

Re: HTML Validator Recommendations

From: Terje Bless <link@pobox.com>
Date: Wed, 4 Dec 2002 12:15:45 +0100
cc: Tony Rogers <azgul@wam.umd.edu>
Message-ID: <a01060007-1022-BC0C0A04077911D7987A00039300CF5C@[]>

Tony Rogers <azgul@wam.umd.edu> wrote:

>1. I don't think it's necessary to separate the "advanced" validation
>page. They were fine on the main page, and I see no purpose in setting
>them apart. The same goes for the results.  As far as I can tell the
>differences are so slight that they might as well be recombined.

Thanks, noted.

>2. One of the new suggestions for errors sometimes isn't as helpful as
>the older ones.  A common old error for the website I maintain used to
>be "check for improper embedding or ...etc."  Given the same error it no
>longer suggests improper embedding.  I think it'd be real helpful to
>reintroduce this.

The friendlier error messages fell victim to a change in backend parser. We
used to use Liam Quinn's version of SP, but had to switch to OpenSP for
various reasons. Improving the error messages is one of the issues we'd
like to address though, so there is a chance this will improve eventually.

>3. When reprinting the errors themselves--well, are these shorter than
>they used to be?  Or am I imagining this?

I don't /think/ we shortened them, but it's possible I'm misremembering.

The main issue with making them longer is that the little "^" we use to
indicate the position of the error quickly falls apart when the source line
is wider then the width of he browser window. We can probably stand to have
a few more characters shown then today, but not all that many.

For a future version we're investigating other ways to indicate the
position of the error (either as replacements for the "^", or as a
supplement to it) which may make this more robust.

>I recognize the desire to make things "cleaner" by shortening them,
>but in long documents it's VERY helpful to have the tag printed
>with the error too.

Just as an aside, have you checked out the nifty report formats you can get
from Nick Kew's wonderfull Page Valet <http://valet.webthing.com/>? Take a
look at e.g.

We're all envious of Nick and wish we had that output format as an option
in the Validator too. :-)

Thanks for the feedback!
Received on Wednesday, 4 December 2002 06:15:48 GMT
