Prior to downloading Joomla and beginning the process of learning all its ins and outs and about the various components and modules I wanted to use I care little, if at all, about standards, cross browser compatability, etc. It wasnt until I downloaded FireFox to use it to check my sites as I developed them that I really started thinking seriously about it and taking some action. Prior to this I had maintained my sites with Internet Explorer and Frontpage and if I thought about it at all it amounted to something along the lines that if you dont use IE and my site doesnt look good in your browser well thats just tough.
However, it was recommended that I download the web developer plugin for FireFox and the Tidy HTML validation tool that sits in the browsers status bar. I had always thought I did a good job of designing pages. I mean I came from the era of the browser wars and using tables for everything under the sun. My sites look good and as I intended in IE, complete with individually styled pages complete with 1 pixel spacers, font tags, font color tags and a host of others, who needed CSS I got the same result. But then that Tidy HTML validator sat in the status bar and with its red and yellow icons screamed at me "YOU SUCK" with all its warnings and errors and giving the number for each. Your DTD is all wrong, this doesnt belong here, this and that isnt closed properly, your page isnt fit for even Internet Explorer.
So after getting over the initial shock that I indeed had issues with my techniques I decided that I was going to do better. I set out to deploy my web sites using Joomla and that they should be valid. The fact is we live in a global community and your site and mine have a potential international audience that will visit with all makes and models of browsers. This point was driven home to me when I looked at the stats on one of my sites and saw visitors that came from France, Germany, Australia, and a mirad of other places and with a browser list nearly as numerous. We can shout from the four corners of the earth about our distain with IE and its lack of standards compliance but it still remains that it is a widely used browser and we, as web developers, contend with it and work with it until such time either people stop using it or the makers decide to join the rest of the market with a browser that supports the W3C recommendations.
So after deploying my site with Joomla and checking it with firefox I was still met, albeit in far less numbers, with a list of warnings. I set out then and have been over the last couple of weeks trying to get my sites to validate completely. Prior to this I would have laughed at you if you spoke to me about search engine optimization, search engine friendly url's or even W3C validation. I just simply spent no thought or energy on such considerations prior to Joomla, FireFox and that blasted Tidy HTML validator. Now, having been exposed to it for a lengthy time, the seed has been planted and is coming to fruition.
I deployed my business website earlier this week and it validates, well in large part it does. Thus, that is where the idea/suggestion comes from. I have dove into the code on a search and destroy mission for improperly closed tags, missing "alt" tags, and &'s, <>'s and so on. Im no coder and have only begun to get my head around CSS, some PHP and so forth so some of them elude me but I can spot
and know that aint right. The validator tells me the rest and I just dig in further obsessed with destroying those red and yellow icons that the validator presents to me.
I can say now that I have achieved the goal on many of the pages that beautiful green bar and the W3C statement "This Page Validates" and have seen the very rewarding green circle with its checkmark and no mention of warnings or errors in the status bar validator.
My delima now turns to the source of many of these code errors. And I want this to be in no way taken as I am at all unappreciative of this community, its developers or even the third party developers. That said, I would venture to say 90% of the errors I chased down were from third party developers. Some were in the Joomla core, but no where near the number in 3PD's. Most were very obvious errors,
instead of
,
So you have read all of this, I hope, to get to this. I noticed a couple of plugins in the 'Extensions' directory that have the mark of being an "Editors Choice". I understand the intent of this but what if we, the community or the developers of Joomla were to reserve that or some other identification for only those plugins that have completely valid code. That is to say that when it renders its content in Joomla that it doesnt add errors to the page or cause a failure in validation?
Better yet, could we get together a group of volunteers that would go through plugins and make sure the code was valid? I would certainly step and volunteer, even if I ended up being the only one. All I would need is the process of how to install the plugin and do what is needed to get it to render its output error free and then extract it so it could be repackaged and distributed. I would love to do this. It may be a slow process with working a full time job but I'd do it. Even free templates, I think, could be done though I havent tried yet.
Joomla started this process for me because I would have never given it a thought if not for the fact I wanted to see that my pages looked the same in something other than IE. I would even be willing to look into the possiblity of hosting the cleaned up plugins so that they could be downloaded though I cant guarantee I could do that as I dont want to clutter up my existing sites with a download section but if the cost wasnt outrageous I could possibly get another domain name and host it purely for revised plugins. That could be something to consider.
I want it known that Im not attacking anyone, I am VERY appreciative and GRATEFUL for all of this stuff that I get to use for free. The developers give of their time and skill and release it to the community. I accept that in that effort they may not have time to make everything valid in the process of developing some of the wonderful and powerful free applications I enjoy. I want to contribute and would at least volunteer my time to make the plugins better. As I stated I just need to know how to extract the plugins once any of the validation errors are corrected.
So, what do you say? Any responses out there?
