HTMLValidator : Java Glossary

Why Validate?

HTMLValidator is extremely configurable. You can get it to ignore picky errors for now, then when you have the big problems with your site cleaned up, turn them back on. You can also make it super picky, so that your HTML is easier to process with programs, or to gradually migrate your site to XHTML.

Learning What CSE HTML Validator Can Do

HTML Validator Options
cost CurrCon Applet needs Java 1.1 or later to display prices in your local currency. CurrCon Applet needs Java 1.1 or later to display prices in your local currency.	click	Version	Notes
$0.00 USD		on-line	Try validating some of your web pages online. This is done with free lite version. You don’t have to download anything, but the web page you validate must be posted on web.
$0.00 USD		Lite	Download the free lite version, and use it for as long as you like. It won’t expire. You normally use it to validate HTML on your hard disk before you upload your pages to your website. though you can also use it to validate web pages pages, (even other people’s) already posted on the web.
$0.00 USD		FAQ	Read the HTMLValidator FAQ. You will discover the extreme configurability. You can control the degree of pickiness so you don’t have to fix everything at once, just set the filters fine enough to get the worst problems cleaned before you move on to the pickier stuff.
$0.00 USD		Standard	Download the trial standard version. It will work for 30 days to let you evaluate. You might choose this first over the pro edition just you would not be overwhelmed with features to start.
$0.00 USD		Pro	Download the trial pro version. It will work for 30 days to let you evaluate. It is fully functional. The worst that can happen is you have 30 days to clean up your website. When the trial expires, your website will still be clean.
$69.00 USD		Standard	Buy the standard version. It would be suitable if you had under 1000 files to keep validated. It does not have any hard limits.
$129.00 USD		Pro	Buy the pro version. I use the pro version because comes with the batch wizard. It would take forever to validate my whole website file by file.

HTMLValidator comes in three versions. See this comparison chart to help you decide which version you need.

Configuring

Here’s how I configure it to demand balancing </li> tags.

1. Click Options ⇒ Configuration Editor ⇒ Edit ⇒ Tag Names.
2. On the top right, Select li (020) with the drop down box on the right (not the box on the left) as the “Tag Name Being Configured”
3. On the right, select the “Required end tag” radio button.
4. You’ll probably want to repeat this for all li tags whose context is distinguished with a number.
5. Save the configuration file to a different filename to make sure it doesn’t get overwritten if the CSE HTML Validator is reinstalled or updated.

In Options ⇒ Validation Engine Option ⇒ Options

• I set check for high ASCII character on.
• I set require lower case tags and attributes. Consistency never hurts.
• I set required quoted attribute values. This consistency helps later with any search/replace or one-off text processing programs.

Set the max number of errors and warnings before aborting at Tools ⇒ Tools Options ⇒ Message Output.

The configuring options are squirreled in over seven different places. Check out:

• Tools ⇒ Tools Options
• Tools ⇒ Tools Options ⇒ Config file ⇒ Edit configuration
• Tools ⇒ Batch Wizard ⇒ options ⇒ Batch Wizard options
• Options ⇒ Editor Options
• Options ⇒ Validator Engine Options ⇒ options
• Options ⇒ Validator Engine Options ⇒ edit configuration files
• Options ⇒ Configuration Editor ⇒ edit configuration

Unfortunately, when you install a new version of the program, usually your old customisations are lost unless you make special provisions.

Other files in:
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator.userid\Application Data\AI Internet Solutions\CSE HTML Validator\9.0\
or in Vista:
C:\Users\roedy\AppData\Roaming\AI Internet Solutions\CSE HTML Validator\9.0\, you can configure include:

• cssinsertercfg.txt
• htmlvalV90.cfg: I suggest putting this file in some permanent data directory so it will be backed up and won’t get lost on reinstall.
• options.veo: I suggest putting this file in some permanent directory so it will be backed up and won’t get lost on reinstall.
• javascriptinsertercfg.txt
• msgidcfg.xml
• phpinsertercfg.txt
• taginsertercfg.txt
• tidyprofiles.xml
• userinsertercfg.txt

& and &amp;

Gotchas

• Make sure you uncheck the batch wizard option “After validating a target list, set process to ‘No’ for the targets with no errors, warnings or bad links.” Otherwise your validations will gradually stop working.
• The check for high ASCII characters is done without regard to tags. Unfortunately, this means you can’t use <cseignore> to suppress high ASCII error messages.
• Uncheck Options ⇒ Validator Engine Options ⇒ Validator Engine Options ⇒ Enable JavaScript Lint messages to disable JavaScript checking. The problem is if your HTML contains VBScript, the validator gets confused and thinks it is JavaScript and complains wherever the syntax differs from JavaScript.

Tips

• Use copy/paste the file name in the batch validation browser report to revalidate the bad document in regular mode, where you can correct the errors in its editor.
• If there are a large number of documents needing correction, copy/paste the list from the batch validation browser report to a file and tidy them to look like this:

  -o E:\mindprod\jgloss\google.html
  -o E:\mindprod\jgloss\htmlcheat.html
  -o E:\mindprod\jgloss\intellij.html
  -o E:\mindprod\jgloss\jetpurchase.html

  and save them in a file badlist.txt. Then submit the entire file with:

  rem submit list of -o (open) commands to HTMLValidator command line processor
  cmdlineprocessor.exe -f badlist.txt

• Create a batch descriptor to validate your whole site, but limit it to changes within the last day. Run this before every upload. It will complete quite quickly and this habit will prevent you from ever uploading bad HTML.
• Use the recent feature the batch validator version 9 to only check files that have changed within n days where n can be a fraction. This will save needlessly checking files over and over. I now run a global check of all recently changed files several times a day. This helps me keep on top of any errors.

Validate your Webpages Free

Check your document online with CSE HTML Validator Lite. URL: