The Curse of "HTMLTidy"

Wildlifewriter · Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2005 11:05 am Post subject: The Curse of "HTMLTidy"

I don't read my own cache pages very often - after all, I wrote them so I know what they say, and what they look like.

So it was a bit of a shock to discover, this morning, that more than half of them have changed. Sad

Whole paragraphs were shown in bold, and some formatting tags had been converted to string literals. In one case, a table layout had completely disappeared! It's taken me nearly an hour to sort the mess out, and put everything back the way it should look.

The culprit is a little utility called HTML Tidy, which Jeremy (in his infinite and ineffable wisdom) has installed on the Groundspeak servers to eliminate "illegal HTML".

It's a great idea - and would be an even better idea if HTML Tidy worked properly. But it doesn't...

My cache pages didn't contain illegal formatting... but because HTML Tidy works "on the fly" during editing sessions, it tries to revise what I'm doing while I'm still doing it.

It's a ****** nuisance.

So...

...if you use formatting in your own pages, it might be an idea to take a look at some of the older ones. They might not be how you left them...

-Wlw.

Haggis Hunter · Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2005 2:14 pm Post subject:

Thanks for letting us know Paul, I have just checked all of my caches, and luckily they are all ok, including the ones that still have the background image in with the main text. This was the reason that he said he was doing this HTML Tidy thingy?
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Firth of Forth · Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2005 6:33 pm Post subject:

Mine seem Ok too. Obviously, Jeremy is targeting you.. or your html. Confused

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Wildlifewriter · Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2005 8:09 pm Post subject:

Haggis Hunter · Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2005 2:45 pm Post subject:

I have just found about 10 HTML errors on my cache page A Silver Thread in a Ribbon of Green It had entered '%20' within my web address of some cache page links, stopping them from opening, now that I come to think of it, this isn't the first time this has happened, whilst editing a cache page. I haven't got a clue how long the links were down for, but you are right Paul, it is ******* annoying Mad

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Let me know if I say anything that offends you
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Wildlifewriter · Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2005 9:35 pm Post subject:

Some time later....

The blasted HTMLTidy has been at it again.

This time, I found that some of my cache pages (which haven't been edited by me for many weeks) were showing "&nbsp" as a string literal.

I use this to provide double non-breaking spaces at the start of some sentences, to increase readability. It's not "illegal HTML" by any stretch of the imagination, but gets altered nonetheless.

This HTMLTidy thing is the biggest nuisance since Jeremy Clarkson.

Pants. Crying or Very sad

-Wlw.

The Blanks Bandits · Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2005 7:43 pm Post subject: RE MY LAST

wlw,

Re my last on your other thread. See, they are ....

TBB Shocked