CSE HTMLValidator Pro is the HTML validator I use to check my *.html web pages for syntax
errors. It also checks *.css style sheets. It is produced by A
I Internet Solutions aka htmlvalidator.com. Albert Wiersh of
A.I. has been extremely helpful over the years whenever I had a problem or suggestions for new features.
Why Validate?
Why bother with validation if you are not obsessive-compulsive? Because when you clear up all the picky syntax errors,
your website will work with any browser trouble free. Otherwise it will work only with the browser or browsers you
explicitly tested it with. Further it could stop working with the next release of a browser. Browsers are buggy enough
without loading them down with malformed HTML.
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
There are five ways you can learn what it does, listed here in increasing order of commitment.
| HTML Validator Options |
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cost
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click |
notes |
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Validate online |
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. |
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Download 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. |
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Read the 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. |
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Download Standard Trial |
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. |
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Download Pro Trial |
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. |
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Buy 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. |
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Buy 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. |
I thought you would like to see the prices on this webpage in ,
but you can change that instantly, thanks to the Canadian Mind Products CurrCon
Applet that you too could use on your own website to display prices in any world
currency using today’s exchange rates.
HTMLValidator comes in three versions. See this comparison
chart to help you decide which version you need.
Configuring
You have very fine control over what the validator is picky about. You can configure it to ignore certain classes of
error or certain blocks of HTML with <cseignore>… </cseignore> tags. I
very much like this feature. It lets me bring my HTML gradually into conformance. I ask it not to bug me about picky
stuff like missing </p> and I used early on to ask it not to pester me about using <ul>…
</ul> for indenting. Now I do ask it to be picky.
Here’s how I configured it to demand balancing </li> tags.
- Click Options ⇒ Configuration Editor ⇒ Edit ⇒ Tag Names.
- 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”
- On the right, select the “Required end tag” radio button.
- You’ll probably want to repeat this for all li tags whose context is distinguished with
a number.
- 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.
The most important parameter to configure in the batch processor is Tools ⇒ Batch Wizard ⇒
Options ⇒ Batch Wizard Options ⇒ General ⇒ Miscellaneous ⇒ max targets which controls the
maximum number of files that will be processed in a batch.
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.
Other files in:
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator.userid\Application Data\AI Internet Solutions\CSE HTML Validator\8.0\
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.
- optitons.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
Make sure you periodically clean out:
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator.userid\Application Data\AI Internet Solutions\CSE HTML Validator\8.0\batchreport*.html
or in Vista:
C:\Users\roedy\AppData\Roaming\AI Internet Solutions\CSE HTML Validator\9.0\batchreport*.html
& and &
By default, one thing the validator will complain about is &s in your CGI URLs; it wants
you to spell them out as &. The CGI server will still see them as plain &
since your browser converts them back to plain &. I wrote a utility to do correct this
error for you automatically called Amper.
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 to suppress high ASCII error messages.
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.
- Create a batch descriptor to validate your whole site, but limit it to changes within the last day (a feature available
currently only in beta Last revised/verified: 2008-06-23).
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 (in beta currently) 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.
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2008-02-05 by Roedy Green ©1996-2009 Canadian Mind Products
HTMLValidator
Please email your feedback for publication, errors, omissions, broken/redirected link reports
