Re: question about the meta-generator exception

Steve Faulkner, Thu, 28 Apr 2011 12:12:41 +0100:
> looking at the results from the Opera mama survey of web pages
> 
> the Total analyzed URLs was  3,509,180 [1]
> 
> the total number of pages containing a meta element with 
> name=generator was 942,051
> 
> so that appears to equate to missing alt will not be flagged as an 
> error on 37% of web pages.
> Is this correct or have i missed something? 

It is correct: [A]

]] A conformance checker must report the lack of an alt attribute 
   as an error unless one of the conditions listed below applies:
   [ snip ]
   * The document has a meta element with a name attribute whose 
   value is an ASCII case-insensitive match for the string
   "generator". [[

In comparison, the WYSIWYG editor exception in the January 2008 version 
of the HTML5 draft, required a generator signature *ending* with the 
exact string "(WYSIWYG editor)". [B] Opera MAMA doesn't appear to have 
found a match for that string a single time. [C] Hence it was an opt-in 
for tool vendors.  (PS: BlueGriffon's string matches the Jan/2008 
draft, except that it doesn't use a parenthesis.)

Note that the HTML5 validator so far never complain about omitted @alt. 
[D]

> [1] http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/mama-the-url-set/

> [2] http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/mama-head-structure/#meta


[A] 
http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/embedded-content-1#guidance-for-markup-generators

[B] http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-html5-20080122/#wysiwyg2

[C] http://devfiles.myopera.com/articles/575/metagen-url.htm
[D] http://validator.nu/?doc=http%3A%2F%2Fmat-t.com%2F

-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Thursday, 28 April 2011 12:13:55 UTC