Re: validator download

On 20.10.99 at 15:46, Gary Alderman <galderman@intelink.gov> wrote:

>Yes, indeed.  I grabbed a copy of "check" (v1.7) shortly after Gerald
>first made it available and hacked my way through the steps which Terje
>just reiterated.  I found I had to perform extensive hacking about, much
>of it related to the actual displayed HTML.

That should no longer be necessary to any significant extent. The HTML
output does not contain too much that actually /must/ be changed. It's a
bit more work if you want to integrate it with the rest or your site or
need to adhere to specific design guidelines, but it won't break your back
to just get it to work (where HTML output is concerned!).



>Along the way I have installed Phillipe Le Hegaret's "CSS Validator" from
>http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator I have also provided a link to a copy
>of "tidy".

Integration (*not* merging!) with these are on the TODO list; both the
official one and my personal one. I can't give you even an approximate time
scale for when I'll do any work on it and I have *no* idea when/if Gerald
will.


>I have hungered for a DTD-aware "weblint" which understands HTML 4.0.
>Modifying weblint's internal tables to update it from HTML 3.2 to HTML 4.0
>is vaguely possible, I suppose, but it doesn't seem like the right way to
>go.

Weblint is being updated. See <URL:http://www.weblint.org/>.


>I found that I needed to make so very many changes to the early "check" to
>operate on my intranets that I have pretty much given up trying to track
>the actual code development here. The CVS "diffs" really don't help me too
>much. (The diff between my v1.7 and v1.40 is of course daunting by now.)

I sympathize completely; I've "been there, done that". Tracking via diffs
forces you to stay on the ball for each new release and it's often a
significant amount of work each time. Not to mention that my fingers start
to itch for doing a ground-up rewrite of the thing (making any attempt at
tracking changes impossible). :-)


>As I study the problem of upgrading, I guess I need to look both at
>Gerald's W3C version and Liam's WDG version.

I'm afraid that at the moment it's one or the other. They share no code
that I am aware of and take significantly different approaches in some
areas. BTW, you may also want to evaluate A Real Validator for Windows (or
whatever it's called) that Liam also wrote. I haven't tried it, but, based
on past experience, I have almost absolute faith in anything he produces.
You can find it at <URL:http://aRealValidator.com/>.


>Gerald, Terje, Liam, et al (whoever writes code):  Please keep in mind
>those of us who need to run the validator on separate networks not
>connected to the Internet.

I don't know that I can speak for Gerald or Liam (who are the ones that
write actual code. I just bug Gerald with hairy patches once in a while
;D), but this is one of the main reasons why I'm working on the Validator.
I need to run it on the internet (aka Intranet, but I hate that phrase)
behind our firewall and modifying it for local use was just too painful.

(One of) my goal(s) is to make it as easy to install locally as possible.

Unfortunately, the prerequisites can't be helped much. :-(


>Please consider "parameterizing" variables to permit easy porting. (This
>includes all links to Internet addresses.) Please also consider perhaps
>segregating the displayed HTML, particularly "header" and "footer" stuff,
>into separate subroutines to make it easier to customize.

General modularization and cleanup is something I try to do when I submit
patches to Gerald. That will get you part way there. I've also recently
started looking at using templates for all HTML output to make it easy to
modify for local needs. No time line for these either (nor, of course, any
guarantee that they'll get accepted into the main source tree).

I think you may want to look at the WDG Validator though. It looks a bit
cleaner (I've just given it a cursory inspection) and easier to customize
(more modular).



These things /are/ being worked on. They have improved and they will
continue to improve. And once they get to a decent stage, I think a
generally announced, pre-packaged, Release would be in order. :-)


>Thanks for listening, Gary Alderman

Thanks for the feedback! Keep it coming!

Received on Wednesday, 20 October 1999 17:11:12 UTC