Re: [VE][76] Add Subject Here

Philip Taylor (Webmaster, Ret'd) wrote:

> Naz wrote:
>>
>> Validating http://www.ukofficialcertificates.co.uk/
>> Error [76]: "element X undefined"
>
> Currently shews 87 Errors, 1 warning(s), Naz, none of which
> are "element X undefined".

That is true, and confusing, but the string "element X undefined" is 
generated when someone clicks on a "suggest improvements" link in validation 
results (those links appear on the right of error messages and have, 
confusingly, an image of an envelope as the link image, and all of them have 
Alt="Error", violating W3C accessibility recommendations).

More exactly, clicking on one of those links, then selecting the "send your 
message to the www-validator public mailing-list" link opens (if your 
browser has been configured to launch an e-mail program when following a 
mailto: link, etc.) a message composition window, with the string

Re: [VE][76] Add Subject Here

prefilled in the Subject line (with just the number "76" varying) and with 
prefilled content like

Validating http://www.ukofficialcertificates.co.uk/
Error [76]: "element X undefined"

This is surely better than getting messages that say just "the validator 
does not like my document" or something like that, but it's still rather 
incomplete. The user is expected to replace "Add Subject Here" with 
something descriptive, but as the situation is confusing, the expectation 
often fails.

And the error message string inserted is the generic one, "element X 
undefined", not the specific message shown to the user.

-- 
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

Received on Wednesday, 5 January 2011 10:40:23 UTC