Re: DTD driven browsers and real world HTML

Irene.Vatton@inrialpes.fr wrote:
> In-reply-to: Your message of Tue, 19 Jan 1999 21:11:57 +0000."
>              <199901192111.VAA17803@saracen.bts.co.uk>
> > If Amaya is to move towards a browser rather than an editor, it needs
> > to be much more tolerant of real world HTML than is possible with a
> > strict DTD based parser.
> 
> Amaya is not moving towards a browser. We added the possibility to prevent
> documents to be edited by error. Some times documents are downloaded only to
> copy information or to make or test a link.
> 
> If Amaya was not tolerant it had rejected the document. But what you're asking is
> that all browsers manage errors in the same way. What I would prefer is that users
> ask altavista page providers to build valid HTML pages and avoid these errors.
> The HTML structure is not so complex. It takes two minutes to put the <FOPRM>
> </FORM> around the Table, but days of work to understand at parsing time what the
> author wanted to do.
> 
All true, What i'd expect from Amaya (since it is an authoring editor) is that it
should accept about everything which looks like html (4) BUT it should clearly
state errors to this language.

> >
> > E.g. this afternoon, at least, the main page for
> > http://www.altavista.com/ contained the illegal sequence:
> >
> > TABLE
> > FORM
> > INPUT
> > TBODY
> >
> > Amaya deleted FORM and INPUT, in its error recovery (validator.w3.org
> > seems to close the table instead).  The result was that it was
> > impossible to make a search!
> >
> > (Lynx has had to go as far as both a DTD based parser and a process
> > tag semantics in isolation parser, in order to both be correct and
> > useable.)

I think Amaya acted as it should do: it was given faulty HTML and it was making
the best out of it. Only good HTML has expected behavoure, if parts are faulty,
rejecting the faulty bits is one of the things Amaya can do. You are right that
closing the 'accidently' not closed table is a better option, the user can remove
the (now empty) table by hand. Future implementations of Amaya can ask the user
what to do on these bugs if it is in editing mode but in browsing mode I'd like
an automated action.


Regards,

CB

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Received on Wednesday, 20 January 1999 04:26:55 UTC