BYOND Blogs, HTML standard, Tidy, and you!

ID:134284
 
Dec 3 2006, 1:25 pm
<div class="edit_post"> <form action="http://members.byond.com/Jtgibson" method="get" name="edit_2" onsubmit="sendRequest('command=edit_post_ajax&post=23565&pos t_num=2','post_status_2','post_2'); return false;"/> <input type="submit" value="Edit"/> <input type="hidden" name="command" value="edit_post"/> <input type="hidden" name="post" value="23565"/> </form> </div>


Problem: "Error: Discarding unexpected </form>"
Cause: Opening <form> tag is self-closing.
Solution: Remove self-closing / from form tag.


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Posted by Jtgibson on Saturday, December 02, 2006 02:34AM - <a href="http://members.byond.com/?command=view_comments&post=2 3660">4 comments</a>


Problem: "Warning: unescaped & or unknown entity "&post""
Cause: Old-format HTML topic link.
Solution: Replace ampersands with semicolons. Parse semicolons instead of ampersands. Alternately, replace all & symbols with &amp; entities embedded directly in the link. See GET by URL.


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Problem: "Warning: <img> lacks "alt" attribute"
Cause: Built-in images do not have alt attributes.
Solution: Add alt attributes to all automatically-inserted images; "large member icon", "hub icon for Scream of the Stickster", etc.


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<a name="post_1"></a> <div class="post" id="post_1">


Problem: "Warning:
anchor "post_1" already defined"
Cause: <a> tag's name is "post_1"; <div> tag's ID attribute is "post_1"
Solution: Unknown. Some browsers may not support the id attribute as an anchor, though most modern browsers do -- <a> tag may be unnecessary depending on target browsers: consider removing <a> tag.


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<h3 class="title">A not-so-unused placeholder any more

<span class="ajax_status" id="post_status_1"><img width=16 height=16 align="center" src="/images/pixel.gif"></span>
</h3>

Problem: "Warning: <img> attribute "align" has invalid value "center""
Cause: align attribute was deprecated in HTML 4.01. "center" was replaced with "middle" to remove reliance on American English.
Solution: Replace align="center" with align="middle". Consider removing align attribute and adding text-align: center style to .ajax_status class. Ensure <img> tag is self-closing!


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<div id="bottom_space"><p>&nbsp;</ p><p>&nbsp;</p></div>

Problem: "Warning: <div> anchor "bottom_space" already defined"
Cause: Several boxes on the page all use the "bottom_space" ID.
Solution: Replace each unique occurrence with a unique ID. "bottom_space1", "bottom_space2", etc.
Dec 3 2006, 2:16 pm
Aye, I didn't want to be the ever antagonizing "follow the web standards, please" person, but I've been meddling over the idea of being more bothersome over the unstandardized BYOND site.

Basically all aspects of the site don't comply with the W3C standard, as I recall, and I like the idea of a move toward nice, pretty standardization of the Internet.

Hiead
Dec 3 2006, 2:54 pm
In response to Hiead
I concur, the doctor prescribes XHTML!

(don't forget your doctypes, kids!)
Dec 3 2006, 3:35 pm
Jtgibson wrote:
Problem: "Error: Discarding unexpected </form>"
Cause: Opening <form> tag is self-closing.
Solution: Remove self-closing / from form tag.

I fixed that one (for next time we update the site) since it's an actual error...for now I'm not touching the rest since they are more debatable and would require testing for the solutions.
Dec 3 2006, 7:35 pm
In response to Deadron
Well, except for the <a> tag one, the rest aren't at all debatable if you're trying to conform to the XHTML standard. ;-)
Dec 3 2006, 9:05 pm
In response to Jtgibson
Jtgibson wrote:
Well, except for the <a> tag one, the rest aren't at all debatable if you're trying to conform to the XHTML standard. ;-)

But we're not, at least right now. If that becomes important, it'll be reasonably easy to adapt.
Dec 4 2006, 2:48 pm
In response to Deadron
Deadron wrote:
Jtgibson wrote:
Well, except for the <a> tag one, the rest aren't at all debatable if you're trying to conform to the XHTML standard. ;-)

But we're not, at least right now. If that becomes important, it'll be reasonably easy to adapt.

I would go so far as to claim that it's critically important to adopt the XHTML standard, in the same way that it's critically important not to put leaded fuel into an unleaded gasoline engine. The engine runs, but only grudgingly, and eventually it'll break down. Better to vaccinate the problem than cure the problem. You save yourself a huge cylinder head replacement that way.
Dec 4 2006, 3:47 pm
In response to Jtgibson
Jtgibson wrote:
I would go so far as to claim that it's critically important to adopt the XHTML standard, in the same way that it's critically important not to put leaded fuel into an unleaded gasoline engine.

It works. We got other stuff to do.

I'm rather anal about doing things right when they need to be done right, and I'm foot-dragging about stuff that would be nice but requires a batch of work for no immediate benefit.

Given our habit of taking 4.5 years longer than intended to roll out any particular feature, we don't need to take on any projects without an important benefit...in fact, doing so jeopardizes the project as a whole.

That said, as a rule when I'm touching a page, I tend to make it XHTMLish in the process.
Dec 4 2006, 8:06 pm
In response to Deadron
Get someone else to do it. :D

I don't see any of those problems taking more than a few minutes each.
Dec 4 2006, 8:46 pm
In response to CaptFalcon33035
CaptFalcon33035 wrote:
I don't see any of those problems taking more than a few minutes each.

Okay, but you are wrong...:)