by Ken Knepple 

Given the situation I wanted to review a web development tool that would be great for a beginner. There were a large amount of tools out there that I felt were good candidates. You see when you are a beginner and your professor is no longer around, what would be better then to have someone or something else to help check your work for you? For this reason I decided to do my initial review on an HTML validator.

The full name of this HTML validator is CSE HTML Validator Professional V7.0003. I was able to get my hands on a trial download that is good for 30 days or 100 validations which ever comes first. There are both Standard and Professional licenses available. The Standard edition is $69.00 per license and allows you to receive 60 days in which you can access free upgrades. The professional edition is $129.00 per license and you can receive one year of free upgrades. There is also a Lite version that is absolutely free, and is available for download. The Validator supports HTML, XHTML, CSS, WML, accessibility checking, link checking, batch processing, spell checking, and integrated editing.

HTML validator Pro was very easy to install and I was quickly on my way. At first glance, the graphics of the program need some work. After about two seconds which is longer than it takes to validate a document, I was over it seeing that they sacrificed looks for functionality. The software is extremely fast. The validator has the ability of alerting you of the likelihood of cross-browser issues, going over an HTML file while letting you know of invalid attributes, misspelled tags, and invalid tags. As it combs your HTML file, the validator warns of potential cross-browser issues, invalid attributes, misspelled tags, and invalid tags. The validator even has a beginner mode that may reduce the number of validator messages and make other changes to make this program easier to use, but the downfall of this mode is that it is somewhat less powerful.

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Once you validate a document it color codes the lines that contain errors and explains what the errors are line by line, and gives very detailed descriptions of the errors. Corrections can be made on the fly, and records of testing are easily saved as html files for discussion or future reference. The Validator will throw you some warnings, while also giving you some reminders in the comments section. On a particular validation I was reminded that an ICRA (Internet Content Rating Association) label (a rating "meta" tag) was not found in the "head" section of the document. Browsers that are enabled with this rating system may not display documents that have not been labeled. As you can see these are some amazing features that the CSE HTML Validator possesses. Besides HTML the Validator also has syntax highlighters for Perl, C++, SQL, Delphi, VB Script, and Java for editting purposes.

All this and I am yet to mention the HTML Tidy Tool Utility which is an unbelievable feature that is able to fix a wide range of problems and to bring to your attention things that you need to work on yourself. The HTML Tidy Tool will format your markup so that it is easier to read for yourself and others, and when enabling the dialog you can still view what was originally submitted to be cleaned up for side-by-side comparison. The Tidy Tool also provides you with a look at the original browser right next to the Tidy Browser. This is nice so you can see if the changes that were made affect the output.

I found this program is ideal for newer users, but can definitely find a home with advanced users who just want to make sure their code is correct. The software is very user friendly, and I cannot find much of anything there is not to like. Price is always an issue but at $69.00 for the Standard edition it is very affordable. My thirty day trial download is very close to expiring and I am going to miss this Validator when it is gone. I have been impressed with the trial and will possibly look at purchasing a license after I give the Lite version a go to see if it will satisfy my needs.

Visit the CSE HTML Validator Website to get your copy and try it out for yourself.

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