Toward XHTML compliance...

[Paladin]

I just heard about XWD today and decided to check it out. As a professional who uses Dreamweaver CS4 and Expression Web 2 I'll admit to a little skepticism. To my surprise I was quite impressed with the rendering of the sample site linked to from the Outsider page in the three browsers I've tested so far, IE7, FF3, and IE6 in a virtual machine (that last one really surprised me by being so consistent to the others).

The only issue I noticed in these first-pass tests was the flashing of some kind of outline with a folded-paper icon in the corner on all of the rollovers. I presume that that has been noticed and a fix is in the works.

The thing is, I tell my clients that their sites will be valid and accessible. So, it was with some trepidation that I ran a W3C validator and Cynthia Says Section 508 check against the sample site. I was even more surprised at the results. No, it didn't pass, either one, but the reasons would be easily addressed by the dev team.

Things like three errors on the same img tag, for the border, width, and height attribute values not being quoted (XHTML requires all attribute values to be quoted string literals) and the tag not being self-closed (also required by XHTML). In other words, little things that the devs can put into the generator without too much difficulty.

The accessibility check failed on the same img tag, but it didn't give a reason, just "failed" in boldface. I suspect that it had something to do with the src url having a QueryString, but since it didn't elucidate, I'm just guessing.

At any rate, one failed element on accessibility, and likewise on validation, for a version 1.0 WYSIWYG editor, and consistent rendering across the three browsers that, between them, have about a 90-92% share, ain't shabby at all.

Does anyone know if the issue of the quoted string literals and the self-closing of unary tags has already been bugged or not, and if not, who to report to about it? I really like the looks of this product, and I'd like to see these little version 1.0 bugs ironed out.

I've been using Xara Xtreme since it was Corel Xara, along with Xara 3D, et al. It figures that if anybody could come up with a standards-compliant, cross-browser compatible, true WYSIWYG editor, Xara would be the folks to do it.

cheers,
scott

[Xhris]

...(XHTML requires all attribute values to be quoted string literals) and the tag not being self-closed...

Hi Paladin, I don't profess to understand anything about XHTML; maybe you can help me learn something? What does it mean for attribute values to be quoted string literals, and tags being self-closed? In terms of what I see in a browser (and nothing else), what effects will these test failures have on my browsing experience of the tested site (the only thing important to me as a web surfer)? Thanks.

[Paladin]

Hi Paladin, I don't profess to understand anything about XHTML; maybe you can help me learn something? What does it mean for attribute values to be quoted string literals, and tags being self-closed? In terms of what I see in a browser (and nothing else), what effects will these test failures have on my browsing experience of the tested site (the only thing important to me as a web surfer)? Thanks.

Well, actually, at present they probably won't have any effect on you as a surfer. However, as an small independent developer they matter to me. And it really wouldn't be that difficult to add the necessary markup to avoid those particular errors.

Here's the thing, as I mentioned over in the "furore" thread, I often take on small-business contracts for "brochure sites," small, 4-6 page sites for local businesses or organizations who basically just want a professional looking Web presence and a contact form. They're not big money, few hundred bucks each, but they're part of the income stream.

One of the elements that I tout my services with is that I produce compliant, compatible, valid, and accessible work. Adding that markup would help to ensure that I could continue to make that claim if I use XWD to produce such sites, a purpose to which it seems to be well suited (besides the obvious hobbyist appeal ;-).

As to XHTML vs HTML, there really aren't that many differences. One is that all element tags must be closed. So, an opening <p> must have a closing </p>, an opening <div> must have a closing </div>, etc. Tags that don't have a closing tag such as that, like the <img> tag, or the <br> tag, or the <hr> tag, for example, must be self-closed. All that means is that a space and a slash are added before the closing angle bracket, so that <br> becomes <br />, <hr> becomes <hr />, <img .......> becomes <img ....... />, and so forth. There is a limited number of these tags, and I wouldn't think it would be that difficult to have the generator create the self-closing markup for them.

Likewise, XHTML requires that all attribute names be lowercase (already taken care of) and that the values be quoted string literals. All that means is that the (formerly numeric) values be placed into quotes, which makes them character strings. They are still interpreted as values, but to the parser they are character strings. So, width=340 becomes width="340" and height=220 becomes height="220". Again, this is the kind of thing that I wouldn't think that it would be that difficult to have the generator take into account. There aren't even any exceptions or subsets to worry about—all attributes must be quoted strings.

Yes, I realize that the target market isn't the professional developer. And I use both the Adobe Design Premium Suite CS4 and Expression Web 2 for more ambitious projects. It would be nice, however, to be able to fire up XWD and turn out an attractive small scale static site in half the time, if these validation issues were addressed.

My other hat is application developer, and I'm an MCP. I really do believe that it wouldn't take that much to have the generator recognize the few tags that need self-closing and add the space-slash before the closing angle bracket, or to have it ensure that all attributes of any description are quoted. Maybe in a future version or an update to this one, but I just wanted to get it on the table so that it would be taken into account when such things are being considered.

[EDIT: OK, so maybe this isn't fair ;-), but when I finished this response I went and downloaded the trial. While at the main page I happened to notice this:

"Working with industry standards is vital, so Web Designer sites are W3C compliant, cross browser compatible (IE 5.5, Firefox, Safari, Chrome) and XHTML, CSS standards based."

Does kinda give the impression, at least, that it is XHTML-compliant, n'est-ce pas? ;-)
END EDIT]

cheers,
scott

[covoxer]

Hello Scott. Thank you for your input.
Can you specify exactly which site you were testing against W3C compliance?
If it is not available on-line, could you please provide it in a zipped or other convenient form?
We have to analyze what went wrong and why, to fix the issue. Currently, pure WD designs are supposed to pass W3C validator without any errors, if they don't we have to fix it.
We are not aware of WD being able to produce some errors that you mention (unclosed tags, unquoted values).
I have a suspicion that you have been testing a page that has a 3rd party code used (a snippet) which contain those errors. Is it possible?

[steve.ledger]

Hi Scott,

Check Gary Priester's 'Xara Web Designers Preview' site with the W3C Validator.

This site is pure WD output.

[covoxer]

Hi Scott,

Check Gary Priester's 'Xara Web Designers Preview' site with the W3C Validator.

This site is pure WD output.

Except for the page 5 loaded with poorly coded snippets.

[steve.ledger]

Yep - GG's are the culprit there alright.

[Paladin]

Hello Scott. Thank you for your input.
Can you specify exactly which site you were testing against W3C compliance?
If it is not available on-line, could you please provide it in a zipped or other convenient form?
We have to analyze what went wrong and why, to fix the issue. Currently, pure WD designs are supposed to pass W3C validator without any errors, if they don't we have to fix it.
We are not aware of WD being able to produce some errors that you mention (unclosed tags, unquoted values).
I have a suspicion that you have been testing a page that has a 3rd party code used (a snippet) which contain those errors. Is it possible?

Well, no actually it was the example site included with the program, here http://webdesigner.xara.com/index.htm. The validation report is here http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=ht...Inline&group=0. As you can see, the errors were basically those that I described in my original message (except that I left out the missing alt attribute ;-).

cheers,
scott

[covoxer]

Scott, this page does include 3rd party code. It's the statistic counter:

<script type="text/javascript"><!--
var A="00000979";
var P="DetectName";
var U="DetectUrl";
//--></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.3dstats.com/cgi-bin/3dstrack.cgi?usr=00000979"></script>
<noscript>
<img src="http://www.3dstats.com/cgi-bin/connect.cgi?usr=00000979Pauto" border=0 height=0 width=0>
</noscript>


It is poorly coded and not compliant. But since it is not generated by WD we can't do anything about it. If you export this same design without any 3rd party addons (this design is included in the trial version so everyone can try it), it validates correctly.

[Paladin]

Ah, OK, very good, then. ;-)

As I mentioned yesterday, I just learned of XWD and after viewing the various videos, intro pages, etc., I decided to check the validation. I didn't know what source was what on the page, only what the report said. Since the only errors, either of validation or accessibility, were associated with that same markup, that is a most sterling performance indeed.

It probably should have occurred to me that it was odd that only that one line had generated errors on unquoted attributes and lack of self-closing, considering the size of the page and the number of other attributes and self-closing elements there must have been there. But, it was late, and it didn't occur to me.

Thank you for your reply. I look forward to using XWD and watching future development (heading tags, maybe... ;-).

cheers,
scott