forms.widgets, and various filters and HTML utilities that output "<br />" tags.  If someone prefers an HTML4 doctype, this is a hassle with no easy answer.

Some tickets already open on this...

  * Ticket #6925: CSRF html output is not valid html (it is xhtml)
  * Ticket #7281: Add doctype tag to webdesign template tags
  * Ticket #7452: Settings for HTML4 or XHTML output

Some previous Django developer discussions...

  * Mar 2008: [http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers/browse_thread/thread/5f3694b8a19fb9a1 Form rendering with filters]
  * Sept 2008: [http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers/browse_thread/thread/f04aed2bc60274f0 {% doctype %} and {% field %} tag for outputting form widgets as HTML or XHTML]
  * Sept 2009: [http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers/browse_thread/thread/bbf75f0eeaf9fa64/1b7eacb9aee74232? Proposal: Better HTML4 Support]

== General Agreement ==

The general agreement on the last Django developers discussion was:

  * A way to output HTML4, HTML5, or XHTML would be preferred, with XHTML being the default for backwards compatibility.
  * Having the choice at the template level is preferred to give designers the choice, and also allow different parts of a website to have different doctypes.
  * Avoid another setting, for the above reason and others.

== 3rd Party Solutions ==

  * django-html [http://github.com/simonw/django-html http://github.com/simonw/django-html]