CSE HTML Validator

by **MikeGale** » Thu Aug 07, 2008 11:21 pm

I've run some tests on the Beta.

Here's my observations:

1) Printing tests. See elsewhere.

2) Tests with UI.

Validation no issues noticed.

Troublesome URL. This worked with the one bad URL which was tested. The request conversation box could be cancelled, or allowed to run to completion. The text can also be cut and pasted which is likely to be used from time to time.

3) Tests with Batch Tool, validation.

I ran a lot of tests these all proceeded as expected.

On rechecking an issue listed here previously, I found the messages in the UI in a different tab to the one I was looking at.

4) Separate issue.

Font definitions. I noticed:
1) The program seems to be unaware of the "Consolas family" of fonts. (Constantia, Corbel, Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Consolas.) It doesn't know their general type neither does it know their spelling. This gives rise to anomalies.
A) It gives a message that you should pick fonts from the same family, i.e. classifying Calibri as other will trigger this even though it is a sans. Maybe if fonts type is unknown (i.e. other) this message should not be triggered.
B) It suggests the fonts are unknown / uncommon. For the general population I think the family is running in excess of 37% of Windows machines. (So there will be populations with more and others with less.) I wouldn't call that uncommon.
C) If a font is unknown it seems to always suggest a spelling check. When the spellings are right this encourages work that is unnecessary.

It might be an idea to provide a user configurable font list so that the user can update what is known about fonts. This would impact general population web sites and might have special usefulness for Intranets (where an uncommon font might be universally installed). Without that I think frequent users will tend to switch off the messages. A simple pipe/comma/... separated file would work for me. (Fontname | family...)

by **MikeGale** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 12:03 am

I've taken a look at the message management in version 9.

I really like the "examplemsg" field.

It gives a way to figure out what is going on.

I see my message settings for version 8 don't have this field.

Is there a way to "look up" the messages from the version 8 settings so that I can intelligently move them into version 9?

A simple list of all messages (in the XML format say) would enable me to do what I want.

I also notice that I can use the "examplemsg" field to leave notes for myself, that's useful!

by **MikeGale** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 2:25 am

I spent some time selecting messages to switch off, based on actual pages.

I still have a few from 8 which I haven't identified, but I've halved the list.

by **Albert Wiersch** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 9:42 am

MikeGale wrote:Is there a way to "look up" the messages from the version 8 settings so that I can intelligently move them into version 9?

Sorry, there is not an easy way to look it up. If you really want them, then you could remove those lines and reconfigure in v9. The next time the line is added it will likely contain an "examplemsg" attribute.

MikeGale wrote:A simple list of all messages (in the XML format say) would enable me to do what I want.

Yes, that would be nice but I don't have a compiled list of messages. Sorry.

MikeGale wrote:I also notice that I can use the "examplemsg" field to leave notes for myself, that's useful!

It is possible that will get overwritten. I would suggest adding your own custom attribute (in addition to or instead of changing the "examplemsg" attribute). I think it should work well but if it doesn't or CSE HTML Validator drops your custom attribute for some reason, then please let me know.

by **Albert Wiersch** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 9:50 am

MikeGale wrote:4) Separate issue.

Font definitions. I noticed:
1) The program seems to be unaware of the "Consolas family" of fonts. (Constantia, Corbel, Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Consolas.) It doesn't know their general type neither does it know their spelling. This gives rise to anomalies.
A) It gives a message that you should pick fonts from the same family, i.e. classifying Calibri as other will trigger this even though it is a sans. Maybe if fonts type is unknown (i.e. other) this message should not be triggered.
B) It suggests the fonts are unknown / uncommon. For the general population I think the family is running in excess of 37% of Windows machines. (So there will be populations with more and others with less.) I wouldn't call that uncommon.
C) If a font is unknown it seems to always suggest a spelling check. When the spellings are right this encourages work that is unnecessary.

It might be an idea to provide a user configurable font list so that the user can update what is known about fonts. This would impact general population web sites and might have special usefulness for Intranets (where an uncommon font might be universally installed). Without that I think frequent users will tend to switch off the messages. A simple pipe/comma/... separated file would work for me. (Fontname | family...)

Hi Mike,

Thanks for running some tests on BETA 4B. It looks like it is working well overall and I'm glad to hear that.

I will investigate the typeface name issues. If you could send me any documents with these typeface names, then it would be helpful.

Additional typeface names can be added using the Configuration Editor in the professional edition and the setValueString() function in the onConfigLoad() function. I haven't had many users express a desire to add new typeface names so I have not simplified this process, but it could be simplified in the future if there is enough demand for it.

by **Albert Wiersch** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 4:58 pm

MikeGale wrote:Font definitions. I noticed:
1) The program seems to be unaware of the "Consolas family" of fonts. (Constantia, Corbel, Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Consolas.) It doesn't know their general type neither does it know their spelling. This gives rise to anomalies.
A) It gives a message that you should pick fonts from the same family, i.e. classifying Calibri as other will trigger this even though it is a sans. Maybe if fonts type is unknown (i.e. other) this message should not be triggered.
B) It suggests the fonts are unknown / uncommon. For the general population I think the family is running in excess of 37% of Windows machines. (So there will be populations with more and others with less.) I wouldn't call that uncommon.
C) If a font is unknown it seems to always suggest a spelling check. When the spellings are right this encourages work that is unnecessary.

Hello,

I've classified the typefaces you mentioned for BETA 5 so that should take care of the messages about using fonts from the same family.

As for suggesting the fonts are unknown/uncommon, I think that makes sense if only 37% of Windows users have them. I don't think this should change.

Can you elaborate more on the spelling issue? Exactly what spelling message are you getting with regard to these typeface names? I did add these names to a dictionary that is used by the normal spell checker so perhaps that will address it but I'm not certain because I don't know exactly what you mean with the spelling issue.

by **MikeGale** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 5:06 pm

Typefaces have untapped potential. Most people ignore it, perhaps intuitively sensing the mess and maybe even catching a glimpse of the twisted and dishonest machinations that go on behind the scenes.

There is even a fairly good answer to most of the problems if you're prepared to create your own fonts. You can put a font onto just about any browser in Windows (last time I checked). Just about nobody seems to know about it.

Here's some of the most commonly available fonts on the 3 platforms (as far as I can figure). NOTE some of these are pretty rare but they are in the wild.

Code: Select all: Abadi MT Condensed Abadi MT Condensed Extra Bold Abadi MT Condensed Light Academy Engraved LET A Charming Font Agency FB Alba Alba Matter Alba Super Algerian American Typewriter Andale Mono Andale Mono IPA Andy Apple Chancery Arial Arial Black Arial Narrow Arial Rounded MT Bold Arial Unicode MS Avant Garde Baby Kruffy Base 02 Baskerville Baskerville Old Face Bauhaus 93 Beesknees ITC Bell MT Berlin Sans FB Berlin Sans FB Demi Bernard MT Condensed Bickley Script Big Caslon Bitstream Vera Sans Bitstream Vera Sans Mono Bitstream Vera Serif Blackadder ITC Blackletter686 BT Bodoni MT Bodoni MT Black Bodoni MT Condensed Bodoni MT Poster Compressed Book Antiqua Bookman Bookman Old Style Bradley Hand ITC Braggadocio Britannic Bold Broadway Broadway BT Brush Script MT BudHand Calibri Californian FB Calisto MT Calligraph421 BT Cambria CAMPBELL Candara Capitals Caslon Castellar Cataneo BT Centaur Century Gothic Century Schoolbook Century Schoolbook L Champignon Charcoal Charter Charter BT Chicago Chick Chiller ClearlyU Colonna MT Comic Sans MS Consolas Constantia Cooper Black Copperplate Copperplate Gothic Bold Copperplate Gothic Light Corbel Courier Courier New Croobie Curlz MT Desdemona Didot DomBold BT Edwardian Script ITC Engravers MT Eras Bold ITC Eras Demi ITC Eras Light ITC Eras Medium ITC Eurostile 04b_21 Fat Felix Titling Fine Hand FIRSTHOME Fixed Footlight MT Light Forte Franklin Gothic Book Franklin Gothic Demi Franklin Gothic Demi Cond Franklin Gothic Heavy Franklin Gothic Medium Franklin Gothic Medium Cond Freestyle Script French Script MT Freshbot Frosty Futura Gadget Garamond Geneva GENUINE Georgia Georgia Ref Gigi Gill Sans Gill Sans MT Gill Sans MT Condensed Gill Sans MT Ext Condensed Bold Gill Sans Ultra Bold Gill Sans Ultra Bold Condensed GlooGun Gloucester MT Extra Condensed Goudy Old Style Goudy Stout Haettenschweiler Harlow Solid Italic Harrington Helvetica Helvetica Narrow Helvetica Neue Herculanum Highlight LET High Tower Text Hoefler Text Impact Imprint MT Shadow Informal Roman Jenkins v2.0 John Handy LET Jokerman Jokerman LET Jokewood Juice ITC Kabel Ult BT Kartika Kino MT Kristen ITC Kunstler Script La Bamba LET Lucida Lucida Bright Lucida Calligraphy Lucida Console Lucida Fax Lucida Grande Lucida Handwriting Lucida Sans Lucida Sans Typewriter Lucida Sans Unicode Luxi Mono Luxi Sans Luxi Serif Magneto Maiandra GD Marker Felt MARKETPRO Matisse ITC Matura MT Script Capitals Mead Bold Mekanik LET Mercurius Script MT Bold Microsoft Sans Serif Milano LET Minion Web MisterEarl BT Mistral Monaco Monotype.com Monotype Corsiva MS Reference Sans Serif MS Reference Serif New Century Schoolbook News Gothic MT New York Niagara Engraved Niagara Solid Nimbus Mono L Nimbus Roman No9 L OCR A Extended OCRB Odessa LET OldDreadfulNo7 BT Old English Text MT One Stroke Script LET Onyx Optima Orange LET Palace Script MT Palatino Palatino Linotype Papyrus ParkAvenue BT Pepita MT Perpetua Perpetua Titling MT Placard Condensed Playbill Poornut Pristina Pump Demi Bold LET Pussycat Quixley LET Rage Italic Rage Italic LET Ravie Rockwell Rockwell Condensed Rockwell Extra Bold Ruach LET Runic MT Condensed Sand Script MT Bold Scruff LET Segoe UI Showcard Gothic Skia Smudger LET Snap ITC Square721 BT Staccato222 BT Stencil Sylfaen Tahoma Techno Tempus Sans ITC Terminal Textile Times Times New Roman Tiranti Solid LET Trebuchet MS Tw Cen MT Tw Cen MT Condensed Tw Cen MT Condensed Extra Bold Univers University Roman LET URW Antiqua T URW Bookman L URW Chancery L URW Gothic L URW Palladio L Utopia Verdana Verdana Ref Victorian LET Viner Hand ITC Vivaldi Vladimir Script Vrinda Weltron Urban Westwood LET Wide Latin Zapf Chancery Zapfino

Looking there you can see the influence of distribution and being free.

Minion Web was distributed in an IE 4 font pack, it's brother Myriad Web (both from Adobe) was not. As a result there are still populations of Minion in the wild, but Myriad is off the radar. (Not that I'm recommending using even Minion. It had potential at one time but is dying without ongoing distribution.)

I think I may have used this feature to add fonts before. Unfortunately I forget how to do it between releases so my setup regresses.

Is there a way to set the family (sans...) of the font in addition to it's name?

Do you have a list of "already know to CSE" fonts? (Given that I can trivially add the others that I want.)

It's great to have a tool, like this onConfigLoad setting, that does what I need. It would be cool to have a way to transfer notes about how to update the configuration between one version and the next. (So I don't forget!)

Is there an existing way of automating that?

(If not something as simple as transferring and accessing configuration notes would useful. Maybe a ConfigurationNotes.txt file in which I'd list (for myself) things like, how to set up validator message settings, how to make font additions...)

by **MikeGale** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 5:52 pm

On the spelling issue. When it doesn't recognise a font the message says something like:

The following typefaces may not be available on a significant number of browsers: : "Minion Web", "Palatino", "Book Antiqua", "Utopia". Also, check the spelling of the typeface names.

by **MikeGale** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 9:28 pm

As for suggesting the fonts are unknown/uncommon, I think that makes sense if only 37% of Windows users have them. I don't think this should change.

The prevalence of these fonts ride on a couple of things.

1) The "free" distribution.
2) Uptake of products that bundle them.
3) Other things like those who take the trouble to port them to other platforms.

The whole set was originally readily available, but now I think only Consolas is distributed (and that to a limited audience). I don't know the background to that decision. A great pity as it pretty much knocks 1 out of the equation.

They're in Vista, Office 2007 and beyond. Don't know the uptake rate of those. (I've seen browser market shares moving about a percent a month so maybe a similar rate or less. Might give a 6 to 10% shift in a year.)

I'm guessing there will be significant shifts but I'm not anticipating the penetration (and hence usefulness) of a Verdana.

Given the attractiveness of the designs, some web designers with an idea of typography will use them. I would expect a "two face" design. The look for those who have the family and that for the rest. (Not really possible to give meaningful automated suggestions to people designing web sites at that level of sophistication.)

Four sets (or maybe more) of Chinese, Japanese and Korean fonts have been made available recently. (They're billed as Vista fonts.) I have no meaningful analysis of these yet but wouldn't be surprised if they became fairly prevalent like Vrinda and Kartika. (So you might see font names like Meiryo and Malgun Gothic becoming popular in some market segments.) The game is dynamic though slow moving.

by **Albert Wiersch** » Tue Aug 12, 2008 5:04 pm

Sorry for the delay in responding. I wanted to work on some font issues first.

MikeGale wrote:Minion Web was distributed in an IE 4 font pack, it's brother Myriad Web (both from Adobe) was not. As a result there are still populations of Minion in the wild, but Myriad is off the radar. (Not that I'm recommending using even Minion. It had potential at one time but is dying without ongoing distribution.)

I think I may have used this feature to add fonts before. Unfortunately I forget how to do it between releases so my setup regresses.

Thanks. I've spent some time adding some new fonts today (mostly serif and sans serif ones, including "minion web").

MikeGale wrote:Is there a way to set the family (sans...) of the font in addition to it's name?

Currently you can only add typeface names to the "web-safe" list and to the recognized list. There's no way to classify them. If you have a need for this, then please let me know.

MikeGale wrote:Do you have a list of "already know to CSE" fonts? (Given that I can trivially add the others that I want.)

I don't have a list other than in code. I can send you the relevant portion of code though, if you'd like. Just let me know.

MikeGale wrote:It's great to have a tool, like this onConfigLoad setting, that does what I need. It would be cool to have a way to transfer notes about how to update the configuration between one version and the next. (So I don't forget!)

Is there an existing way of automating that?

Yes, I understand the problem. I wish there was an easier way to transfer your custom changes to a new config file, but there isn't. I would recommend that you keep a good note file somewhere that you can reference when needed (like a ConfigurationNotes.txt file as you suggested). You could also use the "Notes" tab in the Configuration Editor.

by **MikeGale** » Tue Aug 12, 2008 5:23 pm

Hi Albert,

Thanks very much for that.

I would like a copy of the code to check the included fonts (for my internal setup). Thanks.

I've started using the examplemsg of the msg config for my notes. It keeps it in one place and is easy to check. Looks like:

Code: Select all: msgidcfg id="2006051902" disable="true" examplemsg="The following typeface was not recognized (check spelling): "Minion Web". 2008/08/08 List is incomplete."

I haven't tracked down about 4 messages that I previously switched off. With this technique I should avoid that in future.

I can probably generate lists with font name and type if that's any use to you. Let me know.

by **Albert Wiersch** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 10:52 am

MikeGale wrote:I would like a copy of the code to check the included fonts (for my internal setup). Thanks.

Sure, I will email it to you.

MikeGale wrote:I've started using the examplemsg of the msg config for my notes. It keeps it in one place and is easy to check.

That's good, but I suspect that attribute may get overwritten if any future change is made for that message ID, so I suggest that you also add your own custom attribute.

by **MikeGale** » Thu Aug 14, 2008 12:22 am

Thanks for that and the code.

So I can create something of the form

Code: Select all: msgidcfg id="..." disable="true" examplemsg="..." notes="..."

and it will be preserved across updates etc?

by **Albert Wiersch** » Thu Aug 14, 2008 10:32 am

MikeGale wrote:So I can create something of the form

Code: Select all
msgidcfg id="..." disable="true" examplemsg="..." notes="..."

and it will be preserved across updates etc?

I believe that was my intention when I was coding it (I did that months ago though).

If you find that it is not preserved, then let me know. I intend to try to have it preserved throughout all versions. What you might want to do is just use the same value for the "examplemsg" and "notes" attributes. If I remember right, the "examplemsg" value may be updated if the config for that message ID is changed, but "notes" and other unknown attributes should not be touched.

by **Albert Wiersch** » Thu Aug 14, 2008 4:09 pm

MikeGale wrote:On the spelling issue. When it doesn't recognise a font the message says something like:

The following typefaces may not be available on a significant number of browsers: : "Minion Web", "Palatino", "Book Antiqua", "Utopia". Also, check the spelling of the typeface names.

Thanks. I've just finish improving this message for BETA 5. It will now specifically list the typeface names that it doesn't recognize at all.

It will now be something like:

The following typefaces may not be available on a significant number of browsers: "minion web", "simplified arabic fixed", "simplified arabic fixxed", "courir new". Not recognized at all (check spelling): "courir new", "simplified arabic fixxed".

CSE HTML Validator

Test of Beta 4B

Test of Beta 4B

Message management

Re: Message management

Re: Test of Beta 4B

Re: Test of Beta 4B

Details on Typefaces

Re: Test of Beta 4B

Re: Details on Typefaces

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