The The W3C Markup Validation Service makes writing good markup easier because once you think you’re done you can validate and make sure you’ve crossed your eyes and dotted your teas. I’m in the process of converting WorldClient into standards compliant code (except in LookOut which is an absolute pipedream due to the hacks, IE 5.5+ only code and large amount of duct-tape and bailing wire used to make it ‘work’).
However, the conversion process started a wee slow but has sped up as I’ve discovered the usual reasons why things aren’t validated. Man did I write some bad code before I learned about web standards. I also didn’t have a good grasp on document types before this either, so this is a good education. I had no idea that & was a requirement in URL’s for HTML 4.0. All of the supposed 4.0 markup I had done previously was full of regular "&X=Y" types of URL‘s instead of the correct way to code.
In WorldClient a username and password is required to get into the pages so the best way I’ve found to get things validated is to login with Opera
and open up the ‘info’ bar and copy the path to the cache file into Firefox (because Opera barfs for no reason when I open up the validator in another page) on the other monitor and have the validator validate an uploaded file.
Thanks you W3C!