gettin' all strict | The Hickensian

I’ve just changed the site from being XHTML Transitional to Strict, and I was surprised how little work was involved. What follows is a list of everything that didn’t validate, and had to be changed:

remove target=”_blank” from <a> tags. Opening new windows breaks the back button anyway, which is an accessibility problem. You can always use a simple javascript to open new windows, which is what I’ve done for the desktops section
remove border=“0” from <img> tags (use css instead – img {border:0} )
add <fieldset> tags around form elements. (You can actually use p, h1 etc, to validate, but fieldset makes more sense.
remove language=“javascript” from javascript tags
change any remaining name=” “ attributes to id=” “

The last 2 were leftovers from the original Movable Type templates. In a matter of an hour the site was converted. The search and replace function within Movable Type meant I didn’t have to go through every entry individually.

Why bother? Well, apart from a chance to be even more anal, it was education. My reason for creating this site in the first place was to practice and try out new things. While it doesn’t mean I have a thorough understanding of all the nuances of the XHTML strict spec, I know more now than I did a few hours ago. (There may well be the odd entry page that doesn’t validate – let me know if you spot one.)