CSE HTML Validator Standard/Professional v6.01 Documentation

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Configuration File

The good news is that most people do not have to use the configuration editor, which can be very confusing because it is so powerful. CSE HTML Validator should work great in its default configuration without any altering of the default active categories. If you want to "fine-tune" it, however, then you can. The following information will help you decide what categories you want active if you do decide that you want to "fine-tune" it.

CSE HTML Validator comes with an included configuration file that supports many different 'categories' of tags. Support for HTML 4.01, HTML 4.0, XHTML 1.0, XHTML 1.1, Netscape extensions, Microsoft Internet Explorer extensions, Cold Fusion/CFML, SMIL, RealText, WML, XHTML and more is already included. Note that some categories such as Cold Fusion/CFML, SMIL, RealText, and WML are only supported by the professional and standard editions.

An important characteristic of the included configuration file is that the categories are built upon one another. This means that if you want to validate against HTML 3.2, then the HTML 2.0 category, in addition to the HTML 3.2 category must be active. To validate against HTML 4.0 (or XHTML), the HTML 2.0, HTML 3.2, and HTML 4.0 categories must be active (HTML 4.0 cannot be the only active category). This is because the HTML 4.0 category requires the HTML 3.2 category as its "foundation", and the HTML 3.2 category requires the HTML 2.0 category as its "foundation".

To validate for Microsoft Internet Explorer (Microsoft IE), the HTML 2.0, HTML 3.2, and (for Internet Explorer 4.0+ only) HTML 4.0 categories must be active as well as the categories for the Microsoft IE extensions that you wish to use. If you make the Microsoft IE 4.0 Extensions category active, then you must also make the Microsoft IE 3.0 Extensions category active.

A similar situation applies for Netscape extensions. You will have to select the Netscape extension categories that you wish to validate against, as well as the HTML 2.0, HTML 3.2, and other "foundation" categories that Netscape supports.

The WebTV category requires at least the HTML, Microsoft IE Extensions, Netscape Extensions, and Tables categories active for full support.

The SMIL category only requires the Element Identifiers category active if you will use the ID attribute. Other categories may be deactivated. The tag name program for the SMIL tag automatically disables most categories, so you don't have to disable any categories for SMIL syntax checking.

The default is for most categories to be active. If needed, categories that are not active may automatically be made active by a tag name program. Therefore, depending on how a specific category works, a non-active category may still allow syntax checking of that category even if it is inactive.

Notes

• The Dynamic HTML and Scripting & Applets categories should normally be made active or inactive together.
• The Obsolete category contains tags such as "listing", "note", "plaintext" and "xmp".
• The Miscellaneous category contains tags such as "nextid", and the "ms_positioning", "msimagelist", "naturalsizeflag", "nof", "nosave", "webbot-action", "xmnls:o", and "xmnls:v" attributes.
• The General category contains the "cseignore" tag. Use the "cseignore" tag to surround tags that you want HTML Validator to ignore during a validation.
• The XML 1.0 category contains the "xml:lang" attribute.

Lite Edition

CSE HTML Validator Lite does not support all of the categories that the standard and professional editions support (such as CFML, RealText, SMIL, and WebTV). Furthermore, it does not support tag name programs, one of the most powerful features of the standard and professional editions. Because it does not support tag name programs, the following information about the validator flags does not apply to the lite edition. The lite edition will never generate any of the messages that you see below.

Validator Flags (Pro, Std, Lite)

The tag name programs in the included configuration file 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 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 following information.

If you only want to disable a single message instead of all the messages for a particular flag, then see the note about the message ID feature at the bottom of this page.

Note that flags that are not listed are probably not used, depending on what configuration file you are using. Flags not listed will likely 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 HTML Validator that you are using (if so, then this will be noted in the flag's description).

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 "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 "ondragstart" or "onselectstart" event attribute is used, displays a message that it is Internet Explorer 4.0+ specific. (New 20020708)
• 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+ specific.(New 20020708)
• If the "unselectable" attribute is used, displays a message that it is Internet Explorer 5.5+ specific. (New 20020801)
• If the "face" or "color" attributes are used with the "basefont" element, displays a message that these attributes are Internet Explorer specific and do not work with Netscape. (New 20000708)
• 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 the "point-size" or "weight" attribute is used with the "font" element, displays a message that it is Netscape specific.
• If the "border" attribute is used with the "input" element, displays a message that it is Netscape specific. (New 20000725)
• 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 "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.
• 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.
• If "col" or "colgroup" is used, displays a compatibility message. (Changed 20020603)
• If "del" is used, displays a compatibility message.
• If "dfn" is used, displays a compatibility message.
• 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 "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 about "iframe" support.
• 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)
• 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)
• 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.
• 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.
• 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-.
• If "map" is used, displays a message that it may not be supported by older browsers such as HTML 2.0 browsers. (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. (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 about "q" support.
• 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 3.0- and Netscape 3.0-. (New 20000922)
• If the "style" element or "style" attribute is used, displays a message that style information is only supported by Internet Explorer 3.0+ and Netscape 4.0+.
• 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 supported by Internet Explorer 3.0+ and Netscape 4.0+ and may not work with other browsers.
• If "wrap" is used with the "textarea" element, displays a messages that it 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. (Changed 20020603)
• 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 "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)

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, 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 "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, 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, Flag 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 the "naturalsizeflag" attribute is used in the document (usually added by Adobe PageMill). This attribute is not a valid HTML/XHTML attribute.
• Displays a comment if the "msimagelist" attribute is used in the document (usually added by Microsoft FrontPage 2000). This attribute is not a valid HTML/XHTML attribute.
• Displays a comment if the "nof" attribute is used in the document (usually added by NetObjects Fusion). This attribute is not a valid HTML/XHTML attribute. (New 20020315)
• Displays a comment if the "webbot-action" attribute is used in the document (usually added by Microsoft FrontPage). This attribute is not a valid HTML/XHTML attribute. (New 20030525)
• Displays a comment if the "ms_positioning" attribute is used in the document (usually added by Microsoft software). This attribute is not a valid HTML/XHTML attribute. (New 20030702)

Flag 20 (SMIL style messages)

• Displays a message if the "title" attribute is not used with a "smil" element where its use is recommended (such as "a", "anchor", "animation", "audio", "img", "par", "ref", "region", "seq", "switch", "text", "textstream", and "video").

Flag 21 (WebTV specific messages)

• If the "selected" attribute is used with the "a" element, displays a message that it is WebTV specific.
• If "audioscope" is used, displays a message that it is WebTV specific.
• If "blackface" is used, displays a message that it is WebTV specific.
• If the "credits", "instructions", and/or "logo" attributes are used with the "body" element, displays a message that it is WebTV specific.
• If the "effect" and/or "transparency" attributes are used with the "font" element, displays a message that it is WebTV specific.
• If the "invertborder" attribute is used with the "hr" element, displays a message that it is WebTV specific.
• If the "selected" and/or "transparency" attributes are used with the "img" element, displays a message that it is WebTV specific.
• If the "bgcolor", "cursor", and/or "usestyle" attributes are used with the "input" or "textarea" elements, displays a message that it is WebTV specific.
• If "marquee" is used, displays a message that "marquee" is Internet Explorer and WebTV specific.
• If the "autoactivate", "bgcolor", "selcolor", "text", and/or "usestyle" attributes are used with the "select" element, displays a message that it is WebTV specific.
• If "spacer" is used, displays a message that it is Netscape and WebTV specific.
• If the "gradangle", "gradcolor", and/or "transparency" attributes are used with the "table", "td", or "th" element, displays a message that it is WebTV specific.
• If the "transparency" attribute is used with the "tr" element, displays a message that it is WebTV specific.
• If the "transparency" attribute is used with the "marquee" element, displays a message that it is WebTV specific.

Flag 22

• This flag is no longer in use in v6.00+. The single message previously controlled by this flag is now controlled exclusively by the message ID feature.

Flag 23 (WebTV Comments)

• Displays a comment about optimizations when the "transparency" attribute is set to 50, if the "transparency" attribute is used.

Flag 24

• Displays a warning message if the "html" element is used without a DOCTYPE (document type declaration). Displays different messages for HTML and XHTML documents.
• Displays a comment message for XHTML documents if the "html" element was used without an XML declaration.
• Displays a comment message for WML documents if the "wml" element was used without an XML declaration.

Flags 25, 26, 27

• 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 28

• Displays a warning message if an "address", "blockquote", "center", "dir", "div", "dl", "fieldset", "form", "h1", "h2", "h3", "h4", "h5", "h6", "hr", "isindex", "menu", "noframes", "noscript", "ol", "p", "pre", "table", or "ul" tag is contained within an inline element (like "b", "i", etc., except for "font"-- see Flag 30).

Flag 29 is no longer used.

Flag 30

• Displays a warning message if an "address", "blockquote", "center", "dir", "div", "dl", "fieldset", "form", "h1", "h2", "h3", "h4", "h5", "h6", "hr", "isindex", "menu", "noframes", "noscript", "ol", "p", "pre", "table", or "ul" tag is contained within a "font" tag.

Flag 31

• Displays a message if any of the following tags are contained within another tag of the same type: "abbr", "acronym", "b", "big", "cite", "code", "dfn", "em", "h1", "h2", "h3", "h4", "h5", "h6", "i", "kbd", "q", "s", "samp", "small", "strike", "strong", "sub", "sup", "tt", "u", "var". Example: "<b> Bold <b> Bold again </b></b>" would generate a message for the second "b" tag.

Flag 32

• Displays a warning message if a "head" section does not contain a title (using the "title" element; required by HTML 4.0).
• Displays a warning message when an HTML document does not contain a "head" section (required by HTML 4.0).

Flag 33

• Displays a message if certain attributes have values that have leading or trailing spaces, such as the "href", "name", and "target" attributes for "a", and the "src" attribute for "img".

Flags 34, 35

• 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 36

• Displays a message when the "stylesrc" attribute is used with the "body" element. "stylesrc" is not an HTML element but is used by Microsoft FrontPage and FrontPage server extensions.

Flags 37, 38, 39

• 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 40 is no longer used.

Flag 41

• Displays a message when "div" or "span" is used without any attributes. (New 20000613)

Flag 42

• Displays a warning when text is used in a "dir" or "menu" list and it is not in an "li" section. (New 20000618)

Flag 43

• This flag is no longer in use in v6.00+. The single message previously controlled by this flag is now controlled exclusively by the message ID feature.

Flag 44

• Unused in v6.00.

Flags 45, 46

• 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 47 (Using lists to indent)

• This flags generates messages if the "ul" or "ol" element is not used properly. For example, when it is used for indenting without using any "li" elements or when it contains text that is not in an "li" tag. If you incorrectly use these elements to indent (not recommended), then you may want to disable this flag to keep certain error and warning messages from appearing. Of course it is much better to correctly use these elements and therefore it is highly recommended that you leave this flag checked. Consider using style sheets for indenting. (New 20000816)

Flags 48, 49

• 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 50 is no longer used.

Flags 51, 52

• 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 53

• Displays an error message if the "name" (002) attribute is used with the "meta" element and its value does not begin with a letter (A-Z or a-z) and consist of the following characters: (A-Z), (a-z), (0-9), hyphens (-), underscores (_), colons (:), and periods (.). (New 20000912, changed 20020321)
• Displays an error message similar to the above but if the "http-equiv" attribute is used with the "meta" element (New 20020321)
• Displays an error message similar to the above but if the "lang", "hreflang", "for", or "xml:lang" attribute is used (New 20020321)

Flag 54

• This flag is no longer in use in v6.00+. The single message previously controlled by this flag is now controlled exclusively by the message ID feature.

Flag 55

• Displays a warning message if certain block-level elements are used within certain other block-level elements, like using "h2" or "ul" in a heading tag. (New 20000924)

Flag 56

• Displays a warning message if a block-level element like "table" or "h1" is used within a "p" tag that has been explicitly closed. To benefit from this checking and for good style, you should close your "p" tags. (New 20001226)

Flag 57

• This flag is no longer in use in v6.00+. The single message previously controlled by this flag is now controlled exclusively by the message ID feature.

Flag 58

• Uncheck this flag to run the validation in "errors only" mode. In this mode, only errors are displayed and some "less important" errors may not be displayed, such as when an attribute value is not quoted. Use this mode to target the most significant errors. (New 20001221)

Flag 59

• Uncheck this flag to run the validation in "errors and warnings only" mode. In this mode, only errors and warnings are displayed and some "less important" errors and warnings may not be displayed. This mode is more thorough than "errors only" mode. (New 20001221)

Flag 60

• This flag is no longer in use in v6.00+. The single message previously controlled by this flag is now controlled exclusively by the message ID feature.

Flag 61

• Checks the spelling of certain attribute values, like the values for the "alt" and "summary" attributes. The value for "content" is also checked for "meta" description tags. Spell checking must be enabled or this flag has no effect. (New 20010103)

Flag 62 (Netscape specific warning messages)

These messages have been made warnings and moved to a new flag because we believe that authors should abandon the use of these proprietary tags. This is due to their lack of standards compliance and the tags being dropped from Netscape 6+.

• If "ilayer" is used, displays a warning message that "ilayer" is Netscape 4.x specific (and doesn't work with Netscape 6+). Recommends against using this element. Previously under flag 2.
• If "layer" is used, displays a warning message that "layer" is Netscape 4.x specific (and doesn't work with Netscape 6+). Recommends against using this element. Previously under flag 2.

Flag 63

• This flag is no longer in use in v6.00+. The single message previously controlled by this flag is now controlled exclusively by the message ID feature.

Flag 64

• Uncheck this flag to override and disable the "Check references in attribute values" option in the Validator Engine Options. If this flag is checked, then the setting for "Check references in attribute values" option is not overridden and this flag has no effect. (New 20010820)

Flag 65

• Checks the DOCTYPE against a list of recognized DOCTYPEs and generates a warning message if the DOCTYPE is not in the list. Also see flag 78.
• Recognized DOCTYPEs are
  • <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
  • <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/strict.dtd"> (New 20020129)
  • <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
  • <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/loose.dtd"> (New 20020129)
  • <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> (New v5.4920)
  • <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Frameset//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/frameset.dtd">
  • <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Frameset//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/frameset.dtd"> (New 20020129)
  • <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/strict.dtd">
  • <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd">
  • <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Frameset//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/frameset.dtd">
  • <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
  • <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
  • <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Frameset//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-frameset.dtd">
  • <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML Basic 1.0//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-basic/xhtml-basic10.dtd"> (New 20020614)
  • <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
• When checking to see if a DOCTYPE is recognized, a case sensitive compare is made.
• Multiple contiguous whitespace characters are converted to a single space character so that valid DOCTYPEs with multiple contiguous whitespace characters or line breaks can still match a recognized DOCTYPE.
• NOTE: A DOCTYPE may still be techically valid if it doesn't pass this test. If a valid DOCTYPE doesn't pass this test, then you can 1) reformat the DOCTYPE so that it matches one of the above (recommended), 2) ignore the warning, or 3) disable the flag so that the test is not performed.
• To add a new recognized DOCTYPE, goto the Configuration Editor (professional edition only) and use the setValueString(3, DOCTYPEstring) function in the onConfigLoad() function (choose the Functions radio button in the Programs tab of the Configuration Editor and find the onConfigLoad() function). Do not include the '<' character at the beginning of the DOCTYPE or the '>' character at the end of the DOCTYPE. Example: setValueString(3, '!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"');
• (New 20010820)

IMPORTANT MESSAGE ABOUT ACCESSIBILITY STANDARDS AND GUIDELINES: CSE HTML Validator cannot and does not check for complete compliance. It is the web developer's duty to ensure total compliance. However, CSE HTML Validator is designed to help a web developer create or redesign documents so that they are compliant.

For more information about Section 508: Section 508 Web Site (new window), Section 508 Standards (new window)

Flag 66 (Accessibility)

• Generates messages to help comply with Section 508 accessibility requirements (new 20011030) and WCAG accessibility guidelines (new 20030120).
• Displays a message if the "frame" or "iframe" element is used without the "longdesc" attribute.

Flag 67 (Accessibility)

• Generates messages to help comply with Section 508 accessibility requirements (new 20011030) and WCAG accessibility guidelines (new 20030120).
• Displays a message to use redundant text links if the "img" element is used with the "ismap" attribute.

Flags 68, 69

• 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 70 (Accessibility)

• Generates messages to help comply with Section 508 accessibility requirements and WCAG accessibility guidelines. (New 20011030)
• Displays a message if the "frame" or "iframe" element is used without the "title" attribute.

Flag 71

• This flag is no longer in use in v6.00+. The single message previously controlled by this flag is now controlled exclusively by the message ID feature.

Flag 72 (Section 508 Standards)

• This flag is no longer in use because it has been replaced with the built-in option to check a document against Section 508 requirements. This option is in the Validator Engine Options.

Flag 73 (Section 508 Standards)

• If Section 508 accessibility checking is disabled, displays a message that it is disabled.
• If WCAG 1.0 accessibility checking is disabled, displays a message that it is disabled.

Flag 74

• Displays an error message when non-XHTML 1.1 elements are used in a XHTML 1.1 document. (New 20020115)
• Non-XHTML 1.1 elements that generate an error message when used are: "applet", "basefont", "bgsound", "blink", "center", "comment", "dir", "embed", "font", "frame", "frameset", "iframe", "ilayer", "isindex", "keygen", "layer", "listing", "marquee", "menu", "multicol", "nextid", "nobr", "noembed", "noframes", "nolayer", "plaintext", "s", "server", "sound", "spacer", "strike", "u", "wbr", "window", "wml", "xmp"
• Requires CSE HTML Validator Professional DLL version 5.02 or higher.

Flag 75

• Displays a warning message when href="#" is used in an "a" tag. (New 20020124, changed from error to warning message 20020329)
• Displays a warning message when the "href" value in an "a" tag ends with a # character and appears to not include an internal link (New 20020605)

Flag 76

• Similar to flag 74 but for strict HTML 4.0/4.01 documents. (New 20020208)

Flag 77

• Displays a warning message if certain tags (like "font" and "center") are used with a strict HTML 4.0/4.01 or XHTML DOCTYPE.
• This flag is automatically disabled in later configuration files because this functionality was replaced by improved functionality (see flags 74, 76, and 83).
• Requires CSE HTML Validator Professional DLL version 5.02 or higher or these warning messages cannot be disabled if they appear.

Flag 78

• Adds DOCTYPEs with omitted URIs to the list of recognized DOCTYPEs. Also see flag 65.
• Recognized DOCTYPEs added are
  • <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN">
  • <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN">
  • <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0//EN">
  • <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN">
  • <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
  • <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
  • <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Frameset//EN">
  • <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Frameset//EN">
• Requires CSE HTML Validator Professional DLL version 5.02 or higher to add these DOCTYPEs.

Flag 79

• Displays an error message when the "name" attribute is used with the "a" or "map" element in an XHTML 1.1 document. The "id" attribute should be used instead. (New 20020206)

Flag 80

• Displays an error message when certain non-XHTML 1.1 attributes are used with certain elements in a document that has an XHTML 1.1 DOCTYPE. (New 20020208)
  • "onafterprint", "onbeforecopy", "onbeforecut", "onbeforepaste", "onbeforeprint", "oncontextmenu", "oncopy", "oncut", "ondragstart", "onmouseenter", "onmouseleave", "onmousewheel", "onpaste", or "onselectstart" event attribute is used
  • "name" used with the "a", "applet", "form", "frame", "iframe", "img", and "map" elements
  • "target" used with the "a", "area", "base", "form", or "link" elements
  • "align", "alink", "background", "bgproperties", "credit", "height", "leftmargin", "marginheight", "marginwidth", "nowrap", "instructions", "link", "logo", "scroll", "text", "topmargin", "vlink", "width" used with the "body" element
  • "align" or "valign" used with the "caption" element
  • "compact" used with the "dl" element
  • "align", "color", "noshade", "size", or "width" used with the "hr" element
  • "scroll" used with the "html" element
  • "border" used with the "img" element (New v5.4920)
  • "align" used with the "legend" element
  • "type", "value" used with the "li" element
  • "compact", "start", or "type" used with the "ol" element
  • "width" used with the "pre" element
  • "align", "bgcolor", "bordercolor", "bordercolorlight", "bordercolordark", "height", "hspace", or "vspace" used with the "table" element
  • "background", "bgcolor", "bordercolor", "bordercolorlight", "bordercolordark", "height", "nowrap", or "width" used with the "td" or "th" elements
  • "background", "bgcolor", "bordercolor", "bordercolorlight", or "bordercolordark" used with the "tr" element
  • "compact" or "type" used with the "ul" element

Flag 81

• Similar to flag 80 but for strict HTML 4.0/4.01 documents. (New 20020208)

Flag 82

• Similar to flag 80 but for strict XHTML 1.0 documents. (New 20020208)

Flag 83

• Similar to flag 74 but for strict XHTML 1.0 documents. (New 20020208)

Flag 84

• Displays a warning message if certain attributes (like "align", "bgcolor", and "width") are used with a strict HTML 4.0/4.01 or XHTML DOCTYPE.
• This flag is automatically disabled in later configuration files because this functionality was replaced by improved functionality (see flags 80, 81, and 82).
• Requires CSE HTML Validator Professional DLL version 5.02 or higher or these warning messages cannot be disabled if they appear.

Flags 85, 86, 87, 88, 89

• 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 90

• Displays an error message if the "lang", "hreflang", or "xml:lang" attribute appears to have an invalid value. (New 20020520)

Flags 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96

• 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 97 (Opera specific messages)

• If the "align", "height", and/or "width" attributes are used with the "body" element, displays a message that these attributes are only supported by Opera 4.0.
• When the "ondblclick" attribute is used, displays a message that Opera (including version 6) does not support this attribute. (New 20020604)

Flag 98 is no longer used. The single message controlled by this flag has been removed in v6.00+.

Flag 99

• This flag is no longer in use in v6.00+. The single message previously controlled by this flag is now controlled exclusively by the message ID feature.

Flag 100

• Adds DOCTYPEs with relative URIs to the list of recognized DOCTYPEs. Relative URIs are not recommended so you may want to disable this flag. Also see flag 65.
• Recognized DOCTYPEs added are
  • <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> (New v5.01)
  • <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> (New v5.01)
  • <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Frameset//EN" "DTD/xhtml1-frameset.dtd"> (New v5.01)
• Requires CSE HTML Validator Professional DLL version 5.02 or higher to add these DOCTYPEs.

Flag 101

• Similar to flag 74 but for XHTML Basic documents. (New 20020614)
• In addition to the elements in flag 74, does not allow the following elements: "area", "b", "bdo", "big", "button", "col", "colgroup", "del", "fieldset", "hr", "i", "ins", "map", "noscript", "optgroup", "script", "small", "style", "sub", "sup", "tbody", "tfoot", "thead", "tt".

Flags 102, 103, 104, 105, 106

• 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 107 (Search engine messages)

• Displays a message if the meta tag description is over 200 characters and recommends a maximum of 200 characters. (New 20020627)
• Displays a message if the meta tag description is less than 100 characters and recommends a minimum of 100 characters. (New 20020717)
• Displays a message if the meta tag keywords is over 800 characters and recommends a maximum of 800 characters. (New 20020718)
• Displays a message if the meta tag keywords is less than 100 characters and recommends a minimum of 100 characters. (New 20020718)

Flag 108

• Displays a warning message if the document has a missing title even though it contains the "title" element.
• Displays a warning message if the document's title is inappropriate (such as "Untitled", "Home Page ", "Title", etc.). (New 20020628)
• NOTE: These messages are only displayed if the equivalent accessibility messages are not displayed because WCAG 1.0 accessibility checking is disabled.

Flag 109

• This flag is no longer in use in v6.00+. The single message previously controlled by this flag is now controlled exclusively by the message ID feature.

Remaining Flags

• As of the time of this writing, the remaining flags that are not listed are not currently used and are for future use.

Notes

• Message ID Feature: If you only want to disable a single message instead of all the messages for a particular flag, then you can do this by choosing to enable or disable a message on an individual basis. This works for most messages but not all. To do this, bring up the pop-up menu for the message in the integrated editor (usually by right-clicking on the message) and choose the desired option from the Options for this Message sub-menu. This feature may be referred to as the message ID feature because it only works for messages that have message IDs.
• If you want to disable all tag name program functionality (not recommended), then you can uncheck the Enable programs validator engine option. This will cause any messages (such as the above messages) generated by a tag name program to not be displayed. It will also speed up the validation engine. However, disabling the tag name programs may significantly reduce the effectiveness of the validation and could even result, in some cases, in incorrect results. NOTE: The tag name program feature is considered to be a powerful feature of CSE HTML Validator Std/Pro, and therefore should not be disabled.
• If you want to disable a tag name program for a specific tag name, you can use the Programs Tab in the Configuration Editor to select the tag name with the program you wish to disable and then uncheck the Enable open program for tag or Enable close program for tag option. NOTE: This is not recommended.

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