- From: Barney Wol <Barney.Wol@noctua.demon.co.uk>
- Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 23:28:56 +0000
- To: html-tidy@w3.org
At 16:22 +0900 13/3/01, Peter Evans wrote: > > Can I use tidy while leaving the indents of my page as they were? > >No. The first paragraph under the subtitle "Layout style" within >http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett/tidy/ explains not only that this isn't >possible but also why it can't be an added feature. > >If you're desperate to preserve a laboriously contrived layout -- and I >know I sometimes am -- then here is a (probably more laborious) >workaround. Ignore Tidy's standard output and instead read its >error/warning file (the file you specify after the "-f" switch), making >your own corrections to the original file as appropriate. Yes, I do this too. However, you have to watch out for a few things that Tidy changes without warning you about - double quote marks (") changed to ", apostrophes to ', and lone ampersands (&) to &. While sympathising with the original request, I think it is outside of Tidy's original remit, which is (as I understand it) to correct an HTML file so it is legal. This necessarily entails disassembling it, and the corrected result can only be re-created to some defined standard, as indentation may HAVE to be changed to make the file legal. I think Tidy should be treated as a "first pass" engine, and if you want to re-edit the output to your indentation standard, then that is up to you. Incremental code changes can then be re-checked, errors noted, and the original files corrected by hand. As Mr.Evans says, this is a rather laborious approach, but once done, incremental changes are easier. Or, of course, you could learn to love the standard output style adopted by Tidy. :-) Regards, Peter
Received on Wednesday, 14 March 2001 13:42:10 UTC