Search for "&xxxx;" tag errors:
The Problem
The Internet (incl. any extranet) can basically handle 7 bit words, only. But to display more than the English A-Z alphabet plus more than a few simple signs, at least 8-bit characters is a must. Some of the telecom channels on the Internet transfers 8-bit characters, but most of them transfer 7-bit characters, only.
If you use the HTML for an intranet, it is likely that there is no problem with 8-bit transferring characters - ask your intranet specialist(s) about your intranet. If you use the HTML for HTMLhelp, 8-bit characters are no problem. This is why this test has been separated from the internal links test.
To come around the 7/8-bit problem, a large number of tags have been defined. As an example the degree character ° is to be encoded as "°".
Another possibility is to encode it using its full 8-bit character number. Here, as an example, the degree character ° is encoded from a Windows PC as "°". But the characters above 127 are not really standardized. Consequently it may come out with another character on a non-Windows machine.
Some tags (e.g. the Greek letters except ß and µ) are accepted by e.g. Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 (MSIE), but at not by e.g. Netscape Navigator/Communicator 4.0. These tags are considered "doubtful", and they are consequently displayed as such. Unless you are sure that your page is used with MSIE, only, avoid them!
Why is this test necessary? Because ...
not all HTML editor programmes are really careful with the "ASCII" >127 characters. That goes even for at least some of the very professional ones. And conversion programmes/add-ins are often very big "sinners" here. if you are writing directly in a text editor, errors of this kind are almost unavoidable. The Solution
This search function looks for a number of typical errors within this field:
- Characters in the HTML code with a value above 127. These will be suggested changed to their proper tags. If no tag is known by the system, it will suggest an &#nnn; number type tag. You can edit the list of &xxxx; type tags, which is saved as a text file as alphatg1.dat.
- Reserved characters below 127. The characters and their applications are:
- & is used as the starter of the above mentioned tags. It is also used directly in some hypertext link extensions. It is encoded as "&".
- < (less than) and > (greater than) are used for specifying HTML control tags, e.g. <B> for start of bold text. They are encoded as "<" and ">".
- " (quote) is used to mark links, etc. It is encoded as """.
Tag errors like "&160;" instead of " " (# is missing); or "&asdd;", which is not on the list of existing tags. A further list of "existing, but not generally accepted" tags is saved as alphatg2.dat, which is text editable, too.