[VE][65][410][70] New Error Message Suggestions

TWO ERROR MESSAGES that got tied together somehow:
[VE][65] New Error Message Suggestion
and [VE][410] New Error Message Suggestion
ALSO RELEVANT
[VE][70] New Error Message Suggestion [NOT DEFINED - see my suggestion]
AND A Silly "a" referral glitch

Error messages for [65] could be friendlier. Error messages for [410] 
weren't always correct. Actual errors consisted of missing </p> and 
</h3> tags on the lines indicated and incorrect SGML character types.

After my document validated there were four SGML characters that were 
still in my document, which the validator had not picked up.

My omissions generated a foot of subsequent error messages, many of 
which weren't valid errors as they were "children" of earlier tag 
omissions. A warning in the form of a tip that many errors can be 
generated because of one missing tag along with a suggestion to try 
checking a document for missing tags before revalidating might be a 
nice feature to embed in message #[65].

After correcting my omissions and revalidating I was returned another 
20 lines of errors. Scrolling to the bottom of the error list, I 
found there that the error which registered had begun on line 73 
[coincidentally, another set of missing /p and /h3 tags]. I would 
have liked to get a note at the top of the list to check the bottom 
to see if a start location for my error had been given; or would have 
liked to see the last error at the top of the error list.

Finally, page still would not validate. Revalidating produced #[65] 
again plus a third error message [70], not yet defined. Closing the 
two open tags remaining one me a validation. So the #[70] message was 
actually not valid.

--- Here is my suggestion for text for the #[70] error message:

"We're showing that there is error in your XHTML code but this may 
not actually be true. The error registering is a missing end tag in 
your parse tree [example: </table>, </tr>, </td>, ??</div>_I don't 
know if this applies to code [70] ].

When we validate a document, what we're really doing is validating 
your language document and parsing your XML code tree. Language is 
validated first because a language issue in your document can produce 
false errors in the document's code tree.

This error may be shown together with error message #65. Error #65 
relates to a language issue such as failure to close a <p> or header 
tag. Closing your language tags may make both parse and language 
error messages go away."

We recommend that you close any tags indicated by message #65 errors 
and revalidate before attempting to solve the code tree error 
indicated in this error message. It may turn out that you don't have 
a code tree error after all."

--- End suggested text [kind of long, but complete].

I know enough to revalidate after correcting language issues before 
driving myself nuts over other apparent errors, but not everyone may.

The silly "a" referral glitch I mention, came up when at one point in 
my validations I clicked on the red-highlighted #53 in the error 
message body. This brought me to line 53 of my site code which also 
showed on the page. In subsequent validations I was always brought to 
this same point in the document [I revalidated by reloading the 
page]. I would have like to be at the top of the error messages 
instead.

In case you're interested, below are the 3 errors from my penultimate 
validation attempt. I also saved my original xhtml document intact 
with errors, in case you'd like to see for yourself how it behaved in 
the validation process.


All best,

Kimi



LAST THREE VALIDATION ERRORS [prohibited SGML characters were not 
picked up by validator]:

Line 95, column 2: document type does not allow element "p"
here; missing one of "object", "applet", "map", "iframe", "button", 
"ins", "del" start-tag
<p>[The advertising pitch follows]<br />
Help Wanted! Can you think of a better explanation for this error 
message? Then please let us know
by sending a message to the www-validator@w3.org list (be sure to 
quote the message number: #65).

The mentioned element is not allowed to appear in the context which 
you've placed it; the other
mentioned elements are the only ones that are allowed there. This 
might mean that you need a
containing element, or possibly that you've forgotten to close a 
previous element. The most common
cause for this message is that you have attempted to put a 
block-level element (such as "<p>" or
"<table>") inside an inline element (such as "<a>", "<span>", or "<font>").

2.
Line 98, column 4: end tag for "p" omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified
</td>
Help Wanted! This message (#70) has no explanation yet. If you can 
think of a succinct way to
explain the possible situations that will trigger this error and how 
to fix it, please consider
writing it down and sending it to the www-validator@w3.org list.

3.
Line 93, column 0: start tag was here
<p>Until then, bon soir, mes filles!



-- 
Kim Brooks Wei
www.kimbwei.com
P O Box 626
Fair Lawn
NJ  07410
V 201.475.1854
kimi@kimbwei.com

Received on Thursday, 4 September 2003 17:32:45 UTC