HTML validation with Safari Tidy
A great extension for Firefox is the HTML Validator extension, which uses Tidy to automatically validate the HTML of every page you open in Firefox. This extension is one of the reasons I have for keeping Firefox running all day alongside Safari, my main browser.
But now, thanks to Kasper Nauwelaerts, you can add the same functionality to Safari. The Safari Tidy plugin works in a similar way to the HTML Validator extension, but it does miss a few features.
When Safari Tidy is installed, the rightmost part of the status bar at the bottom of the browser window will display the status of each page you visit. If a page contains invalid HTML, a warning or error icon will be displayed along with the number of warnings or errors. If you view source, all errors and warnings are shown in a list and will be highlighted in the source.
This is the first release of the Safari Tidy plugin, so maybe more features will be added later. (via Veerle)
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Roger Johansson is a Swedish web professional specialising in web standards, accessibility, and usability. More about me and this site.
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Comments
Thanks for the link Roger! I just installed this in Safari. It will help now as I won't have to bounce back and forth as much (except for a few other features/tools in firefox).
Peace, Nate
It sure would be nice if they put something like that in every browser. A lot more people would write valid markup if their visitors saw a warning icon otherwise. It's wishful thinking though, I guess.
Jeff: That would be great, but indeed I think it's wishful thinking.
I'm a bit afraid of Safari plugins as they have made my Safari pretty unstable and unresponsive lately. Have you noticed any similar signs of such a behavior with this one?
Jan: I've had the plugin installed for a couple of days and haven't noticed any problems yet.
Now if only there were some tools for Opera to help diagnose when it renders things differently.
I don't like to add stuff to my InputManagers folder. It is one of the weak spots in MacOS X. There was a security warning a few months ago where you should make InputManagers folder not writable as a virus/trojan called latestpics.tgz used that folder to spread itself to other applications.
I still tried the Safari plugin and it seems to work. For now I stay with Firefox for development. But nice to have an alternative. :)
//Rob
There's something wrong with my FF Tidy. It indicates no warnings or errors for this page. No, really, I can see it right now. Now how could that be? :)
cheers,
gary
If only Tidy wasn't the most useless validation tool available, I'd consider trying it out. I'd like someone to create an validator extension based on a real SGML and/or XML parser.
Thats great! I'd like to get more of these FF-like plugins in Safari!
The next feature i would like to see in Safari (also in Camino) is this handy search bar on the bottom of the viewport. I'm using FF for development and every time I switch back to Safari this is the most missed tool.
This dumb "find" box is annoying and doesn' t fit to a modern Browser.
Tidy is a really Lint Checker rather than a Validator.
Ah deadly. I hadn't come across this plugin for firefox before. Absolutely fantastic.. saves a lot of time in going through and validating pages when a site build is completed.
I'm over the moon.
(I clearly also need to get out more)
I leave the Tidy plugin disabled most of the time.. it's too distressing to see an error icon in my browser for 99% of web sites. :)
Cool tip, love the plugin
Safari Tidy is wrong most of the time, when you click to see in view source the supposed error doesn't even exist or they are incorrectly categorized as error or warning
this website here ST shows 17 warnings lol
its a worthless plugin highly not-recommend it
mushu: It's because it also checks the source of any iframes on the page and includes any errors it finds in those in the count. When you view source only the errors on the page you actually view source on are displayed.
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