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Before you tell the HTML checker to look at HTML code, you can set it up to be easygoing or strict.
   technofile
Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

Free HTML code checker for Windows


May 21, 2000

By Al Fasoldt
Copyright ©2000, Al Fasoldt
Copyright ©2000, The Syracuse Newspapers

   My broadcast partner Gene Wolf and I were talking about HTML editors (Web-page-creation programs) on TV the other night when I asked him what his favorite HTML editor was.
   Both Gene and I create Web sites. So we have very definite ideas of what software is best. I figured he used some sort of fancy-dan Web editor for all his work.
   But Gene's reply was surprising. He told viewers of Time Warner's Point 'n' Click" TV show that he doesn't even use an HTML editor if he's working on standard HTML (hypertext markup language) code. He edits Web pages in a simple text editor. It's faster and it lets him change the HTML code directly.
   I use good HTML-editing software most of the time, but I've sometimes popped my Web pages into a normal text editor for a quick fix, too. But there's one function I use a specialized program for. I run a syntax checker to make sure my HTML code is correct.
   The one is use is the Mercedes-Benz of HTML code checkers. It's called CSE HTML Validator. A slick version is built into my Windows HTML editor, HomeSite, but it's normally run by itself. The professional version costs $90, but you can get a slimmed-down version free.
   If you create or maintain Web pages, you should try this software. It's only for Windows PCs, unfortunately. (People keep asking when the Linux or Mac versions will be ready, and the folks who make the CSE HTML Validator have made it plain that the answer is "never." I do all my Web-page editing in Linux, so I'm not happy about that.)
   Go to http://www.htmlvalidator.com/ to download the free version and to get more information.
   Before you tell the HTML checker to look at HTML code, you can set it up to be easygoing or strict. Some HTML errors aren't worth worrying about, while other errors can make your Web page unreadable. So you have to use some common sense.
   You can also tell CSE HTML Validator which standards to use when checking your pages. Microsoft Internet Explorer does some things differently from Netscape Navigator, so you might want the HTML checker to point out portions of your pages that don't display well in one browser or the other. And some of the newest features of HTML aren't handled well by either of the two browsers, so you should know that, too.
   I've talked to people who create and edit Web pages who don't have a clue that HTML code needs to be checked for errors. I blame Internet Explorer for part of the problem.
   Netscape Navigator, which had close to 90 percent of the market before Internet Explorer came along, is quite strict about how it understands HTML instructions. If you make an error in your HTML code, Netscape Navigator will "follow your code out the window," as an old cliché might say it. Write bad code and you get bad pages.
   But Internet Explorer is more forgiving. Whether this is intentional or not is hard to say. Internet Explorer makes guesses about what it should do -- how it should display certain characters, for example -- when the instructions in a page's HTML code aren't clear or are plainly wrong.
   You'd think this would be a good thing. But it's a good thing the way a lazy English teacher is a good thing -- good for the kids in your daughter's class who don't study, because they'll pass anyway, but bad for your daughter because she won't get the kind of education she deserves.
   Likewise, a browser that lets you make mistakes in Web-page coding is a bad idea because -- well, because it doesn't enforce discipline, because it lets you get away with sloppy code, because it encourages the notion that HTML is just a set of ideas rather than a collection of instructions.
   I might be all wet here. I've been wrong before. But I do think the best way to learn anything is by doing it right, not by doing it wrong.