# Solved: Validation of website



## DaveSS (Jun 18, 2002)

Hi folks,

Well the site is nearly ready for testing live, now.

So I have heard about validation and understand that it means the code you use, or in my case the code dreamweaver makes  may have flaws. As such a browser tries to fix them. So if the browser runs into problems, then you are buggered. So therefor validation is important.

Has anyone used http://validator.w3.org ?

I just tried it on a test page, and I got 164 errors. It reworked my code. I simply copied and pasted the code it gave me. Deleted my own, and all looked fine. Just uploaded the test page and still, all fine.

Anyone got something to say about this subject?

Dave


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## DaveSS (Jun 18, 2002)

Actually I just test a new page. 

my homepage had 63 validation error and 2 warnings, the warnings were from dead links which I know about. 

I used the site mentioned, got the new validated code. uploaded. Now I get 77 validation errors and 3 warnings. 

Maybe the validation site is not so good.

Just read that validation is a thing of the past too. hmmm

Just did a speed check. The html loaded .02 of a second faster with validation

MEaning on a 56k connection my validated site = 15.55 seconds and non validated site 15.57 seconds


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## skyhigh007 (Jun 17, 2004)

The validation site validates based on your DOC TYPE that you put on top of your html tag. I trust more on the W3C Markup Validation than Dreamweaver.


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

DaveSS said:


> So I have heard about validation and understand that it means the code you use, or in my case the code dreamweaver makes  may have flaws. As such a browser tries to fix them. So if the browser runs into problems, then you are buggered. So therefor validation is important.


The W3C validation site you mention below helps you determine if the page you've created adheres to the W3C standards and that's it. If your page passes W3C validation, the chances of it rendering correctly across W3C standards compliant increases but doesn't guarantee desired behavior.

If someone is having problems with a page not rendering correctly in a W3C standards compliant browser, one of the first things to check is whether the page is W3C standards compliant. If it's not, fixing that can sometimes or maybe usually fix the browser rendering problem(s).

Peace...


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## DaveSS (Jun 18, 2002)

> my homepage had 63 validation error and 2 warnings, the warnings were from dead links which I know about.
> 
> I used the site mentioned, got the new validated code. uploaded. Now I get 77 validation errors and 3 warnings.


So why after getting new validated code on the same site would i get the above result? It was better before validation?

Actually I see why, it was to do with the template.

Still, the code it gave me back ended up with the page showing too much space at the bottom, but I nearly have that sorted.

Hmmm. If I use the code on my template, do you think there will be any issues?


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

DaveSS said:


> So why after getting new validated code on the same site would i get the above result? It was better before validation?


It doesn't work that way.  Each page will be validated independently, which means the validation will be purely based on the content of the page submitted for validation.

So, if you submitted a page and got x number of errors and you made changes to fix those and got y number of errors, you might have tried to fix the first set of errors incorrectly or your work to fix the first set of errors uncovered others that were still lurking.

If you're comfortable doing so, please post a link to your page validation results and we can go over what the validation tool found and help you get the page all fixed up. 

Peace...


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## DaveSS (Jun 18, 2002)

Thanks for the offer

I am down to only two errors now. This is a test page based on my template. So if all is well, I will be copying the fixed up code into the template and hoping everything holds together 

Heres the link to the validation page


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

First, it looks like you're wanting to make this page an XHTML compliant page. In order to do this, you will need to specify an appropriate DOCTYPE at the very top of the file.

Go back to the validation page and click the "Learn how to add a doctype" link and add the appropriate DOCTYPE. Then, re-validate and see what is reported. Please let us know when you've added the DOCTYPE so we can see what the new validation issues are.

Peace...


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## DaveSS (Jun 18, 2002)

Okay did that.

Now I have 22 errors? Why the increase? Would have I just been better leaving it at 2?

link


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## DaveSS (Jun 18, 2002)

it also seems to have buggered up my google map in IE?

EDIT

Nope, it's working again after some refreshes.


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

DaveSS said:


> Okay did that.
> 
> Now I have 22 errors? Why the increase? Would have I just been better leaving it at 2?


Nope, now that you've specified a Strict DOCTYPE you will need to adhere to the XHTML standard strictly. 

This means, you will have to change your XHTML to conform to the XHTML standard. You can find the XHTML spec here.

Now, you will need to decide if you actually want to make your pages conform to XHTML 1.0 Strict or not.

Now, let's look at the actual validation errors.

_Line 79, Column 6: document type does not allow element "title" here._
Looking at the source of your page, I noticed *two* TITLE elements in the head section. One on line 12 and one on line 79. I guess the one on line 79 is redundant and should be deleted.

_Line 104, Column 37: there is no attribute "align"._
The attributes that have traditionally be specified inline on HTML table row and cell tags are now obsolete. In fact, specifying "align" inline on the table tag was deprecated in HTML 4.01. The same applies to bgcolor. You will need to use CSS to style your table elements as necessary.

_Line 106, Column 10: there is no attribute "width"._
It looks like the "width" and "height" inline attributes on the "td" tag are also deprecated in HTML 4.01.

_Line 171, Column 198: there is no attribute "name"._
It looks like the 'name="home"' attribute on the img tag on line 171 is the issue. It looks like the "id" attribute should be used instead.

I've got to go now but you get the idea. Start with those, read up on the HTML 4 standards and XHTML 1.0 standards and update your HTML accordingly.

You can see if using a Transitional DOCTYPE is more accommodating of your deprecated attribute use but if you can get the errors fixed and pass strict validation, your HTML will be far more standards compliant than it is now. 

Peace...


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## DaveSS (Jun 18, 2002)

Okay thanks very much for the help.

After several hours I am down to 8 errors. LINK

Kinda stuck, there. But a lot happier than the 100+ and 60+ I was getting!

Will keep working on it!


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## Bobyo (Sep 3, 2008)

validating will help you also with seo. trust me on this, try and keep the errors as low as possible. Also validateyour CSS :up:


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

DaveSS said:


> Okay thanks very much for the help.
> 
> After several hours I am down to 8 errors. LINK


Looks like you're making great progress. 

Did changing to a transitional DOCTYPE help reduce the number of errors much?

Ok, let's look at the current set:

_Line 3, Column 5: document type does not allow element "head" here; assuming missing "html" start-tag._
Well, the problem is stated in the message above. Your page is missing the opening "" tag:


```
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" 
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> 
[b][color=red]<html>[/color][/b] <!-- <**** Add this tag here!!! -->
<head> 
<script src="SpryAssets/SpryCollapsiblePanel.js" type="text/javascript"> 
</script>
```
_Line 3, Column 1: Missing xmlns attribute for element html. The value should be: http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml._
Since the tag is missing, the "xlmns" attribute is also missing. You can use the tag displayed in the description of this problem on the validation page.

_Line 78, Column 6: document type does not allow element "title" here._
This might be due to the missing "" tag. Fix the above two issues first and we'll see what happens with this.

_Line 101, Column 13: there is no attribute "onLoad"._
Try specifying "onload" in all lower case instead of in mixed case.

_Line 162, Column 71: there is no attribute "background"_
The "background" attribute applies to the  element, not to a [TD] element. You will have to use CSS to assign a background image to a table cell.

_Line 169, Column 62: there is no attribute "onMouseOut"._
Try specifying ALL JavaScript events in lower case. So, onMouseOut becomes onmouseout. onMouseOver becomes onmouseover. You get the idea.

_Line 304, Column 19: document type does not allow element "noscript" here; missing one of "object", "applet", "map", "iframe", "button", "ins", "del" start-tag._
This one will take some research. Don't worry about this for now and work on getting the other issues resolved. This should be the SINGLE validation issue when you're done. 

EDIT: Ok, the noscript issue might be related to the missing tag as well. Get that taken care of and post the results. 

Peace...


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## DaveSS (Jun 18, 2002)

Well after only a few hours sleep I am down to only 2 errors now! 

Link



> Line 162, Column 71: there is no attribute "background".


This is the line in question



> [TD]


I think this may be related to my other post about screen size?

This goes back to my lack of CSS i think?

The image is set like this as it is in an editable region, as I want to insert a new background image on each page.

I really don't know what to do about this??

The last error below I think I know, about?



> Line 305, Column 19: document type does not allow element "noscript" here; missing one of "object", "applet", "map", "iframe", "button", "ins", "del" start-tag.
> 
> </script> <noscript> <a href="http://www.virtualnewsfeed.com/feed/feed2js.php?sr


I tried taking out the <noscript> but it all went haywire. It's actually not an important script, as I just put it in yesterday in my failed attempt a trying to create two feeds. As a javascript parser it's not being picked up by feed to this page. Therefore making it redundant. I may just remove it.

I must be learning things at last! 

EDIT:


> Did changing to a transitional DOCTYPE help reduce the number of errors much?


Yes thanks, I went from 22+ straight down to 8-9. Started with 100+ then to the 60's


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

DaveSS said:


> I think this may be related to my other post about screen size?


Nope, I addressed the "background" attribute in my post above, post #14. 



> The image is set like this as it is in an editable region, as I want to insert a new background image on each page.
> 
> I really don't know what to do about this??


You will need to use CSS styling or JavaScript to change the background image in the table cell.



> I tried taking out the <noscript> but it all went haywire. It's actually not an important script, as I just put it in yesterday in my failed attempt a trying to create two feeds. As a javascript parser it's not being picked up by feed to this page. Therefore making it redundant. I may just remove it.


I think the problem with the <noscript> tag might be because it's in a th element. I found another site with an example of a XHTML page that uses <noscript> that DOES validate but they don't use HTML tables for the layout. I'll look into this more later.

Peace...


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## DaveSS (Jun 18, 2002)

> .cellback {
> background: url(Images/Photos/backdrops/blog-girls-iran.gif) repeat-x;
> border-right: 1px solid black;
> width: 250px;
> ...


I tried this with the cell. But nadda. It right clicked and added it to my style sheet. No idea if that's what I am meant to do, obviously not as it didn't work. Went through tutorials and still can't get my head around it.

Again the <noscript> thing is beyond my level of web design.

With those two errors still running, do you think I will run into any problems?

I used http://browsershots.org to look at the page and all is fine, bar windows on IE8 where by my table navigation bar is zips to the top. All other browsers it's fine.


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

DaveSS said:


> I tried this with the cell. But nadda. It right clicked and added it to my style sheet. No idea if that's what I am meant to do, obviously not as it didn't work. Went through tutorials and still can't get my head around it.


I was going to ask to see your updated page but I see you already made some changes to cause the page to validate. Did you take some things out? The line numbers reported above don't match the current HTML now.

In any event, here is an example of using CSS to set a table cell background image:

```
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<head>
  <meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="content-type" />

  
  <title>Table Cell Background - XHTML</title>

  <style type="text/css">
.cellback {
  background-repeat: repeat-x;
  background-position:  center center;
  background-image: url(../../../../../home/tom/wallpaper/Linux/firefox0104nd3.png);
}

  </style>
</head>

<body>
<table style="width: 50%; height: 500px; text-align: left; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2">
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td style="height: 50%; width: 50%;" class="cellback"></td>
      <td></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td></td>
      <td>
      <h1>This has no background!</h1>
      </td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>
<br />
</body>
</html>
```
 Attached is a screenshot of this HTML in action.  If you could post the HTML you used with the CSS you wrote above, that would help figure out what problem you had.



> With those two errors still running, do you think I will run into any problems?


Not necessarily. A page that doesn't pass W3C validation will still render, obviously, and will probably render correctly in most browsers. Again, the idea behind validation is to make sure your page conforms to the W3C standards with the intent of maximizing cross-browser compatibility.



> I used http://browsershots.org to look at the page and all is fine, bar windows on IE8 where by my table navigation bar is zips to the top. All other browsers it's fine.


IE8 is still in beta so don't expect it to be an accurate gauge of how your page will look in it. Just make a note to test in IE8 once it's officially released. 

Peace...


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## DaveSS (Jun 18, 2002)

Apologies i was working on it a minutes ago, it's back to the 2 errors again.

I took the parsing feed out which then left the background error. I uploaded without the back ground, hence no errors.

I put up the original again here.

Ok here's the code to the page



> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
> 
> The Longest Way Home
> 
> ...


The css I put in there is


> .Background {
> background: url(Images/Photos/backdrops/blog-girls-iran.gif) repeat-x;
> width: 1020px;
> padding: 0px;
> }


maybe see from the code what I am trying to do? On each page the header area ( large open area at the top) is meant to have a different image on every page. I can do this the way I have been all along. It just means the validation thing doesn't let me pass.

The above code is not the code on the validate link, as it freaks out up to 9 errors again. But nothing to do with CSS, to do with the parsing thing.


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

Ok, try making these changes:


```
<style type="text/css">
/*<![CDATA[*/
 div.c1 {text-align: center}
/*]]>*/
.Background {
background: url(Images/Photos/backdrops/blog-girls-iran.gif) repeat-x;
border-right: 1px solid black;
width: 250px;
padding: 2px;
} 
[b][color=red]}[/color][/b]  /* <*** Remove this curly brace  */
</style>
```
and

```
<td height="471" colspan="3" align="center" valign="bottom" [b][color=red]background="Images/Photos/backdrops/blog-girls-iran.gif"[/color][/b]>
```
becomes

```
<td height="471" colspan="3" align="center" valign="bottom" [b][color=red]class="Background"[/color][/b]>
```
CSS classes won't be automatically assigned to elements since the browser won't know to which element to assign the class. So, you must assign the class manually.

Now, since you want a different image per page, I would suggest doing this:

```
.Background {
border-right: 1px solid black;
width: 250px;
padding: 2px;
}
```
The above defines the common attributes for the changing background image.

```
.Background1 {
background: url(Images/Photos/backdrops/blog-girls-iran.gif) repeat-x;
} 
.Background2 {
background: url(Images/Photos/backdrops/blog-girls-iraq.gif) repeat-x;
} 
.Background3 {
background: url(Images/Photos/backdrops/blog-girls-kuwait.gif) repeat-x;
} 
.Background4 {
background: url(Images/Photos/backdrops/blog-girls-afghan.gif) repeat-x;
} 
.Background5 {
background: url(Images/Photos/backdrops/blog-girls-turkey.gif) repeat-x;
}
```
These styles indicate the particular image to use. Then, your table cell definition changes to this:

```
<td height="471" colspan="3" align="center" valign="bottom" [b][color=red]class="Background Background1"[/color][/b]>
```
 or

```
<td height="471" colspan="3" align="center" valign="bottom" [b][color=red]class="Background Background3"[/color][/b]>
```
You should save the CSS styling for the background images in an external text file so you can swap out background images without having to edit several pages.

I'll see what I can figure out about the <noscript> stuff later.

Peace...


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## DaveSS (Jun 18, 2002)

That's great. It's given me some real work to do  

I'll start on that now and get back to you with my output

Thanks very much for all the help!


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

Ok, I've got your <noscript> element validating. 

Talk about obscurity but this appears to work:

```
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="321">
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <th scope="col">
      <p>Lastest Blog Updates</p>
      [b][color=red]<div>[/color][/b]
      <script src="http://www.virtualnewsfeed.com/feed/feed2js.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2Fpoint2point&amp;chan=title&amp;num=5&amp;targ=y" type="text/javascript"></script>
      <noscript>[b][color=red]<p>[/color][/b]<a
href="http://www.virtualnewsfeed.com/feed/feed2js.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2Fpoint2point&amp;chan=title&amp;num=5&amp;targ=y&amp;html=y">View
RSS feed</a>[b][color=red]</p>[/color][/b]</noscript>
[b][color=red]      </div>[/color][/b]
      </th>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>
```
The changes are highlighted above. I guess I need to read up on the noscript tag. 

EDIT: Ok, I've refined the HTML above a bit. Here is what I found out: The reason your original <noscript> tag didn't validate is because of it being contained within a paragraph:

```
[b][color=red]<p>[/color][/b]
      <script src="http://www.virtualnewsfeed.com/feed/feed2js.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2Fpoint2point&amp;chan=title&amp;num=5&amp;targ=y" type="text/javascript"></script>
      <noscript><a
href="http://www.virtualnewsfeed.com/feed/feed2js.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2Fpoint2point&amp;chan=title&amp;num=5&amp;targ=y&amp;html=y">View
RSS feed</a></noscript>
[b][color=red]      </p>[/color][/b]
```
The "

" element is a block-level element and <noscript> is also a block-level element. The HTML 4 spec states this about the

element:


> The P element represents a paragraph. It cannot contain block-level elements (including P itself).


Cool. So, changing the

element that contains the <script> and <noscript> elements to another block-level element, a element in this case, fixes this issue.

Now, we're still not done since the anchor (<a> element) inside the <noscript> element still needs to be addressed. According to the HTML 4 spec, the <noscript> element must contain a block-level element. The <a> element is an inline element, so it must be inside a

element or some other block-level element to conform to the HTML 4 standard.

So, that explains why your original <noscript> code didn't validate.

Peace...


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## DaveSS (Jun 18, 2002)

Okay this is what I put in -



> [TH]
> 
> Lastest Blog Updates
> 
> ...


I validated it and it bounced up to 16 errors now, from 2. All but the background go back to the script again link

I asked it to churn out it's own html and got the same old


> Error Line 329, Column 19: document type does not allow element "noscript" here; missing one of "object", "applet", "map", "iframe", "button", "ins", "del" start-tag.
> 
> </script> <noscript><a href="http://www.virtualnewsfeed.com/feed/feed2js.php?src


 Which was the first problem.

Did I do something wrong with the html you made adjustments to?


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## DaveSS (Jun 18, 2002)

I screwed up royally. 

I thought today I would try using the nearly validated file as my template. Sufficed to say it didn't work. The editable regions when removed in the code sent the site into a mess.

I was lucky enough to have a back up.

It meant 8 hours later I am back to this link
Its based on the template this time.

Whenever I try the val.html code and replace the instance editable, it says it does not match


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## DaveSS (Jun 18, 2002)

> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
> 
> The Longest Way Home
> 
> ...


Can't budge past 42. Even the character encoding won't work. I copied direct from the validator and no mater which way I do it , it says it wrong. And everything was going so well yesterday!

LINK

required attribute "type" not specified. Seems to be the worst offender


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## DaveSS (Jun 18, 2002)

Okay my mild state of depression has nearly lifted. Down to 11 errors!

I inserted the following:



> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
> 
> The Longest Way Home
> 
> ...


Then it hit 11 errors. Link most to do with this instantend thing, which is the editable regions I think

Make that 9 I never put in the /


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

Ok, please SLOW DOWN! 

I understand you want to get this stuff finished so you can finish the rest of the site but given the path you decided to go down (using XHTML 1.0 instead of HTML 4 and wanting a web standards compliant page), we'll have to work through these issues. So, please DO NOT make any more changes until we've gone over the current set of validation issues, ok?

Now, with the current set of 9 validation errors, this is what I found:

*Line 322, Column 27: end tag for "style" omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified .
Line 22, Column 0: start tag was here .
*
This means there is probably a " is right there at the end. However, the line I highlighted above is the problem. That CDATA block isn't closed, so the tag:

/*]]>*/

Such that the stylesheet looks like this:

```
<style type="text/css">
[b][color=red]/*<![CDATA[*/[/color][/b]
<!--
@import url("The Longest Way Home style sheet.css");
.style13 {
	color: #666666;
	font-style: italic;
}
body {
	background-color: #666666;
}
.style40 {color: #A6450A}
a:link {
	color: #827469;
}
.style41 {color: #000000}
.style42 {font-size: 9px}
.style44 {font-size: 12px}
.style45 {font-size: 12px; color: #000000; }
.style46 {font-style: italic; font-size: 16px; color: #666666;}
-->
[b][color=red]/*]]>*/[/color][/b]
  </style>
```
Next up,
*Line 23, Column 2: marked section started here .*
Cool, this is the validator telling us what I just described above.

Next up,
*Line 322, Column 27: XML Parsing Error: CData section not finished . *
Cool, this is the validator confirming the non-terminated CDATA section is throwing off the parsing of the rest of the page. If you get that CDATA section terminated, hopefully as I illustrated above, the page should validate but we'll find out for sure. 

Peace...


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## DaveSS (Jun 18, 2002)

> Ok, please SLOW DOWN!


Apologies, just had the day at this, trying to figure it out. I thought the template thing messed up the whole site and the work over the last two days. I am on go slow now!

I edited the


> /*<![CDATA[*/


's

It's seems to have unleashed lots more errors, back up to 41, and 1 warning. link



> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
> 
> The Longest Way Home
> 
> ...


----------



## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

Great! It's not great we've got 41 errors but closing the CDATA section worked. Now, let's look at these:

*Line 70, Column 30: document type does not allow element "script" here; assuming missing "body" start-tag.
Line 78, Column 67: document type does not allow element "meta" here.
Line 79, Column 6: document type does not allow element "title" here.*
These are generated because of some HTML that somehow made it _outside_ of the block:


```
</style>
</head>

[b][color=red]
<script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-3448918-5");
pageTracker._trackPageview();
</script>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
<title>The Longest Way Home - Home Page</title>

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
function MM_preloadImages() { //v3.0
  var d=document; if(d.images){ if(!d.MM_p) d.MM_p=new Array();
    var i,j=d.MM_p.length,a=MM_preloadImages.arguments; for(i=0; i<a.length; i++)
    if (a[i].indexOf("#")!=0){ d.MM_p[j]=new Image; d.MM_p[j++].src=a[i];}}
}
//-->
</script>
[/color][/b]

<body onload="MM_preloadImages('Images/Buttons/home-down.gif','Images/Buttons/blog-down.gif','Images/Buttons/journeys-down.gif','Images/Buttons/gallery-down.gif','Images/Buttons/resources-down.gif','Images/Buttons/stories-down.gif','Images/Buttons/SUPPORT-DOWN.gif','Images/Buttons/about-down.gif')">
<table width="982" border="0" align="center" bgcolor="#000000">
```
If the lines highlighted above are already in the block, they should be deleted. If they are not already in the block, they should either moved there or deleted. For example, the is already in the HEAD section, so that should be deleted. The same for the tag. The preloadImages() JavaScript function is already defined in the HEAD section, so that should be deleted. All that is left if the Google analytics stuff and find out if that should go in the HEAD section or in the BODY section.

*Line 99, Column 126: required attribute "alt" not specified.*
<img> elements are required to have an "alt" attribute for user agents that can't display the image, for whatever reason. This should be easy to fix AND you should go ahead and do it for *all* of the <img> tags in the page.

*Line 102, Column 23: required attribute "type" not specified.*
This is pretty straight forward. That line has this on it:

<script>

when the valid syntax is:

<script type="text/javascript">

*Line 146, Column 61: there is no attribute "background".*
This is easy:

<td height="471" colspan="3" valign="top" *background=""*>

Delete the highlighted attribute.

*Line 147, Column 37: there is no attribute "height".*
Per the HTML 4 spec, the 

element doesn't have a "height" attribute. Tables will grow in height as content is added. If you need to control the height of the table, you will need to use CSS.

*Line 152, Column 80: there is no attribute "onMouseOut".
Line 152, Column 114: there is no attribute "onMouseOver".*

Try making "onMouseOut" and "onMouseOver" all lower case. I suggested this back in
post #14
on page 1. Make sure to get all of them.

Get these cleaned up, revalidate, and post a link to the results so we can see what is left. I'll be heading into the office soon so I won't be around for a bit. You're getting VERY close so don't give up! 

Peace...


----------



## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

I'm in the office now. Have you had a chance to make the above changes yet?

Peace...


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## DaveSS (Jun 18, 2002)

Okay: 8 Errors, 1 warning(s)

Link



> Error Line 120, Column 37: there is no attribute "height" .
> 
> <table width="1020" height="468" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacin


This comes from my friend the background and I think CSS is the cure?



> Line 62, Column 8: end tag for element "script" which is not open .


I deleted this earlier as it seemed to be alone out there, the page worked, but the validation went up again, so i put it back in again. 

I am starting to I see where some of the mistakes were coming from too. The templates fixed regions updated everything on the site. But the editable regions were not. But in looking at the validation link we are, I am able to search and replace the editable regions
throughout the site, which is progress I think? 

The most common error is


> value of attribute "name" must be a single token.


But I am jumping ahead again...

Oh I moved the google analytics code to the bottom as I thought it was tidier down there out of the way.

Meanwhile I have been going through each error on the link provided and corrected as many as I could myself. Not sure about the remaining though?


----------



## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

Ok, here is the latest I'm getting (6 errors now):

*Line 56, Column 8: end tag for element "script" which is not open .*
There is a </script> tag outside of the HEAD block:

```
</style></head>
[b][color=red]</script>[/color][/b]
<body onload="MM_preloadImages('Images/Buttons/home-down.gif','Images/Buttons/blog-down.gif','Images/Buttons/journeys-down.gif','Images/Buttons/gallery-down.gif','Images/Buttons/resources-down.gif','Images/Buttons/stories-down.gif','Images/Buttons/SUPPORT-
```
Move that inside the HEAD block, like this:


```
</style>
[b][color=red]</script>[/color][/b]
</head>
```
*Line 114, Column 37: there is no attribute "height" .*
I addressed this in my post above.

*Line 221, Column 54: there is no attribute "tabindex" .*
Here is the line in question:

Site Updates(click here)

Per the HTML 4 spec:


> The following elements support the tabindex attribute: A, AREA, BUTTON, INPUT, OBJECT, SELECT, and TEXTAREA.


So, you can't specify tabindex on a tag.

*Line 243, Column 39: document type does not allow element "noscript" here; missing one of "object", "applet", "map", "iframe", "button", "ins", "del" start-tag .*
We've covered this above. You need to put the anchor inside the <noscript> tag inside a block-level element, like a paragraph.

*Line 274, Column 194: an attribute value specification must be an attribute value literal unless SHORTTAG YES is specified .*
Per the HTML 4 spec, the border attribute is deprecated. You can disable the img border using CSS, like this:

<img *style="border: none;"* src="..... />

Make those changes and see how it validates.

Peace...


----------



## DaveSS (Jun 18, 2002)

6 Errors, 1 warning(s) 

Can't get the no script to work from your #22 post



> Line 114, Column 37: there is no attribute "height"


.
Yes this is the CSS issue, I understand



> Line 54, Column 8: end tag for element "script" which is not open .


I moved this and it's still coming up as an error?



> Error Line 245, Column 15


As per #22 but still getting error



> Line 85, Column 11: character "<" is the first character of a delimiter but occurred as data


No idea?

Since I added the ALT to the images they are appearing grayed out on my preview here? But still fine on the the web?


----------



## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

DaveSS said:


> I moved this and it's still coming up as an error?


My mistake. That line, #54, can be deleted entirely. It's extraneous. 



> As per #22 but still getting error


In post #22, I state to use THIS HTML for the <noscript> tag:

```
<noscript>[b][color=red]<p>[/color][/b]<a
href="http://www.virtualnewsfeed.com/feed/feed2js.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2Fpoint2point&amp;chan=title&amp;num=5&amp;targ=y&amp;html=y">View
RSS feed</a>[b][color=red]</p>[/color][/b]</noscript>
```
You don't have that in your HTML and that's why you're getting the error.



> No idea?


I believe that's occurring because the JavaScript in the body of the page doesn't have HTML comments surrounding it. The validator is treating that as a warning and not an error. If you want to get rid of that anyway, try adding HTML comments around the JavaScript, like this:

```
<script type="text/javascript">
[b][color=red]<!--[/color][/b]
/*
Count up from any date script-
By JavaScript Kit (www.javascriptkit.com)
Over 200+ free scripts here!
Modified for Davestite by Josh.Waller (http://forum.freehostia.com)
*/
var montharray=new Array("Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug","Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec")
function countup(yr,m,d){
var today=new Date()
var todayy=today.getYear()
if ([b]todayy < 1000[/b])
todayy+=1900
var todaym=today.getMonth()
var todayd=today.getDate()
var todaystring=montharray[todaym]+" "+todayd+", "+todayy
var paststring=montharray[m-1]+" "+d+", "+yr
var difference=(Math.round((Date.parse(todaystring)-Date.parse(paststring))/(24*60*60*1000))*1)
/*Modfication Started by Josh.Waller*/
var year=Math.floor(difference/365)
var xval1=365*year
var xval2=difference - xval1
var month=Math.floor(xval2/30)
var xval3 = 30*month
var day = xval2-xval3
document.write(""+year+ " Years " + month + " Months " + day + " Days")
/*End of Modification Josh.Waller*/
}
//enter the count up date using the format year/month/day
countup(2005,01,05)
[b][color=red]//-->[/color][/b]
 </script>
```



> Since I added the ALT to the images they are appearing grayed out on my preview here? But still fine on the the web?


I'm not sure what you're seeing but I'm seeing missing images on the live site. I also saw some incorrect image references in your HTML:

```
<body onload="MM_preloadImages('Images/Buttons/home-down.gif','Images/Buttons/blog-down.gif','Images/Buttons/journeys-down.gif','Images/Buttons/gallery-down.gif','Images/Buttons/resources-down.gif','Images/Buttons/stories-down.gif','Images/Buttons/SUPPORT-DOWN.gif','Images/Buttons/about-down.gif','[b][color=red]file:///C|/Users/outcast/Documents/thelongestwayhome/Images/Buttons/journeys-down.gif','file:///C|/Users/outcast/Documents/thelongestwayhome/Images/Buttons/gallery-down.gif','file:///C|/Users/outcast/Documents/thelongestwayhome/Images/Buttons/resources-down.gif','file:///C|/Users/outcast/Documents/thelongestwayhome/Images/Buttons/stories-down.gif','file:///C|/Users/outcast/Documents/thelongestwayhome/Images/Buttons/SUPPORT-DOWN.gif','file:///C|/Users/outcast/Documents/thelongestwayhome/Images/Buttons/about-down.gif','file:///C|/Users/outcast/Documents/thelongestwayhome/Images/Buttons/home-down.gif','file:///C|/Users/outcast/Documents/thelongestwayhome/Images/Buttons/blog-down.gif'[/color][/b])">
```
The "file:///C|/Users/outcast/Documents/thelongestwayhome/" references should be removed.

Peace...


----------



## DaveSS (Jun 18, 2002)

Ok 6 Errors

I sorted the Gif images, I think when I renamed them I went for another option on Dreamweaver to link them. hence they went for local files. They Should be ok now. What it at least did is make me see what onload does. It loads those little gif's first from the server? And then they go to a browsers cache (hopefully) so the next page will load a little faster.

If I put this is Then the feed stops

If I put this in


> [TH]
> 
> Lastest Blog Updates
> 
> [/TH]


I get error Line 237, Column 15: document type does not allow element "noscript" here; missing one of "object", "applet", "map", "iframe", "button", "ins", "del" start-tag

The stumbleupon issues: I reinserted the code they gave, and a plain one without my url and it still keeps coming back.

I tried to get the stumble image to line up with the RSS image a week ago, but I don't think that's the problem. As the RSS is not giving errors?


----------



## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

DaveSS said:


> I sorted the Gif images, I think when I renamed them I went for another option on Dreamweaver to link them. hence they went for local files. They Should be ok now. What it at least did is make me see what onload does. It loads those little gif's first from the server? And then they go to a browsers cache (hopefully) so the next page will load a little faster.


Yep, that's the idea. 



> If I put this is
> 
> Then the feed stops


That's because you didn't make the change as I suggested back in post #22. 

This is what you have now:

```
<table width="321" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
                    <tr>
                      <th scope="col"><p>Lastest Blog Updates</p>                        
[b][color=red]  <p>

      <script src="http://www.virtualnewsfeed.com/feed/feed2js.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2Fpoint2point&amp;chan=title&amp;num=5&amp;targ=y" type="text/javascript"></script>
      <noscript><a
href="http://www.virtualnewsfeed.com/feed/feed2js.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2Fpoint2point&amp;chan=title&amp;num=5&amp;targ=y&amp;html=y">View
RSS feed</a></noscript>
      </p>
[/color][/b]
                </th>
                    </tr>
                  </table>
```
This is what you need:

```
<table width="321" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
                    <tr>
                      <th scope="col"><p>Lastest Blog Updates</p>                        
[b][color=red]  <div>[/color][/b]

      <script src="http://www.virtualnewsfeed.com/feed/feed2js.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2Fpoint2point&amp;chan=title&amp;num=5&amp;targ=y" type="text/javascript"></script>
      <noscript>[b][color=red]<p>[/color][/b]<a
href="http://www.virtualnewsfeed.com/feed/feed2js.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2Fpoint2point&amp;chan=title&amp;num=5&amp;targ=y&amp;html=y">View
RSS feed</a>[b][color=red]</p>[/color][/b]</noscript>
[b][color=red]</div>[/color][/b]
                </th>
                    </tr>
                  </table>
```
Now, I've downloaded a copy of the index file of your website's home page. I made the changes necessary and got it to validate, WITH the RSS feed intact.  You can see the validation results here. Ignore the warning since that's related to a web server configuration issue.

I have also attached screenshots of the validating page as loaded in Opera 9.52 on Linux, both with and without JavaScript enabled. You will see the RSS feed with a green border around it.

Peace...


----------



## DaveSS (Jun 18, 2002)

Sorry didn't see the update, will go over again


----------



## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

Go back and read my prior post above.  I updated it to address this specific issue. 

Peace...


----------



## DaveSS (Jun 18, 2002)

Well Done Sir!! It worked!!  I am bad with this code, but learning slowly.

Down to 6 Errors 

It's just the stumble upon issue now... i think.

I took their code and tried some variations, but still all these errors. They were not there a few days ago, but then I think the other errors were overshadowing them, or preventing them from showing?


----------



## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

I've hit those and have corrected those in the version I got to validate. There are actually more errors lurking. 

So, we'll take them one at a time.

*Line 120, Column 37: there is no attribute "height" . *
Once again, you can't specify the table height in the fashion you are. So, EACH occurrence of code like this:





will need to be changed to this:





There are 4-5 tables with the height specified so you'll need to make this kind of change in several places.

*Line 272, Column 197: an attribute value specification must be an attribute value literal unless SHORTTAG YES is specified . *

You will need to disable the image border like this:

[TH]
**
[/TH]

*Line 272, Column 280: end tag for "img" omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified . *

The <img> tag for the "stumbleupon" images needs a closing slash, like this:

# [TH]
**
[/TH]

That should do it. If you make those changes but DO NOT change the height specifications of the other tables, you'll hit errors on those tables as well.

Peace...


----------



## DaveSS (Jun 18, 2002)

Whoooo! Down to 1!!!

I copied your change to the stumble code from your validated page. Is that cheating 

But it worked!

Edit: yikes I just saw your update, will come back soon with the adjustments!!


----------



## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

DaveSS said:


> I copied your change to the stumble code from your validated page. Is that cheating


Yes, but I won't tell anyone. 

Peace..


----------



## DaveSS (Jun 18, 2002)

This document was successfully checked as XHTML 1.0 Transitional!


Never thought it would happen at one stage!! 

I was looking over a few pages prior to trying to implement the validation changes and FF3 threw up this error for this page. 
thelongestwayhome.com/resources/packinglist.html



> Content Encoding Error
> 
> The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because it uses an invalid or unsupported form of compression.


It had 64 errors and 1 warning. Would this have been due to not validating?

With validating I now down to around With the validation it 19 errors 1 warning 
And no firefox issue 

Now in hindsight I should have validated my template before churning out pages, But considering less than 1 week ago I didn't even know about validation was... I think can forgive myself!

In regards to the other errors on the page above it's pretty similar to the rest of the site, most are these parsing errors



> XML Parsing Error: Opening and ending tag mismatch: table line 64 and html.


Which is from Dreamweavers editable regions. Not sure how to deal with that?

The warning is coming from a text entry where I use the & symbol. The same happened with the copyright symbol too. I think for & I need to change to


> &


 is this true for all text inputs with symbols? To a layman like me I thought a warning was worse than an error? So I look at these first.

As for the template for all the new pages I hope to be creating it now churns out 1 error for a new page



> value of attribute "scrolling" cannot be "No"; must be one of "yes", "no", "auto".
> 
> 00px;" frameborder="0" scrolling="No" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="


Which is located in googlemaps embeded


> [TD]http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&t=h&s=AARTsJrl68aUlnj3ObsrnRa0dJrdz-jm9A&msa=0&msid=114689006186239268379.000452fd127b797223b90&ll=41.771312,49.570313&spn=51.92142,119.53125&z=2&output=embed
> 
> [/TD]


And it's not showing up as an error in validation on the one we have been working on?


----------



## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

DaveSS said:


> This document was successfully checked as XHTML 1.0 Transitional!
> 
> 
> Never thought it would happen at one stage!!


Congratulations! :up:



> In regards to the other errors on the page above it's pretty similar to the rest of the site, most are these parsing errors


I think you need to read each validation error more closely. There is a mixture of incorrect tag syntax and parsing errors due to unclosed tags. Take each one individually and things will work themselves out. The errors on lines 275, 277, and 278 will be a little tricky for you since those are the result of an issue not reported where you would have expected it to be reported. Still, walk through each error one at a time and see if you can get these issues worked out. If you get stuck, post your question(s). 



> Which is from Dreamweavers editable regions. Not sure how to deal with that?


It's not the DreamWeaver editable regions (at least I'm not hoping it's not). We can focus on that once you've resolved some of the current 19 errors.



> The warning is coming from a text entry where I use the & symbol. The same happened with the copyright symbol too. I think for & I need to change to is this true for all text inputs with symbols? To a layman like me I thought a warning was worse than an error? So I look at these first.


Yep, you should be using the HTML codes for symbols like ampersands, double quotes, copyright symbols, etc. Warnings might not prevent your page from validating where errors will. Still, regardless of your starting with warnings or errors it's good you started somewhere. 



> As for the template for all the new pages I hope to be creating it now churns out 1 error for a new page
> 
> Which is located in googlemaps embeded
> 
> And it's not showing up as an error in validation on the one we have been working on?


It doesn't show up as a validation error on the page that validates because on that page, the syntax is correct.  Whenever you get HTML from a third party that you must integrate into your page, YOU must make sure the HTML conforms to the HTML in your page since not everyone will distribute W3C standards compliant HTML.

In the case of that scrolling parameter, the issue is specifically explained in the message. 

Good luck!

Peace...


----------



## DaveSS (Jun 18, 2002)

Tomdkat, thank you very much for all your help with this validation. It's been amazing! 

As you can see from my site, you should be able to work out if I am ever in your neck of the woods. If I am, drop me a line and I'll gladly buy you a beer or whatever you're preferred beverage is!

In the meantime, I am sure I'll have a few more questions around here at some stage!


----------



## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

Sounds good. Do you plan on coming through the US?

Peace...


----------



## DaveSS (Jun 18, 2002)

I have to see how things go over here first before knowing when I will be heading in that direction. But the US should be on the cards. 

In this case, likewise, if you ever take a vacation in my direction. Hopefully now that the site is not going to crash you can see where. The beer rule applies


----------

