Re: Options and presentation of validator

Hello Philip,

On Nov 25, 2004, at 0:17, Philip Chalmers wrote:
> Some of my suggestions assume that the unpublished "direct input" 
> option
> (http://validator.w3.org/fragment-upload.html) will be released fairly 
> soon.

Unfortunately that is a wrong assumption. The fragment upload is not a 
development feature waiting to be released but a legacy feature, not 
maintained any more. I see no plan to make it an official feature any 
more.

Unlike CSS (for which our validator also has this feature, but 
officially), where a fragment of valid CSS can also be valid CSS, a 
fragment of HTML is not HTML, but tag soup. As a result, there is 
little if nothing the fragment upload interface does that is not 
covered by the file upload interface.

> It's the only way to validate dynamically-generated pages BEFORE they 
> are published.

I must confess I have no idea what you are talking about here. I 
suspect you need to define what you mean by "publish". I regularly deal 
with validation of dynamic content, either by generating it in a 
password-protected area of the Web site, or by generating it offline 
and uploading it to the validator, and so on. The validator, in that 
respect, does its job just fine.

>  could you:
> *	add the "direct" option on the same page (http://validator.w3.org/).

See above.

> *	add a mini-menu above all of the forms, e.g.

I don't think it is really necessary when there are only two compact 
options.

> I think the top-of-page message should use normal font. On most 
> computer
> screens italics harder to read because the dot-pitch makes them look 
> fuzzy.

I agree this introduction could use a little re-styling, and that 
italic may not be the best way to make it stand out from the forms and 
menus.

> *	It could be a little snappier, e.g. "The W3C Mark-up Validation 
> Service
> checks documents like HTML and XHTML for conformance to W3C 
> Recommendations
> and other standards - and it's free." (I'd delete "Welcome .." because 
> it's
> does nothing for the user, rather like the infamous "click here".)

Agreed that it could do without the "welcome", and be better worded. 
Not sure about the "and it's free", sounds too much like spam.

> -	"documents like HTML and XHTML". Can you list all the supported 
> languages?

Not in the front page, but indeed, it should link to a section in the 
documentation that lists supported document types.


> 	-	"W3C Recommendations and other standards." Which other standards? 
> Why are
> they important? (I've only heard of the W3C Recommendations)

ISO-HTML, for example. HTML2, too, which wasn't produced at W3C, IIRC.

> *	It should sell the benefits, especially to newcomers

How about just linking to the section of the documentation on "why 
validate?"
http://validator.w3.org/docs/help.html#why-validate

Thanks for all the suggestions!
-- 
olivier