Comments for XHTML validation and more CSS notes

XHTML validation and more CSS notes

2003-09-27T07:05:37Z

I've been fixing up some teething problems with my new CSS design and I'm quite pleased to report that my homepage is now 100% valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional! I checked this at the W3C Validator. A couple of days ago I had about 360 errors on my test page, but I whittled it down in two main ways. Firstly, I ran all my homepage posts through a nice online HTML Tidy tool I found. This cleaned up most of the gunk that the Radio Userland WYSIWYG editor produces (the main culprit is upper case HTML tags, which is a no-no in XHTML). Then I had to clean up some other HTML that the W3C Validator objected to, such as ampersands and similar characters. This meant I had to remove all my Amazon links, as they have question marks and so forth in their URLs (due to being database query strings). The Validator didn't like links to comments on the Radio Userland servers either.

The Validator is a tough task master, but I did as it bid me. The end result is I am now XHTML validated. I feel both cleansed and exhausted. As for the reasons why I felt I had to validate, it's partly because I want to give my tableless CSS the best chance of success (fly little bird, fly!). It's also partly because I am trying to ingratiate myself into the world of Web Standards - and why I am doing this is something I will write about soon. Lastly, I am interested in the Semantic Blog concept that Jon Udell is currently experimenting with. That is, doing XML analysis with an XHTML-enhanced weblog.

There are now only two remaining CSS issues that I need to sort out:

1. The formatting of the bottom horizontal bar goes out of whack when the menu list is longer than the main text. This is why I've temporarily taken off my blogroll and topicroll - but they'll return once I figure out how to fix this issue. I haven't fully got my head around CSS positioning yet, which judging from this article may take some time to sink in.

2. The second issue relates to the bottom vertical bar, which has a little glitch (at least in my IE6 browser). This seems to be related to some Radio Userland code, which I'll need to look more closely at.

There may be one or two other issues, depending on what browser you are using. I'd be grateful if readers would let me know of any problems, via the comments or by email.

Comment from Andrew on 2003-09-26

2003-09-27T02:11:25Z

ampersands can be represented in URLs via the "ampersand amp ;" (with no spaces and an actual ampersand instead of the word ampersand, and without the quotes). XHTML compliant web browsers _should_ resolve entities within URLs before interpreting the URLs as URLs.

Comment from Richard MacManus on 2003-09-26

2003-09-27T02:24:10Z

Hi Andrew,

Yes I know, but I couldn't be bothered fixing up the Amazon URLs in this case. But I'd like to get an automated program to do this for me in future - one of the Tidy programs. Do you have any recommendations?

Cheers, Richard

Comment from Richard MacManus on 2003-09-26

2003-09-27T02:24:20Z

Hi Andrew,

Cheers, Richard

Comment from Andrew on 2003-09-28

2003-09-28T19:32:01Z

Hello Richard,

Sorry - I have no recommendations. Especially since in my case all the blog posts are in a MySQL database, for me it would involve likely some funky SQL and maybe some language with decent regex support. For you there in Radio land, I imagine it is something very different. If I knew that it was just any ampersand in any href= then there's likely some one-liner involving sed or perl that could do the job, but I'm in no mood to write regex right now (e-mail me if you'd want such sed/perl thing).

Well wishes,
Andrew

Comment from Richard MacManus on 2003-09-29

2003-09-30T00:59:29Z

Hi Andrew,

That's OK, I think one of the HTML Tidy programs will do it. I haven't yet installed the W3C version, which may be the answer.

Cheers, Richard