USING VALIDATORS

This page explains what
a Validator does and
what you get from it.


A validator is a cgi program which analyzes an entire html document for correctness of code tags, syntax and html form. The results page shows the entire source code page for the document and critiques each line where any errors are found. They are really picky and I doubt that anyone has ever been able to put a page through a validator without it showing some errors. Since there are different levels of html, a page may have perfect html for one level but not for another, it will still work perfectly with most all browsers but there are some things that the validator just doesn't like. Webtv uses html level 4 but a validator may be looking for level 5 and not like something that is perfectly valid in level 4 so you can't worry about every error they find. You have to use your own judgement with that, but a validator can help you to find a problem on your page when you get stuck with html that doesn't work right. Errors are sometimes rated as minor, moderate, or fatal, and the page is given a final score of acceptability.

To use a validator, your codes must be on a webpage so you can submit the URL to the validator. That is the only way to input your codes. It is intended for checking webpage codes. To validate Webtv sig codes you would first have to copy them to a webpage to get a URL for them. IF you don't have a website for this, your Webtv pagebuilder could be used. Just create a page, add an item, click text, and paste the codes into the large text box, then publish the page to get the url.

You will find a validator in the source viewer and image extractor section of my tools page. This is the tool that will show you ALL of your html errors. It won't correct them for you, only tell you what is wrong. Sometimes it is wrong in it's analyses because of confusing tags and you have to look back at the previous tags for the error. Something like a missing quote mark is a common error that the validator will misinterpret because of not knowing what was intended to be quoted or where the quote was supposed to end. In cases like that, it may read the next tag as being in error instead of the one where the error actually occured. Using a validator to check your html pages is a good way to learn proper html form.



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