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Posted by: Befuddled Aug 26 2020, 09:37 PM

Although WDG's Link Valet is working as it always has (i.e. well), its Validator seems to be kaput. Or, over the last couple of weeks, I've always managed to get it at a bad time.

I always liked the WDG's validator for its ability to chew through all the pages of a (small) website. Feeding one URN after another to W3C's validator is tedious in comparison. And as it happens I have no need for HTML 5, so was and am untroubled by WDG's inability to deal with that.

Does anyone know if WDG's validator might be resuscitated? (Uh ... please!)

Posted by: pandy Aug 26 2020, 10:22 PM

Agree. I've always liked it better the the w3c one it for its clearer and more structured output.

It isn't abandoned though. From what I've been told there are problems with bots and there may be some changes to prevent that kind of abuse, but it will be back.

Posted by: Befuddled Aug 27 2020, 07:23 AM

Good: I'm looking forward to it.

Posted by: pandy Aug 27 2020, 08:13 AM

So do I. I've blown the dust of the offline version (the Windows GUI program) and use that for now. It's a paid program, so maybe not on option for you in this situation. But I bought it back in dial-up days, when it was well worth its modest price. But the validator scripts are available for free. I've never installed them, so I don't know how hard it is to get them to work.

WaybackMachine seems to have archived them.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200307042002/https://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/validator/offline/index.html.en

Posted by: Befuddled Mar 28 2022, 11:17 PM

It's a long wait indeed.

Posted by: pandy Mar 29 2022, 07:47 AM

Yes, indeed. Are you aware of the offline Windows program? I don't know if Liam gives a rebate now, since it can't handle HTML 5.

http://arealvalidator.com/

Posted by: Befuddled Mar 29 2022, 08:12 PM

No, I hadn't been. Thank you for the tip.

I only rarely use HTML5, so that's no problem; but I only rarely use Windows. This program might well work under WINE (which I haven't had any reason to install in many years) . . . but if commercial software and WINE are required, I'll just stick with W3C's validator, I suppose.

Posted by: pandy Mar 30 2022, 04:45 AM

I've owned ARV since dial-up days but since bandwidth became unmetered I've used the online validator. But now ARV comes to use again now and then. I've never liked the w3c validator. Its output is so cluttered and more hard to read. I preferred the more terse and structured output of the WDG validator. But I no longer have any hopes about it becoming active again.

It's sad HTML 5 doesn't use a doctype. Because you can plug any doctype into ARV and it does its job. IIRC it was also possible to feed the online validator a custom doctype, but i don't remember how. Something with the query string, I suppose.