facebook question

[crazysarah]

Hi there, I'm using 1.5 (can't believe 1.51 is out even before I managed to get my new 1.5 up and running!)

I want to use a facebook plugin which requires the following:
<div class="fb-like" data-href="http://www.traditionalirishgifts.com" data-send="false" data-layout="button_count" data-width="100" data-show-faces="false"></div>

The problem is that data-* attributes are invalid unless you are using the HTML5 doctype.

Is it ok to change the doctype of zencart or does that cause loads of problems? Is there a better solution? I don't know much about doctypes!

Thanks

[DrByte]

1. If your template isn't built for HTML5, then don't go changing the doctype. The default template in Zen Cart v1.5.x and older is XHTML, which is a variant of HTML4. All your markup will be invalidated if you blindly change the doctype to HTML5 and don't go and update everything everywhere else in all the system's template files.

2. There's nothing illegal about using that data-xxxx attribute even in XHTML, so if you must use facebook and if you must add that to your template, go ahead. You might still get a validation error, but it can be ignored.
Better to ignore the "one" error specific to that line specific to a certain facebook plugin than to invalidate your entire site's template by changing the doctype.

Have you actually tried it yet to see what the effects are?

[crazysarah]

Hi thanks for the reply. I haven't tried changing it yet because I don't know much about doctypes. The template I'm using is just one I'm making myself.

There's nothing overly fancy in it so I guess I'll go off and learn what the differences between html4 and html5 are and see if anything I'm using would cause problems. Thanks for the advice

on a related issue, Facebook is also causing this error:
cannot generate system identifier for general entity "appId"

and it's to do with this line
js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_GB/all.js#xfbml=1&appId=144176452325042";
having an unencoded ampersand. Is there an easy way to sort this out?

Thanks again, I appreciate the help

[DrByte]

Hi thanks for the reply. I haven't tried changing it yet because I don't know much about doctypes. The template I'm using is just one I'm making myself.

There's nothing overly fancy in it so I guess I'll go off and learn what the differences between html4 and html5 are and see if anything I'm using would cause problems. Thanks for the advice

I did NOT mean to go off and try changing the doctype.

I meant to proceed with stuffing your facebook-specific code into your template, and watch it work ... without changing the doctype.