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Posted by Andy Dingley on 07/31/06 09:47
kram@kram.selkcub.moc wrote:
> I know only very little about HTML,
Then learn. I'm afraid there really aren't any good "automatic" tools
out there, so the alternatives are to either generate flakey pages, or
to learn enough to understand what you're doing manually. Fortunately
HTML _isn't_ that hard (CSS certainly can be). You're talking about
validation, so it sounds like you've moved from the newbie stage into
taking things seriously. Time to read the W3C site and to learn how to
look thing up in the DTD.
You don't have to author valid code "freehand" - that's hard. Just
learn to author something approximately right, check it with a true
validator (try http://validator.w3.org ) and then know enough about
DTDs to sort out the errors afterwards.
> so I used FrontPage2003 to write
> a website. After I wrote it, I rant it through an HTML checker called
> Weblint.
A bad editor, and what sounds like a worse "linter".
There are some bad products out there claiming to be validators. Tidy
is useful but far from perfect. CSE is poor and so is this one by the
sound of things.
Validation is based on measuring compliance with the DTD There's no
leeway here, you're either right or wrong. There's no "extended"
features in there either - it really is a simple black and white
process. So use one of the good validators and things are clear-cut (if
not always obvious)
You can also have "web lint" on top of this. "Lint" is the process of
picking up fluff that's strictly correct, but usually a bad idea.
Nested <blockquote>. Any use of <font>. Nested <table>s. These things
might even be right, but usually their existence is an indication of
poor code, not the justified necessity for unusual code.
> line 21: attribute `TITLE' for <img> is extended markup (use "-x
> <extension>" to allow this).
If you used Dreaweaver you could have similarly misleading "error
reporting" built into the editor and save yourself some time 8-)
This message is just plain wrong. "Not common practice 10 years ago"
isn't a good definition of "extended" and it's certainly not something
that should be seen as "bad" practice. These days putting title on
<img> is certainly to be recommended strongly. If you're going to
continue using this tool (I'd probably advise against it) then at least
always run it in "extended" mode.
As an immediate next step, go to the W3C site, read the DTD for HTML
4.01 Strict regarding title and read the TR's notes too. That will give
you a better idea about its proper use than weblint will.
It's hard to say much more, and certainly not in a short posting. But
search the archives of this newsgroup, particularly c.i.w.a.h and keep
reading. You'll soon learn more about good HTML than 90% of
professional(sic) web designers.
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