I submitted a variation on this on the Opera forum but I thought I'd bring
it up here too as a more general HTML query.
Consider this code (I've shown it the old fashioned presentational way but
the same problem would happen with CSS):
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>Change d behaviour in Opera 7.21</title>
</head>
<body>
<h3>Floated left image but no paragraph tags on text.</h3>
<img src="animage.jp g" alt="" height="100" width="100" align="left">
The text of the paragraph.<br clear="all">
<h3>Floated left image inside paragraph tags</h3>
<p><img src="animage.jp g" alt="" height="100" width="100" align="left">
The text of the paragraph.<br clear="all">
</p>
</body>
</html>
This is the sort of code that can easily appear with editors such as GoLive
and it validates. In IE6, Firebird, Safari and Opera up until 7.11 at
least, the end result will be similar for both sections. There is a neat
space under the h3 header and then the top of the left floated images will
be neatly aligned with the top of the text.
In Opera 7.21 things have changed. The first image slams up right under the
<h3>...</h3> and there is no longer any alignment between the image and the
text. They have either simply ********** up the positioning of the floated
image somehow, in which case it is just a whopper of a bug, or perhaps they
have decided that the implied <p>...</p> around the paragraph text (if that
indeed is how UAs interpret the code) only kicks in after the <img> instead
of before.
So the question is really, even if it wasn't what they intended, could the
Opera 7.21 interpretation be considered as equally 'correct'.
