what is this crap?!

when i make a new page in dreamweaver mx 2004, it puts in this line at the top of the code:
!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">

whatever that http:// link is, it's screwing with the tables on the page. like it wouldn't let a table stay at H:100% when previewed in a browser. what the heck is it and why is it there on every new page? anyone know? any way to get rid of it other than having to manually erase it every time i make a new page? i've never had that problem with drmwvr mx.

I think it was mattboy that made a long ass list of problems with the new Dreamweaver, apparently you really can't help but manually remove it.

or hand code it.

Per HTML and XHTML standards, a DOCTYPE (short for “document type declaration”) informs the validator which version of (X)HTML you’re using, and must appear at the very top of every web page. DOCTYPEs are a key component of compliant web pages: your markup and CSS won’t validate without them.

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/doctype/

Well IE is the only browser that really supports cells at 100%, The DocType definition is a big part of the html code. The link is a link to the definition on the w3 school standards.
http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_doctype.asp

and it's not the doctype definition that is screwing with your tables. It's set to Transitional and Loose, which means "anything goes" and any depracated tag is acceptible.

[QUOTE=!mo0chan!]I think it was mattboy that made a long ass list of problems with the new Dreamweaver, apparently you really can't help but manually remove it.[/QUOTE]

What are you talking about?

Adding a doctype is definately not a problem - its a good thing that Dreamweaver does. Every page should have a doctype specified, so that the browser can figure out how to view the page. And if its messing up your tables, then that means that your tables are messed up - not Dreamweaver. Visit the alistapart site that mobilebadboy gave - thats a good link.

ok, here's an example of what i'm talking about so you guys don't think i'm crazy.

page made in mx 2004 with the doctype http: thing in the code. (bad)

page made in mx without the doctype http: thing in the code. (good)

if anyone can take just a second and view source for both pages you'll notice that all the coding is identical except for the one minor difference on the page where the table isn't working correctly.

Well 100% height in a cell is not valid html. You don't have to code with a DTD , but it's better to learn the right way, unless you really don't plan on making webpages for clients.

i see what you mean,
My version of dreamweaver only puts in the doctpye bit without the URL .......

weird..... the source code really IS identical...... thats really weird

The thing is the url is supposed to be there. There can't be a document type definition without some kind of definition going on. If you create an xml doc with your own dtd, it will make more sense as you define what the definitions are.

Browsers render things differently depending on the doctype you use. Most browsers have a "correct" way of rendering, and then a "quirks" mode that you can switch to with a certain doctype to allow the use of crappy, non-valid HTML like 100% height. This way old web sites don't break when the new browsers don't support the old tags anymore. That is the reason it looks two different ways with the same source code. One is with the browser in quirks mode, one is with it the right way.