About the Validator Flags
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The tag name programs in the included configuration file (htmlvalV80.cfg) may act differently depending on what validator flags are set. This allows you to further customize the behavior and validation of CSE HTML Validator. Listed below are the effects that having certain flags set (or unset) will cause to documents being validated with the included configuration file.
Setting a flag usually causes certain messages, warnings, and/or errors to be enabled for display. Most of these messages, warnings, and errors begin with "[x]" where x is the validator flag that can be unchecked or checked in order to disable or enable the message, respectively. This lets you easily determine which flag you need to disable if you see a message that you do not want to be displayed during a validation. However, remember that when you disable a flag, you may be disabling multiple messages. Therefore, to determine most or all of the effects of disabling a specific flag, you can use the below information.
If you only want to disable a single message or want to know more about disabling messages, then see the disabling messages help.
Flags that are not listed are probably not used, depending on what configuration file you are using. Flags not listed may be used in future configuration files.
If you are using a newer configuration file, then some flags may be used that are not documented here. If you are using an older configuration file, then some flags documented may not be used.
In rare cases, the effects of some flags may also differ according to the version of CSE HTML Validator being used (if so, then this will be noted in the flag's description).
If you are writing your own tag name programs, then you can use the unused flags for your own use. We recommend that you start at the highest unused flag number and work your way backward. This offers the best chance of avoiding conflicting flag problems with future versions of the configuration file that may make use of new flags.
Flag Descriptions
Flag 1 (Internet Explorer specific messages)
| • | If a user interface color name is used for a color attribute value, displays a message that it is Internet Explorer 4.0+ specific. (New 20020821) |
| • | If the "autocomplete" attribute is used, displays a message that it is Internet Explorer 4.0+ specific. (New 20000925) |
| • | If the "contenteditable" attribute is used, displays a message that it is Internet Explorer 5.5+ specific. (New 20020801) |
| • | If the "hidefocus" attribute is used, displays a message that it is Internet Explorer 5.5+ specific. (New 20020801) |
| • | If the "onactivate" or "ondeactivate" event attribute is used, displays a message that they are Internet Explorer 5.5+ specific. (New 20040116) |
| • | If the "onafterprint" or "onbeforeprint" event attribute is used, displays a message that it is Internet Explorer 5.0+ specific. (New 20020709) |
| • | If the "onbeforecopy", "onbeforecut", "onbeforepaste", "oncopy", "oncut", or "onpaste" event attribute is used, displays a message that it is Internet Explorer 5.0+ specific. (New 20020710) |
| • | If the "ondrag", "ondragend", "ondragenter", "ondragleave", "ondragover", or "ondrop" event attribute is used, displays a message that it is Internet Explorer 5.0+ specific. (New 20040116) |
| • | If the "ondragstart" or "onselectstart" event attribute is used, displays a message that it is Internet Explorer 4.0+ specific. (New 20020708) |
| • | If the "onfocusin" or "onfocusout" event attribute is used, displays a message that they are Internet Explorer 6.0+ specific. (New 20040116) |
| • | If the "onhelp" event attribute is used, displays a message that it is Internet Explorer 4.0+ specific. (New 20020710) |
| • | If the "onmouseenter" or "onmouseleave" event attribute is used, displays a message that they are Internet Explorer 5.5+ specific.(New 20020708) |
| • | If the "onmousewheel" event attribute is used, displays a message that it is Internet Explorer 6.0+ specific.(New 20020708) |
| • | If the "onmovestart" or "onmoveend" event attribute is used, displays a message that they are Internet Explorer 5.5+ specific. (New 20040116) |
| • | If the "onpropertychange" event attribute is used, displays a message that it is Internet Explorer 5.0+ specific. (New 20040116) |
| • | If the "unselectable" attribute is used, displays a message that it is Internet Explorer 5.5+ specific. (New 20020801) |
| • | If the "_SEARCH" value is used with the "target" attribute, displays a message that it is Internet Explorer 5.0+ specific. (New 20020617) |
| • | If "bgsound" is used, displays a message that it is Internet Explorer specific. |
| • | If the "bgproperties", "nowrap", and/or "scroll" attributes are used with the "body" element, displays a message that it is Internet Explorer specific. |
| • | If the "leftmargin" and/or "topmargin" attributes are used with the "body" element, displays a message that it is Internet Explorer specific. |
| • | If the "valign" attribute is used with the "caption" element, displays a message that it is Internet Explorer specific. |
| • | If "fieldset" is used, displays a message that it is Internet Explorer specific. |
| • | If the "framespacing" attribute is used with the "frameset" element, displays a message that it is Internet Explorer specific. (New 20000710) |
| • | If the "color" attribute is used with the "hr" element, displays a message that it is Internet Explorer specific. |
| • | If the "allowtransparency", "application", "bordercolor", "hspace", and/or "vspace" attributes are used with the "iframe" element, displays a message that these attributes are Internet Explorer specific. (New 20020520) |
| • | If the "galleryimg" attribute is used with the "img" element, displays a message that this attribute is Internet Explorer 6.0+ specific. (New 20020708) |
| • | If the "controls", "dynsrc", "loop", "loopdelay", "start", and/or "vrml" attributes are used with the "img" element, displays a message that the attributes are Internet Explorer specific and may be removed in future versions of Internet Explorer. |
| • | If "legend" is used, displays a message that it is Internet Explorer specific. |
| • | If "marquee" is used, displays a message that it is Internet Explorer and WebTV specific. |
| • | If the "bordercolor", "bordercolordark", and/or "bordercolorlight" attributes are used with a "table", "td", "th", or "tr" element, displays a message that it is Internet Explorer specific. |
Flag 2 (Netscape specific messages)
| • | If the "archive" attribute is used with the "applet" element, displays a message that "archive" is Netscape specific. |
| • | If "blink" is used, displays a message that it is Netscape specific. |
| • | If "keygen" is used, displays a message that it is Netscape specific. |
| • | If "multicol" is used, displays a message that it is Netscape specific. |
| • | If the "oninput" event attribute is used, displays a message that it is Netscape 6.0+/Mozilla specific. (New 20040116) |
| • | If "spacer" is used, displays a message that it is Netscape and WebTV specific. |
| • | If the "hspace" or "vspace" attribute is used with the "table" element, displays a message that it is Netscape specific. |
| • | If the "background" attribute is used with the "tr" element, displays a message that "background" is Netscape specific. |
| • | If the "class" attribute is used with the "tr" element, displays a message that Netscape 4.x does not properly apply it to the "tr" element. (New 20020801) |
Flag 3 (Deprecation messages)
| • | If "applet" is used, displays a deprecation message that it is deprecated in favor of the "object" element. |
| • | If "dir" is used, displays a deprecation message that it is deprecated in favor of a "ul" list. |
| • | If the "version" attribute is used with the "html" element, displays a deprecation message. |
| • | If "isindex" is used, displays a deprecation message that it is deprecated in favor of an "input" element. |
| • | If "menu" is used, displays a deprecation message that it is deprecated in favor of a "ul" list. |
Flag 4 (Obsolete messages)
| • | If "bq" is used, displays a message that it is obsolete in favor of "blockquote". |
| • | If "comment" is used, displays a warning that it is obsolete and is Internet Explorer and Mosaic specific, and that <!-- --> should be used instead. |
| • | If "fn" is used, displays a message that it is obsolete. |
| • | If "listing" is used, displays a message that it is obsolete in favor of "pre". |
| • | If "nextid" is used, displays a message that its use is not recommended. |
| • | If "note" is used, displays a message that it is obsolete. |
| • | If "plaintext" is used, displays a message that it is obsolete in favor of "pre". |
| • | If "xmp" is used, displays a message that it is obsolete in favor of "pre". |
Flag 5 (General compatibility messages)
| • | If a mailto link is used in an "href" attribute for an "a" tag and it includes extra information (such as a subject or body), displays a message that this may cause a user to have problems when trying to send email with software that does not support extra information in a mailto link. |
| • | If the "oncontextmenu" event attribute is used, displays a message that it is Internet Explorer 5+ and Netscape 6+ specific. (New 20020708) |
| • | If "acronym" is used, displays a message that it may not be supported by older browsers such as Netscape v4.x. NOTE: Flag 114 must be unchecked for this message to display. |
| • | If the "marginheight" or "marginwidth" attribute is used with the "body" element, displays a message that it is Netscape and Opera specific. |
| • | If "button" is used, displays a compatibility message that it is an official HTML 4.01 and XHTML element but is not supported by Netscape 4.x- and older browsers, that it is supported by Internet Explorer 4.0+, Netscape 6.0+, Opera 5.0+, and most newer browsers, and to consider using the "input" element instead. NOTE: Flag 114 must be unchecked for this message to display. |
| • | If "col" or "colgroup" is used, displays a compatibility message about browser support. Older browsers like Netscape 4 and Opera 6 may not support these elements. NOTE: Flag 114 must be unchecked for this message to display. (Changed 20020603) |
| • | If "del" is used, displays a compatibility message. Older browsers like Netscape 4.x- may not support this element, but Internet Explorer 4+ does. NOTE: Flag 114 must be unchecked for this message to display. |
| • | If "dfn" is used, displays a compatibility message that it is not supported by Netscape 4.x- and some older browsers. NOTE: Flag 114 must be unchecked for this message to display. |
| • | If "embed" is used, displays a message that it is not supported by HTML 4.0 and recommends using the "object" element instead. (New 20000707) |
| • | If the "palette" attribute is used with the "embed" element, displays a messages that it only has an effect on the Windows platform. |
| • | If the "width" attribute is used with the "img" or "table" element and the value for "width" is a percent value greater than 100%, displays a message about browser support for this. (New 20020920) |
| • | If the "point-size" or "weight" attribute is used with the "font" element, displays a warning message that it may not work with some browsers such as Internet Explorer 6.0 but does work with Netscape and Firefox. Suggests CSS instead. (Updated 20060927) |
| • | If the "onmouseover" and/or "onmouseout" attributes are used with the "font" element, displays a message that these attributes are not valid HTML 4.01 attributes for the "font" element (New 20020603) |
| • | Displays a message if the non-HTML "align", "bordercolor", and/or "framespacing" attributes are used with "frame". |
| • | If "frameset" is used, displays a message that older browsers and text-only browsers may not support frames. (New 20000717) |
| • | Displays a message if the non-HTML "border", "bordercolor", "frameborder", and/or "framespacing" attributes are used with "frameset". |
| • | If "iframe" is used, displays a message that it is not supported by Netscape 4.x- but is supported by most newer browsers. NOTE: Flag 114 must be unchecked for this message to display. |
| • | If "allowtransparency", "application", "bordercolor", "hspace", and/or "vspace" attributes are used with "iframe", displays a message that these are not HTML 4.01 attributes. (New 20020520) |
| • | If the "border" attribute is used with the "input" element, displays a warning message that it may not work with some browsers such as Internet Explorer 6.0 but does work with Netscape and Firefox. Suggests CSS instead. (New 20000725, Updated 20060927) |
| • | Displays a message about inconsistent rendering if the "height" or "width" attribute is used with the "img" element and its value is a percent. (New 20020803) |
| • | If the "src" attribute is used and it specifies a BMP image for an "img" or "input" element, displays a warning message about BMP image compatibility. (New 20020924) |
| • | If the "src" attribute is used and it specifies a PNG image for an "img" or "input" element, displays a message about PNG image compatibility and problems with Internet Explorer. (New 20060414) |
| • | Displays a message if the non-HTML "hspace" and/or "vspace" attributes are used with "input". (New 20000613) |
| • | If type="file" is used with the "input" element, displays a message that it is only supported by Internet Explorer 4.0 and above and Netscape 3.0 and above. NOTE: Flag 114 must be unchecked for this message to display. |
| • | If the "input", "select", and/or "textarea" element is used, displays a message that it may not be displayed by some browsers if it is not in a form. |
| • | If "ins" is used, displays a compatibility message. Older browsers like Netscape 4.x- may not support this element, but Internet Explorer 4+ does. NOTE: Flag 114 must be unchecked for this message to display. |
| • | If "label" is used, displays a message that it is supported by Internet Explorer 4.0+, Netscape 6.0+, and Opera 4+ but not by Netscape 4.7-. NOTE: Flag 114 must be unchecked for this message to display. |
| • | If "map" is used, displays a message that it may not be supported by older browsers such as HTML 2.0 browsers. NOTE: Flag 114 must be unchecked for this message to display. (New 20000717) |
| • | If "nobr" is used, displays a message that it is only supported by Internet Explorer and Netscape. |
| • | If "noframes" is used in a "body" section, displays a messages that it is not supported by many browsers, even those supporting frames. (New 20000717) |
| • | If "object" is used, displays a compatibility message that it is supported by Internet Explorer 3.0+, Netscape 6.0+, Opera 4.0+, and most newer browsers, but not by Netscape 4.x-. NOTE: Flag 114 must be unchecked for this message to display. (Changed 20020603) |
| • | If the "accesskey" attribute is used with the "object" element, displays a messages that it is not an official HTML or XHTML attribute but is supported by Internet Explorer 4.0+ and Netscape 6.2+. (New 20030124) |
| • | If the "width" attribute is used with the "pre" element, displays a message that it is not widely supported. (New 20000712) |
| • | If "q" is used, displays a message that it may not be supported by older browsers such as Internet Explorer 3.0-, Netscape 4.x-, Opera 3.x-, and Mosaic. However, Internet Explorer 4.0+, Netscape 6.0+, and Opera 4.0+ support this element, as well as most newer browsers. NOTE: Flag 114 must be unchecked for this message to display. |
| • | If "ruby" is used, displays a message that it is not widely supported. (New 20020116) |
| • | If "sound" is used, displays a message that it is only supported by Mosaic. |
| • | If "span" is used, displays a message that it is not supported by Internet Explorer 2.0-, Netscape 3.0-, Opera versions below 3.5, and many older browsers. NOTE: Flag 114 must be unchecked for this message to display. (New 20000922) |
| • | If the "s" element is used, displays a message that "strike" is more capatible with older browsers. Also recommends using CSS instead if compatibility with older browsers is not important. (New 20050113) |
| • | If the "style" element or "style" attribute is used, displays a message that style information is only supported by Internet Explorer 3.0+, Netscape 4.0+, Firefox, and most newer browsers. NOTE: Flag 114 must be unchecked for this message to display. |
| • | If "table" is used, displays a message that older browsers and nonvisual browsers may have problems using this element. (New 20000722) |
| • | If the "cols" attribute is used with the "table" element, displays a message that it is not an HTML/XHTML attribute. (New 20020805) |
| • | If the "height" attribute is used with the "table" element, displays a message that it is not an HTML 4.01 attribute (for the "table" element) and that it is not well supported. (New 20010124) |
| • | If the "background" attribute is used with "td" or "th", displays a message that it is not an official HTML or XHTML attribute, is supported by Internet Explorer 3.0+ and Netscape 4.0+, but may not work with other browsers. |
| • | If "wrap" is used with the "textarea" element, displays a messages that it is it is not an official HTML or XHTML attribute, is only supported by Internet Explorer 4.0+ and Netscape 3.0+. Also included is information about the values that "wrap" can take with regards to the 4.0+ browsers. |
| • | If "tfoot" is used, displays a message that some browsers may render the table footer before the table body. (New 20000722) |
| • | If "wbr" is used, displays a message that it is only supported by Internet Explorer and Netscape. |
| • | If "tbody", "thead", or "tfoot" is used, displays a compatibility message that these elements are supported by Internet Explorer 3.0+, Netscape 6.0+, and most newer browsers while Netscape 4.x- does not support any of these elements at all. NOTE: Flag 114 must be unchecked for this message to display. (Changed 20020603) |
| • | If the "height" attribute is used with the "tr" element, displays a message that it is not an HTML/XHTML attribute but that it is supported by Internet Explorer 5.0+, Netscape 6.0 and Opera 4.0+. (New 20040123) |
| • | If "absbottom", "absmiddle", "textbottom", "textmiddle", or "texttop" is used as an attribute value, displays a message that these values are not HTML 4.01 values and may not be supported by standards compliant browsers. (New 20011019) |
| • | If the "compact" attribute is used, displays a message that it is poorly supported among browsers. (New 20020208) |
Flag 6 (Helpful tip messages)
| • | creating borderless frames |
| • | recommends using the "textarea" element instead of type="textarea" with an "input" element |
| • | using "embed" to substitute for "bgsound" |
| • | If "topmargin" is used in "body", suggests that you may also need to use "marginheight" to create the effect that you want in Netscape. |
| • | If "leftmargin" is used in "body", suggests that you may also need to use "marginwidth" to create the effect that you want in Netscape. |
| • | If "marginheight" is used in "body", suggests that you may also need to use "topmargin" to create the effect that you want in Internet Explorer. |
| • | If "marginwidth" is used in "body", suggests that you may also need to use "leftmargin" to create the effect that you want in Internet Explorer. |
| • | If a content-language "meta" tag is used, recommends that it not be used and that the "lang" attribute be used instead. (New 20050810) |
| • | If "input" with type="image" is used without the "border" attribute, suggests that border="0" be used so that the image is drawn with no border in both Internet Explorer and Netscape. (New 20000725) |
| • | If "nobr" is used, displays a message about possible problems using this element and recommends that you be careful. (New 20000720) |
| • | If the "nowrap" table attribute is used, displays a message about possible problems using this attribute and recommends that you be careful. (New 20000716) |
| • | If a mailto "href" link is used, displays a message about spam and how mailto email addresses can be easily harvested and added to spam lists. (New 20031121) |
Flag 7 (Style messages)
| • | Displays a message when skipping heading levels (for example, using "h4" before using "h1", "h2", and "h3"); however, allows the first heading to be any level without displaying an out of order message. |
| • | If bgproperties="fixed" is used with the "body" element, displays a message stating that it is considered to be bad style and to be annoying. |
| • | If "blink" is used, displays a message stating that some consider using "blink" to be bad style and to be annoying. |
| • | If "width" is "0*" for "col" or "colgroup" then displays a message that this may prevent user agents from rendering the table incrementally and therefore may be considered bad style, especially for large tables. (New 20010223) |
| • | If "image" is used without the "height" and "width" attributes, displays a message that these attributes should be used. Displays this message a maximum of ten times. |
| • | If "input" with type="image" is used without the "height" and "width" attributes, displays a message that these attributes should be used. |
| • | If "marquee" is used without the "height" attribute, displays a message that it should be used. |
| • | If "u" is used, displays a message that underlining may confuse visitors because most browsers underline hyperlinks. (New 20000712) |
Flag 8 (Search engine messages)
| • | If "frameset" is used, displays a message that frames may cause problems with site indexing by search engines. (New 20010221) |
| • | If a "meta" description tag is not used, displays a comment recommending that it be used. |
| • | If a "meta" keywords tag is not used, displays a comment recommending that it be used. |
| • | If <meta http-equiv="refresh" ... > is used, displays a warning message stating that search engines may penalize sites that use refresh. |
| • | If the document's title is less than 5 words or more than 15 words, displays a message recommending a title that is 5-15 words in length. (New 20020717) |
| • | If repeated keywords or phrases are found in a "meta" keywords tag, displays a message that this could be considered spamming. (New 20020802) |
| • | If alt text is not used with the "img" element, displays a message that alt text is often used by search engines (New 20030123) |
| • | Displays a message to consider removing the robots meta tag if it specifies the default behavior of indexing the page and following links. (New 20030430) |
Flag 9 (More deprecation messages)
These are deprecation messages for certain HTML 4.0 deprecated tags and attributes that are still considered to be in high use or still useful. Many authors may still be using these attributes and may want to uncheck this flag.
| • | If the "name" attribute is used with the "a", "applet", "form", "frame", "iframe", "img", or "map" elements in an XHTML 1.0 document and the "id" attribute is not used, displays a deprecation message. (New 20020808) |
| • | If the "basefont", "center", "font", "s", "strike", and/or "u" element is used, displays a deprecation message. |
| • | If the "align" attribute that can have a value of "left", "center", "right", or "justify" is used, displays a deprecation message. (New 20000712) |
| • | If the "background", "text", "link", "vlink", and/or "alink" attributes are used with the "body" element, displays a deprecation message. (New 20000712) |
| • | If the "align" attribute is used with the "caption" element, displays a deprecation message. (New 20000716) |
| • | If the "center" element is used, displays a message that it may work better in some real-world situations but that CSS should still be used whenever reasonably possible. (New 20061114) |
| • | If the "clear" attribute that can have a value of "all", "left", "none", or "right" is used, displays a deprecation message. (New 20000712) |
| • | If the "compact" attribute is used with the "dl" element, displays a deprecation message. (New 20000715) |
| • | If the "align", "noshade", "size", and/or "width" attributes are used with the "hr" element, displays a deprecation message. (New 20000712) |
| • | If the "align" attribute is used with the "legend" element, displays a deprecation message. (New 20000719) |
| • | If the "type", and/or "value" attributes are used with the "li" element, displays a deprecation message. (New 20000715) |
| • | If the "compact", "start", and/or "type" attributes are used with the "ol" element, displays a deprecation message. (New 20000715) |
| • | If the "width" attribute is used with the "pre" element, displays a deprecation message. (New 20000712) |
| • | If the "language" attribute is used with the "script" element and the "type" attribute is not used, displays a deprecation message. (New 20030127) |
| • | If the "align" and/or "bgcolor" attribute is used with the "table" element, displays a deprecation message. (New 20000716, "bgcolor" new 20010314) |
| • | If the "height" and/or "width" attribute is used with the "td" or "th" element, displays a deprecation message. (New 20000716) |
| • | If the "bgcolor" attribute is used with the "td" or "th" element, displays a deprecation message. (New 20030506) |
| • | If the "nowrap" attribute is used with the "td" or "th" element, displays a deprecation message. (New 20030506) |
| • | If the "bgcolor" attribute is used with the "tr" element, displays a deprecation message. (New 20000716) |
| • | If the "compact" and/or "type" attributes are used with the "ul" element, displays a deprecation message. (New 20000715) |
Flag 10
Displays a comment about how you can disable certain messages by unchecking validator flags. You will probably want to disable this message by unchecking flag 10. The reason for this message is to make you aware of how easy it is to disable messages that you may not want to see by simply disabling flags.
Flag 11
This flag is no longer in use in v6.00+. To turn on or off sound, disable or enable sound in the Validator Engine Options.
Flag 12
When unchecked, does not change the priority of HTML Validator before validating a document. This means that HTML Validator usually runs at normal priority. When checked, the priority will be set to low before each validation if HTML Validator believes that it is best that it should work in the background (for instance, when HTML Validator is run from command line parameters). This will more easily allow you to do work with other applications while CSE HTML Validator processes documents in the background.
Flag 13
Some users may want to uncheck this flag. However, it is strongly recommended that the "alt" attribute be used for both "img" and "area" elements and that this flag remain checked.
| • | If the HTML 4.0 category is active, displays a warning message when "alt" is not used with an "img" or "area" element. |
Flags 14, 15, 16, 17, 18
These flags are no longer in use in v6.00+. The single message previously controlled by each flag is now controlled exclusively by the message ID feature.
Flag 19 (HTML Editor proprietary attributes)
| • | Displays a comment if any ASP.NET attributes are used in the document. These attributes are not valid HTML/XHTML attributes but are typically ignored. (New 20050221) |
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