HTML Validation Results??

[Keith Bateman]

Hi All,

Someone (sorry forgotten who!) put in a link to a HTML Validation Results site - which I have used on my website - please to say most of my pages are error free!!

The  one with a few errors in is the front page - was going to try to alter it when I thought I would try this site - they have lots of errors!!

Now - my question (bet you were saying he's rambling again!!) - DOES IT MATTER??
What does it mean that certain pages are not validated?


Cheers

Keith

[Biker]

Hi Keith

1. Does it matter?  Well, depends if you are a web professional or a perfectionist then it matters.  Otherwise, as far as accessibility to your site, no it doesn't really, as long as the code is not completely duff - and yours just has some minor flabby coding.

2. What does it mean?  Well, it means that your code isn't perfect and doesn't meet accepted standards.  But many pages (even professional ones) don't !
I notice you have some empty paragraph tags and I would suspect you've cut and paste some bits from Word?? If you have, this is considered rather sloppy in the world of web design as it 'bloats' the code and makes the pages slower to 'load'.  Also a few superfluous tags.

Well, you did ask    But the short answer is it is fine the way it is 

Cheers
Jonathan

[RJ_Paton]

Web Professional OR perfectionist ..... not mutually exclusive 

Internet Explorer is relatively easy on HTML writing and lets us away with "loose" code which some other browsers (in the past) didn't. CAB on the atari was very exact in its requirements and everything had to be spot on or the pages just did not display the way you wanted them .... plus some (later) versions had a built in display which broadcast your errors to all and sundry.

try running your site through this validator http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/validator/ ........ it reports more than the index page  and checks for conformity to HTML 4.01

[Keith Bateman]

Thanks you 2,

Yes - you must let me cut and paste - otherwise I can't do anything!!

The other pages are mostly made up by "Front Page" and they have no errors - but my first page is made by a sub programme - which I use for the data etc - and as I have only just learned (by copying html) and inserting onto the page how to do internal links - it is a lot harder to get correct.

Will have a go again to see if I can get it any better - thanks for that link Falkyrn  - that's the one I used - probably it was you who put it out before!!

Cheers

Keith

[RJ_Paton]

Don't worry about it ..... the main problems it reports with your site are a lack of ALT tags for your images .Protocol is that you should provide an ALTernate text description of your image which will appear if required or if the image itself has been switched off by the viewer (or for several other reasons).
One "new" reason which is becoming increasingly important is that it is this text which is read by a screen reader for a visually impaired person .

[Keith Bateman]

One "new" reason which is becoming increasingly important is that it is this text which is read by a screen reader for a visually impaired person .

You learn something new every day!!

Will have a go at altering them - after I have looked at the rest of this site, altered a few photos, spoken to............. ah well tomorrow 

Cheers

Keith

[Berlin-Bob]

Other good reasons for using ALT:

- example: alt="This is a picture of my Granddad"  This text will then show when you hover over the image with your cursor.  Useful for a gallery of thumbnails.

- Another good idea is when an image, or a "graphics only"-type button  is being used as a link to another page  or website - "Click here to go to ....",

... or when a thumbnail image is a link to the enlarged image - "Click here for enlargment /full-size view" etc

Bob

[Jon75]

Hi,

Been Reading this thread and have to agree with most of it. Being HTML or xhtml compliant is not really a must but in my opinion I think it is good practice.
I strive to make my pages XHTML compliant where I can. Being compliant does have a positive affect on your sites load time though as the browser doesn't have to work as hard to show the data.
As stated, with xhtml, it is normally the simple things that fail such as tags need to be in lower case for xhtml as apposed to HTML.
Alt tags for images (as mentioned). Doing this can also improve your search engine results etc.
Closing single tags. eg:

Code: [Select]

<hr>
and
<input type="test" id="text1"> for example are fine in html but in xhtml need to be closed using the /
<hr />
<input type="test" id="text1" />

Just making sure that these simple things are implemented makes a positive difference. Another key feature is to use CSS but thats a whole new thread lol.  As I said, its just good practice.

lol sorry....just my 2 pence worth.

Kind regards.