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<!--#set var="revision" value="\$Id: todo.html,v 1.61 2004/11/14 08:39:41 ville Exp $"
--><!--#set var="date" value="\$Date: 2004/11/14 08:39:41 $"
--><!--#set var="title" value="TODO List for The W3C Markup Validation Service"
--><!--#set var="relroot" value="./"
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<p id="skip" class="intro">
This page has the to-do list for the <a href="./"><acronym
title="World Wide Web Consortium">W3C</acronym> Markup
Validation Service</a>, including bugs that need fixing and general
wish list items. See also the
<a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator/">www-validator
mailing list archives</a> for recent discussion that may not be
reflected on this page, as well as open bugs and RFE's in
<a href="http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/">Bugzilla</a>.
</p>
<p>
Recently, we're trying something new. <code>:-)</code> We're going to
start splitting development into "releases"; that is milestones with a
version number. We've done a few already, arbitrarily named 0.5.0 and
0.5.1, that mainly existed as CVS tags to make bug fixing easier. Right
now I'm trying to stretch this concept a little further by planning
features for future versions in advance.
</p>
<p>
As a result, you will find several lists on this page now; one for each
planned version and one for general "some time when I get a round tuit"
stuff. As releases are made, the TODO items for that release are removed
(see <a href="whatsnew.html">What's New</a> and CVS for details) or moved
to the next release if delayed.
</p>
<div id="validator-0_7_0">
<h2>Validator v0.7.0</h2>
<div id="validator-0_7_0-core">
<h3>Core Changes</h3>
<ul>
<li>Bring back the Root Namespace in results.</li>
<li>
Investigate how, if, and when, to use Nick Kew's most excellent
<code>XMLMessageReporter</code> patch to OpenSP.
</li>
<li>Figure out <em>some</em> way to avoid inlining so much static
<acronym title="HyperText Markup Language">HTML</acronym>!</li>
<li>Finish up the textarea for testing short
<acronym title="HyperText Markup Language">HTML</acronym> fragments.</li>
<li>
Add an <acronym title="HyperText Markup Language">HTML</acronym>
pretty-printer feature, using
<a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett/tidy/">tidy</a> and/or Enscript?
</li>
<li>Add support for https:// (<acronym
title="Transport Layer Security">TLS</acronym>/<acronym
title="Secure Sockets Layer">SSL</acronym>) using Ville's patches.</li>
<li>
Pay attention to Accept-Charset (cf. <a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator/2001JanMar/0255.html">this</a>
message from "brewhaha").
</li>
<li>
Double check that all output is valid! In particular, use style rules
to specify height/width on suggested links.
</li>
<li>
Do a great big update of the various badges; the details of size,
transparency, naming, and how they are linked to (v.w3.org vs. w3.org).
</li>
<li>Make sure we output sane "text/html; charset=foo".</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div id="validator-0_7_0-docs">
<h3>Documentation Changes</h3>
<ul>
<li>
Clarify the wording regarding valid characters in
<a href="docs/errors.html#bad-char">errors.html</a> (cf.
<a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator/2001AprJun/0049.html">this</a>
message from <a href="mailto:clemens.radl@uni-tuebingen.de">Clemens Radl</a>.
Thanks Clemens!)
</li>
<li>
Write documentation for the <acronym
title="Standard Generalized Markup Language">SGML</acronym> catalog,
point out good DOCTYPEs to use, and make it easy to find if your editor
won't insert them for you.
</li>
<li>
Add system requirements for
<abbr title="Microsoft Windows NT">NT</abbr>/<acronym
title="Microsoft Windows 2000">W2K</acronym>.
Bug Bjoern about his "Installing the Validator on
<abbr title="Microsoft Windows NT">NT</abbr>" doc.
Link to ActiveState <code>Text::Iconv</code> and friends.
</li>
<li>Add docs on editing
<acronym title="Document Type Definitions">DTDs</acronym>.</li>
<li>Document how to add new <code>DOCTYPEs</code> to the Validator.</li>
<li>Write documentation for Content Negotiation of Badges</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div id="validator-0_7_0-site">
<h3>Website Changes</h3>
<ul>
<li>
Link to Jukka's pages; both in general and to specific pages.
Ask him about mirroring some of the stuff on validator.w3.org.
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div id="validator-1_0_0">
<h2>Validator v1.0.0 (tentative)</h2>
<div id="validator-1_0_0-core">
<h3>Core Changes</h3>
<ul>
<li>
Add a "fix my <acronym title="HyperText Markup Language">HTML</acronym>
for me" option using <a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett/tidy/">Tidy</a>.
</li>
<li>
Finish adding support for <acronym
title="eXtensible Markup Language">XML</acronym>
validation (see also:
<a href="dev/tests/">test cases</a>, or
<a href="http://www.hcrc.ed.ac.uk/~richard/xml-check.html">an
existing service</a>).
</li>
<li>
Add a section to the report on
<a href="http://www.mnot.net/cacheability/">document cacheability</a>?
(or just link to it?)
</li>
<li>
Put the explanations in a database (flat files are probably OK),
and offer an option to display them inline with the errors.
</li>
<li>
Incorporate <acronym title="Cascading Style Sheets">CSS</acronym>
validation directly into this service; either
directly or by some form of linking to the existing service on
Jigsaw.
</li>
<li>
Make e.g. <code>http://validator.w3.org/check/referer;imgonly</code>
return only an image showing the validation status of the referring
page.
</li>
<li>
Add link validation using the
<a href="http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/perl/modules/W3C/LinkChecker/">link
checker code</a> (or other code with similar functionality).
</li>
<li>
Add a "document meta-information" section to the report, to encourage
people to use <code>META</code> tags appropriately?
</li>
<li>
Figure out what's going on with <a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator/2001JanMar/0150.html">this</a>.
(Thanks to <a href="mailto:marie@voyager.atc.fhda.edu">Marie
Taylor-Harper</a> for catching this!).
</li>
<li>
Investigate validation of <a
href="http://www.openhealth.org/RDDL/"><acronym
title="Resource Directory Description Language">RDDL</acronym></a>.
</li>
<li>
Fix directories differing only in name case in
<code>sgml-lib/pro/usr/local/lib/sgml/</code>.
We have both "ietf" and "IETF" in there.
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div id="validator-1_0_0-docs">
<h3>Documentation Changes</h3>
<ul>
<li>
Write documentation, describing each feature and option of the
validator and answering questions like "What's the difference between
an <acronym title="Standard Generalized Markup Language">SGML</acronym>
parser and Weblint?", "Which <code>DOCTYPE</code> should I use?",
content negotiation, ...
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div id="validator-1_0_0-site">
<h3>Website Changes</h3>
<ul>
<li>
Update <code>sgml-lib.tar.gz</code>; automate the updates.
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div id="future">
<h2>Various Unclassified Stuff</h2>
<p>
These items are roughly in prioritized order; i.e. the items near the
top are those which I consider most important.
</p>
<ol>
<li>
Make lists of "most frequently validated invalid pages"
and "most frequently validated (non-<acronym
title="World Wide Web Consortium">W3C</acronym>?) valid pages"
(need to start logging stuff first, including <acronym
title="Internet Protocol Addresses">IPs</acronym> to compare
uniqueness).
</li>
<li>
Install and play with <code>HTML::Validator</code>, link to it from somewhere:
<a href="http://www.hut.fi/~samzait/HTML-Validator/"><code>HTML::Validator</code>
Home Page</a>
<a href="http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-authors/id/S/SA/SAIT/">Sami Itkonen's
<acronym title="Comprehensive Perl Archive Network">CPAN</acronym> directory</a>
</li>
<li>
Give errors/warnings related to markup that is technically valid
<acronym title="Standard Generalized Markup Language">SGML</acronym>,
but error prone, such as things found in
<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/appendix/notes.html#h-B.3">"B.3
<acronym title="Standard Generalized Markup Language">SGML</acronym>
implementation notes"</a> in the
<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/"><acronym
title="HyperText Markup Language">HTML</acronym> 4.0 spec</a>.
(these things really belong in something like
<a href="http://tidy.sourceforge.net/">Tidy</a>).
</li>
<li>
Make an "elements found" section a la Webtechs, with links from each
element to the appropriate place in either the <acronym
title="Document Type Definition">DTD</acronym> tree listing
produced with dtd2html (after running dtd2html with all <acronym
title="Document Type Definitions">DTDs</acronym> in the
catalog), or the <acronym title="HyperText Markup Language">HTML</acronym>
3.2/4.0 specs, or htmlhelp.com stuff, ...
</li>
<li>
Add a "recommend a <acronym title="Document Type Definition">DTD</acronym>
for me" feature (check a document against all
available DTDs, report which one has the fewest errors)
</li>
<li>
Start caching validation results locally and doing an
<code>If-Modified-Since</code>
<acronym title="HyperText Transfer Protocol">HTTP</acronym>
request to only download and revalidate
<acronym title="Uniform Resource Locators">URLs</acronym>
if they actually changed since their last validation
</li>
<li>
Site walker/validator: need to add a "registered user" feature first,
because this feature could be abused (many requests on a server in a
short period of time)?
</li>
<li>
<acronym title="Uniform Resource Locator">URL</acronym>-minder service:
"remind me if this page or set of pages ever ceases to validate".
<ul>
<li>
"registered user" feature is also necessary for this (to prevent
unwanted e-mail)
</li>
<li>
"registered users" could have a list of <acronym
title="Uniform Resource Locators">URLs</acronym> they're interested in,
and whenever they return to the service they can modify this list,
and e-mail can be sent whenever any of them cease to validate
</li>
<li>
Right now someone could probably use the existing <acronym
title="Uniform Resource Locator">URL</acronym>-minder
service instead of writing a new one (tell it to "mind" the
<acronym title="Uniform Resource Locator">URL</acronym>
that points to the validation result for a page?) But I'm not sure
how regularly
<acronym title="Uniform Resource Locator">URL</acronym>-minder
checks for changes; it seemed to be
weekly or something, which isn't frequent enough, <acronym
title="In My Opinion">IMO</acronym>. Doing an
<code>If-Modified-Since</code> <code>GET</code> every day doesn't
cost much if pages don't change. Some of these features should only
be enabled if the page consistently returns a <code>Last-Modified</code>
header, maybe.
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Provide messages in different languages?</li>
<li>
Add a graphical representation of the document's structure,
using images mixed with text, or just an image?
</li>
<li>Add a section with
<acronym title="Platform For Internet Content Selection">PICS</acronym>
info?</li>
<li>
Issue <acronym title="Platform For Internet Content Selection">PICS</acronym>
labels for documents that do/don't conform? Or for editing tools that don't
conform?
</li>
<li>
Investigate possibility of modifying OpenSP's messages for e.g.
invalid attributes to include name of current element and version
and type of markup in use.
</li>
</ol>
</div>
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