Re: FAQ List ?

On 18 Feb 2001, at 23:07, r keir wrote:

> I'm new to HTML and hate to bother you with questions or suggestions you
> have no doubt received many times.  Do you have a list of Frequently
> Asked Questions that I could look over ? 

The archives of the HTML Tidy mailing list are at:

  http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/html-tidy/

...and they may be searched for particular content.  However, if you're new 
to HTML, then you will likely wish to augment your reading of this list, 
which specifically concerns the operation of the HTML Tidy program, with 
one dedicated to general HTML questions.  For example, the USENET news 
group:

  comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html

...would be directly targeted to your HTML questions.


> My second question concerns "Flowing text around images" in the Advanced
> part of your Introduction.  The <br  clear="all"> tag is used but not
> explained, and I have no idea where to look for it.

There are a number of HTML resources on the Web.  The primary source is the 
HTML specification itself.  For example, the HTML 4.01 Specification is 
available at:

  http://www.w3.org/TR/html4

...and the BR element is described at:

  http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/text.html#edef-BR

(The index of the full specification lists all of the elements, such as BR, 
and attributes, such as CLEAR.)

Other useful HTML resources are at:

  http://www.htmlhelp.com/  
  http://www.richinstyle.com/


> My first use of Tidy was frustrating because the file I directed errors
> to using -f came up with 0 bytes, even though I already knew of several
> errors/warnings and Tidy found 12 on a later run. 

What specific command line did you use?  Using, e.g.:

  tidy -f t.err t.html

...will indeed write errors and warnings to the "t.err" file, and will 
write the tidied markup to the screen.


> ...my fourth question is "How do you recommend relating the error
> messages to the Tidy'd code ? 

Personally, I load the file to be tidied into a text editor that provides  
the position of the cursor (i.e., row and column) in its status line.  
Alternately, I use FrontPage (carefully! :-), as its "HTML view" also 
reports the cursor location.  So when Tidy gives me an error, I can locate 
the offending construct from the location information reported.


> I suppose my fifth question is "Would you consider adding a command line
> option to show relevant line numbers in the Tidy'd text, perhaps in <!
> ... > comment form ?". 

I'll defer that question to Tidy's author.


> My fifth question is "Why did Tidy erase my comment lines ?".

I have not observed that Tidy removes comments.  Were your comments 
syntactically correct?  Note that one of Tidy's jobs is to make invalid 
HTML valid, so if you have a malformed comment, Tidy could make the file 
valid either by correcting the comment or by removing it.  Perhaps the 
latter is happening?


> Is there some way to print (e.g.) the HTML standard in one pass ?  Is
> there a one-file version available anywhere ? 

At the top of the HTML 4.01 Specification (see the preceding link) are 
links to versions of the standard in various formats.  For printing, I 
would recommend obtaining either the PDF or Postscript versions.


> Thanks

You're welcome.

                                      -- Dave

Received on Tuesday, 20 February 2001 00:43:34 UTC