2.3.0 Released

This release adds support for validating against the Section 508 accessibility standard as well as the W3C WAI guildelines.

The default accessibility test has been lowered to the WAI 'A' level, as this is the basic requirement and helps most people starting out to make their site accessible.

In addition there have been performance improvements made for screen shots taken on Linux and Win2K.

Finally a new more browser-friendly 'please wait' mechanism has been introduced when performing online validations.

posted by Total Validator @ 2:00 PM   0 comments   

2.2.0 Released

Now has support for multiple screenshots of long pages. So if your web page is longer than will fit within the browser the validator will page down and take multiple screen shots until the whole page have been captured.

On the Advanced Options form you can also now take screenshots with more than one browser at a time.

Finally support for screenshots with Lynx and Konqueror on Linux has been added.

posted by Total Validator @ 3:27 PM   1 comments   

The problems of broken links

The bane of many a website are broken links. A site with broken links is like driving a car with one wheel missing and a smoking exhaust. It's not going to impress anyone who sees it, and it's not going to be of much use to anyone who tries to use it.

But what do you care, you've published your site and it's all shiny and new and everything works just as you planned with not a broken link in sight. But if you change your site at all, such as renaming a page, or change the structure with new or renamed folders, then there's the arduous tasks of checking for broken links.

Even if you don't change your site at all somewhere down the line those external links will become broken making your site look shoddy and unprofessional. Hard to believe that you've linked to someone else's site (improving their Google rating for free) and they've gone and moved a page somewhere else, or even gone altogether.

So even if you don't publish very often, you still need to regularly check your site for broken links.

There are many tools out there to help you find broken links on your site. However, there is only one all-in-one validator that can check your pages for other common problems and that's Total Validator. It's free, so why not give it a go?

posted by Total Validator @ 5:49 AM   0 comments   

2.1.0 Released

Enhanced screenshot support with more browsers supported, and can now specify the screen resolution and loading delay for screen shots.

Also changes to report format with more information provided on reports.

posted by Total Validator @ 3:21 PM   0 comments   

Checking pages before you publish

None of us want people to see our web pages before we've checked them. Unfortunately, many of the best checking tools are online and only work when you provide a url.

Well you could put a staging area into your website and point the online tools to that. But recently Total Validator has been expanded to allow you to work with offline web pages.

Basically you have two choices. You can either upload an existing file from your computer, or you can cut and paste the HTML directly into a text area. Either way a comprehensive range of validations are available to you to ensure that your pages are pristine and ready to publish before you do so.

posted by Total Validator @ 6:19 AM   0 comments   

2.0.0 Released

Screen shot support for IE5, and various browsers on Linux. Improved error handling, updated validation messages, minor report and form changes, and minor bug fixes.

posted by Total Validator @ 3:21 PM   0 comments