Validator settings in Firefox

[MikeGale]

Firefox with a "Web Developer" Extension (http://chrispederick.com/work/web-developer/) has a configurable setting for validations. (Note this is not vanilla FF!)

I'd be interested to hear how others are using that with CSE validator and their experiences and suggestions.

In the UI it's at Options / Options / Tools.

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It has a variety of settings for validation. The settings can take a URL or application.

There is also a validation indicator at the top right which shows validation of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. (From the same addon.)

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For the indicator I'd like to hear what others are finding in those results and any indications of how people are being influenced by them.

(There's some embedded images (on the cloud) up there. They're HTTPS and are not showing in my tests. I won't investigate that, but if you grab the source and paste into a browser you can see them.)

Edited after initial publication to explain source of UI items.

[Albert Wiersch]

Thanks Mike.

I chatted with Chris and asked him to include links to our online checker at http://www.OnlineWebCheck.com/ but he declined because he says he only links to the official validators.

As for the image links not working, I don't think they are being returned as raw image files. It looks like skydrive is trying to be fancy and returning an XHTML 1.0 page. Perhaps there is a way to get it to return the raw image file?

[MikeGale]

Pity about that decision. From my perspective it probably makes those validations not worth having. (I've looked at some of what comes in and they're not right, for me.) It's obviously his option to set it up so he's the gatekeeper. I'd have preferred an approach where he says, this is the interface, if you want to participate, serve up something compatible. (Heck, I imagine it could be served up through your own code (maybe script) making it fairly easy to adapt any validator.) That way the individual user has a better chance of making their own choice.

Would be useful if there was a published standard for that sort of thing. Might eventually encourage and facilitate more validation!

I guess that leaves an option to write an add-on that does it. If anybody here has the time, interest and knowledge to do that I'm prepared to be a tester!

On the SkyDrive images. I decided to give it a try on the spur of the moment. (With SkyDrive now integrated into file browsing systems it's an attractive option.) Didn't spend much time. Don't intend to check whether there's a way right now. Might do so if and when I try it again.

Edit: I spent a little time checking what happens when these images are displayed. As far as I can see the only workable option is to provide a link to a page that shows the images (slide show style). Any URL that actually serves up the image appears to be implemented so that's it's not re-usable. Security considerations? CLOSED

[Daniel Lacroix]

Here is a quick solution

First create a batch file.
ex: CSE-Validator.bat
Create it with the following line if you are using CSE version 11 on your C drive.
"C:\Program Files\HTMLValidator110\cmdlineprocessor.exe" -o %1

Then in the Firefox address bar enter about:config
Click on the I'll be careful, I promise!

In the search bar enter view_source
Double click on the view_source.editor.path and enter the full path to the batch file you just created.

Now when you browse a web page, when you write click and select View Page Source, the source document will get validated with CSE.
The draw back, the links check will not work with the source document.

A better solution would be to pass the current URL to CSE.
The problem:
- I don't think we can pass a unique URL to the command line processor at this time
- and how do you get the current URL from Firefox

Daniel.