The browser feature I always wanted

In Roger Johansson's latest thoughts on HTML 5 (which I generally agree with), he mentions a potential browser feature that I've been wanting for some time: built-in notification of markup parsing errors. He even linked to a Firefox extension that implements it.

There are two reasons this would be an extremely great feature to have in all browsers. The first, and most obvious, is that it would make web development easier. Need to validate all your pages? Just visit them. Instant feedback with no need to mess with web-based validation services.

The second reason is essentially the one Roger gives. That is, it would be a nagging little problem indicator that's actually visible to users and developers. It basically adds accountability. Users might not care about the markup per se, but they may very well be concerned that there's a little red error icon in their status bar. It's a little harder to justify bad markup when you have to explain to customers why you haven't fixed it.

For now, I guess I'll just have to make due with that HTML validator Firefox extension. In my 20 minutes of using it, I've found it surprisingly powerful and quite handy. Now if only they had one for Opera....

You can reply to this entry by leaving a comment below. This entry accepts Pingbacks from other blogs. You can follow comments on this entry by subscribing to the RSS feed.

Add your comments #

A comment body is required. No HTML code allowed. URLs starting with http:// or ftp:// will be automatically converted to hyperlinks.