What the Heck is a Validator Anyway?
An HTML validator is a tool for viewing the HTML code of a webpage. When you look
at a webpage, all of the sound, pictures, and text, and all background images
and colors, are created when your WebTV browser interprets a page of coded instructions
written in HTML (HyperText Markup Language).
When you enter the URL of any webpage into a validator, it will
show you all of the HTML code that makes the page look the way it
does on your screen.
Okay, Why Do I Care What the HTML Is?
If you look at somebody else's HTML, you can figure out how to do
the things they did, so you can make your own pages and e-mails
look better. You can also look through the HTML of their page to
find out where their sound and image files are located, getting
the exact URLs (but if you want to link, read this first).
If you look at your own HTML (you would have to have a
homepage to do this, you can't view the HTML of an e-mail
message), you can use a validator to find out if your HTML code
is written correctly; that's what validators are actually made to
do. Some validators, like the one I recommend here, can also
check the spelling of your regular text, and verify that the
image, sound, and hypertext links to other sites are all
functioning.
Okay, Fine. What's a Good Validator to Use?
I use Dr. Watson,
located
at
the Jacksonville Virtual Mall in Florida.
If you look at the Dr. Watson page, you will see a place to type
in the URL of the page you want to examine. Below that text
entry line, you will find several checkable boxes. If you just
want to look at the HTML and you don't care if the HTML is
correct or not, make sure all the three boxes are checked (for
Netscape, Java, and Microsoft Explorer). Also, just below those
boxes, set standards to "Lax."
Now, click on the "Diagnose" button one screen down.
What's All This, Then?
Looking down the results page you get after clicking "Diagnose,"
you will see all the lines of HTML code that make up the webpage
you want to examine. Included in this information is all the
information on colors, and all the URLs of every hyperlink,
image, and sound file on the page.
What, That's It??
Yep. That's all there is to it.
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