could somebody point me in the right direction i need a good program for checking for errors in pages
Try http://www.w3.org but I wouldn't worry too much about making sure the code is valid. As long as it works in 3 or 4 different browsers you will be fine for basic sites.
To the contrary, your code should always be valid, and on new pages it should be validated against a strict doctype declaration. Each page should have a complete and proper DTD to trigger standards mode. In standards mode, even IE tries to follow the rules. In quirks (non-standard) mode, the different browsers use different rules for rendering the code. IE and Opera are especially bad. Browsers must guess at what you meant when you use invalid markup. They do a pretty good job of it for the most part, but you can't depend on a particular rendering using invalid markup. CSS and javascript are dependent on the html being well structured and well formed (valid syntax). There is no sane reason to use deprecated or invalid elements or attributes, and a very good reason to use proper markup; trying to debug a page containing invalid html means you cannot reliably predict the effect of any change you make. Only those who do not understand how html, css, the DOM and javascript all inter-relate fail to appreciate the importance of validation. Even if you don't yet, start with good habits now, and there'll be fewer problems later as you begin to tie things together. That would be a Good Thing. cheers, gary
When you are learning html and website design there are a million things more important than fannying around trying to get your code to validate for whatever doctype you have decided to use. Obviously writing accurate code that renders fine for all browsers and spiders is important but making sure it passes validation is not. Somebody emailed me the other day to say that my code wasn't valid because I used lower case letters on some table headings. Who cares??????
well choice there are many webs where you can find out how to check erors.by the way check w3schools.com .hope you will got you answer there. thanks
When you are learning html or css, or any language, for that matter, what sane reason is there to learn the wrong way? Validation is about making sure you have not made a syntax error. Why wouldn't you want that? There are only about eighty html elements, and few people are likely to use more than maybe thirty. (I'll have to parse some of my pages for a count of unique element tags sometime.) How hard is it to learn to use them correctly? If someone can't learn html, maybe he belongs in a home for slowits. If someone won't bother to learn, well, you know what they say about stupidity and ignorance; one is curable. Make up your mind. Accurate code ≡ valid code. To repeat: There is no sane reason to write html or css with syntax errors. Validation is the process of being sure you haven't made some error, even a silly error, if only a typo. Wouldn't your pride in your professionalism demand that of yourself? :shrug: gary
Hello, choice. A good program to validate your HTML code is "tidy", and it is free. However, it is a console program, that is, it must be run from the command line. It can also serve to beautify your code, but if it is run with the -e option it will just report errors and warnings. You can download it from: http://tidy.sourceforge.net/
Actually, those lower- or uppercase letters are not invalid. HTML is not case sensitive. You can happily e-mail that person back to say that he or she is wrong. I agree with kk5st, however. The validator is a syntax checker. Sometimes people close tags they never opened, open tags they forget to close, misspell a tag or attribute, forget to escape meta characters in URLs, forget quotes if an attribute uses characters other than the name characters, etc. In your case, mad4, the errors brought up by the validator all fall into a few categories: bgcolor=#808080 Code (markup): Here, because of thet '#' character, this attribute value must be quoted. class=&{ns4class}; Code (markup): This is a case where I would consider invalid code to be okay. Everyone should have valid code unless there is a good and logical reason to deviate. In this case, it is to target a specific browser. valign="center" Code (markup): There is no attribute valign for images, and there is no value center. There only attribute you should be dealing with is align and it takes a value of either top, middle, bottom, left, or right. There is also an instance where you forgot an opening TR tag. These are all very simple syntax issues. The validator is a very simple tool for discovering these problems, and it is a very simple matter to fix them as well.
w3c is a good place, also use the firefox tidy extension I am glad that you don't worry about creating valid code! - Please tell me what niche your sites are in so I can create one in that niche and do nothing more than validate the code. Valid code is essential for a few reasons. If I visit 2 similar sites and one is valid and another one is not - I don't stay on the non-validated site. A webmaster who does not validate indicates to me that they do not give a damn about their site visitors and lose a lot of credibility in my eyes. If you cannot be bothered to validate, how much of your content is just slapped together and actually factual as well? Now, when Search engine spiders visit a site, the SE Spiders are probably coded to parse valid code according to the standards. I certainly would not risk a SE Spider having any sort of trouble parsing my sites/Pages because they contain invalid/incorrect markup. So, at your own peril (or stupidity) don't bother with validation.
If you use Firefox get the web dev tool bar (search mozzila plug ins for it) ... it literally has every freakign tool any web developer could every want, it also has great things like a validation drop down to validate on line or local code. As far as validation goes, my two cents, it's so damn easy to get a page valid why NOT do it? Seriously, it takes about 5 minutes!
Thanks DC Dalton, I haven’t seen this extension either. I also just found this site yesterday that takes a screenshot of your webpage rendered in deferent browsers. It’s pretty cool to see the deference and is also very helpful for some browsers that you don’t have on your system. http://v03.browsershots.org/ found it on digg
Hi, if you're using firefox the Web Developer toolbar is a must have! It shows you right away if your page is valid or not, javascript debuger and more!