On the Strictest Validation

Finally, this site is 100% Valid XHTML 1.0 Strict. Well not quite the whole site, but every post contained on the homepage and every individual post page. Some of the older post pages won’t be, but I will get round to them.

So what does it mean, I’m not entirely sure, but I intend to find out, it has something to do with the web moving to XML, and valid XHTML is the easiest way to begin this transition. Another thing I know is that I can add the little logo provided by the W3C - stating that I have bothered to make my site compliant (I won’t be though, the logo is ugly ).

I had to do a little digging about to find out how I could make the You Tube code compliant: <embed> is not allowed so <object> can be used instead. All I needed to do was to take the URL of the video given by You Tube (or any other video site for that matter) and insert it into the following code:

<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="[URL]” height=”267″ width=”325″>
<param name=”movie” value=”[URL]” />
<param name=”FlashVars” value=”playerMode=embedded” />
</object>

…and Voila - compliant You Tube videos dotted all over my site. The next thing was the JavaScript I had on the site. Strict XHTML means limitations with the use of JavaScript so this had to be pulled in on an external .js file and the language not be defined.

This valid code also means no links annoyingly open up in a new window. Annoying for me as I lose visitors but what the hell - I don’t get that many anyway!