Pushing for full HTML5 support

[geoffmcl]

Removed this rather broken orignal post, but still 'Pushing for full HTML5 support.

Regards,
Geoff.

[geoffmcl]

Also another broken post...

Best regards,
Geoff.

[skynet]

Hello Geoff –

Just came across your tidy-fork repo and saw that yours is more frequently updated than w3c/tidy-html5.

Can you please tell us what’s new in your version and if you plan to document your changes. Is it possible to merge these changes back here?

Thank you.

IR

[geoffmcl]

Hi Ionel,

What a pleasure to get your email ;=)) It seemed no one was interested
in furthering tidy so I reverted back to other things...

what’s new in your version

First I swung over the a cmake build which supports cross platform
building using a wide variety of 'native' tools all through a single,
easy to maintain CMakeLists.txt. And currently build a WIN32 and WIN64
in Windows, and an Ubuntu linux 14.04 64-bit versions of tidy. At
present it is quite a basic form, but lots of other cmake 'features'
could be added... if needed... One obvious one on my TODO list is to
supply the RELEASE_DATE and PLATFORM_NAME from within CMakeLists.txt
(removing version.h)...

I now have quite a LOT of experience with cmake, and even have a
'cmake-test' repo - https://gitorious.org/fgtools/cmake-test - where I
experiment with lots of different 'features'...

Second, I gathered as much information from the W3C site, particularly,
but not restricted to,
http://www.w3schools.com/html/html5_new_elements.asp... and added about
30 test files in test/html5 to try to test each of the 'new' elements in
HTML5, making fixes to the code where it failed... some elements were
'missing' in the w3c/tidy-html5 source, perhaps deliberately...

Then added about a dozen pairs of html to test elements removed in 5 -
the pair consists of the element in HTML4, and then the element in
HTML5, again adding/fixing code where necessary to get through these
tests. The idea here is that if the document is found to be HTML4 then
there should be no warning, however is found to be HTML5 then there
should be a warning (or error), and if tidy is configured to clean, then
it should try to remove/fix what it can. As you may know tidy has always
replaced

with

so some of this was already there... but more
to do...

Then back to the original nearly 250 'test/input' files, to try to check
that the HTML5 additions/changes had NOT badly broken HTML4 and earlier...

Here I started to run out of steam ;=(( With no one to discuss with,
bounce ideas off, no feedback! There were things that I could not decide
one way or another, so as stated drifted back to other things...

Is is possible to merge these changes back here?

That was always intended, but I do not have commit rights to
w3c/tidy-html5, nor to the original cvs repo, although as you may know
have been involved with tidy for quite a long LONG time... but no one
was responding, testing...

The Questions:

My main concern is how to keep HTML4 and earlier support, while still
being able to handle HTML5, since they do have some contradictory elements?

Of course one course of action would be to separate the library into to
2 separate libraries, with one specifically for HTML5, and build a tidy5
app, but that seems 'ugly'...

In testing I have been using doctype: html5 to tell tidy to go HTML5
'mode', and trigger extra HTML5 checks and fixes, but I think ideally
tidy should 'detect' this, maybe because the document -

(a) has the HTML5 doctype
(b) has a without a content attribute
(c) contains new element only in HTML5
or a combination of these, or other things... but I never got this right...

And maybe such a determination that this IS html5 could trigger some
dynamic changes in the main element/attributes tables, but this seems a
little difficult with the caching of these table element...

So here we are... I would be willing to put in some more time on tidy,
but only if there is a solid feedback channel, and others doing some
testing, reporting...

Regards,
Geoff.

[skynet]

Geoff

Thanks so much for the quick response and the insights.

While there are other libraries and tools for checking and cleaning up HTML, tidy-html5 is definitely the most reputable and it should be maintained, one way or another, but preferably under W3C. As of today (Sept 4, 2014) there are 59 open tickets, 12 pull requests and ... zero commits since Aug 21, 2012.

At this point there are two options: re-engage developers with commit access, or fork the repo and continue development. What do you, or others, think?

Thanks.

Ionel

Ionel

[petdance]

On Sep 4, 2014, at 2:00 PM, Ionel Roiban notifications@github.com wrote:

At this point there are two options: re-engage developers with commit access, or fork the repo and continue development. What do you, or others, think?

Who would be doing the "continue development"? It seems to me that the problem isn't the repo or the project but that we don't have developers with the time/motivation/etc to work on it.

If there are developers who are ready to do development on the project, then I wonder what they think next steps should be. You say "re-engage developers with commit access", which sounds like you're saying that more people would work on the project if they had commit access. Is that the case? Who are these developers that are being stymied by lack of commit access?

Andy Lester => www.petdance.com

[marcoscaceres]

I would strongly suggest that people who are willing to work on this fork this repo into a HTML5Tidy organization here on GitHub - or that @sideshowbarker donate the project to such an organization. Then, developers who are willing to maintain the project can better organize, review code, etc.

[petdance]

Do you actually have "developers who are willing to maintain the project"? I don't think forking the project is going to make developers appear.

Don't get me wrong: I'd LOVE to have some forward direction on the project, and I'd contribute, but mostly it needs strong direction.

[skynet]

The only problem with a fork is that it will lose the reputation that the W3C organization provides to such an important project. Prior to forking and moving development elsewhere due diligence should take place here, in order to get W3C to acknowledge the situation.

[marcoscaceres]

@skynet, that's a good point - but I don't think we can depend on the W3C on its own here. This is really just @sideshowbarker's pet project and not a W3C thing (i.e., they don't provide funding or support in any way). Clearly, @sideshowbarker doesn't have time to do any work on this (as he has stated in other bugs).

I'll wait for him to decide what to do. I've spoken to him in the past about opening it up, but he hasn't yet found anyone that he trusts in the community to take the project over. I don't see what option there is but to open it up to a few people who have shown, through PRs, capable of reviewing and maintaining the code.

Maybe we can get a show of interest from people who could commit time to this?

[skynet]

A better documentation Website could also help with making the project self-sustainable, increase traffic and adoption. http://w3c.github.io/tidy-html5/ is not enough for that purpose.

[geoffmcl]

Hi skynet, petdance, marcoscaceres,

Good to read and 'feel' some interest ;=)).

1: Where should this discussion take place?

I do not think issues #122 here is the right place!

I would whole heartedly suggest tidy-dev/sorceforge
is where it should be at to -

(a) involve the current maintainer there, arnaud02,
charles, and bjoern... and other contributors now
years back.

(b) get an email when something is posted.

I can/will not check back at #122 all the time!
Just too inconvenient...

Ionel has been kind enough to cc's me otherwise
I would not have known about this discussion...

Except for me, admittedly not much has been happening
on tidy-dev of late, but a discussion like this could
possibly revive it.

I will try to cross post this reply... and include
the replies...

2: who can put in coding time

To repeat, I can, but to also repeat, I can/will not
do that in a vacuum ;=))

I have been contributing code fixes since around 2000,
some 14/15 years. Maybe longer...

But I need others to be testing, commenting, contributing,
debating... and hopefully some of those will have a
deeper understanding of what the w3C wants...

Ionel, you mentioned there are 59 open tickets, and 12
pull requests...

Well, I would look at these if -

(a) html-tidy5 is updated to where my tidy-fork is at,
and those needed are rechecked against the update.

(b) pull requests can only be merged by those with write
access... so I would need that access...

3: which repo

Do not really care, but would certainly these days
prefer a .git base repo...

(a) sideshowbarker was new to me, and still to explore
what is there... what is the aim... seems quite
active... at least on the 'validator' part...

(b) tidy-html5 - yes, subject to 2:(a) and (b) above.

(c) original sourceforge svn. Possibly, but only if
git is used which I understand is supported, and
then subject to 2: (a) and (b) again.

(d) My tidy-fork. Well this is where I will continue for
now...

Others???

4: Discussion on some of the conflicts between 4 and 5

As expressed, if the one 'library' is to do BOTH at
the same time, then it needs 'rules' when to treat
it as 4 or earlier, and when to treat a document as
5 and thus tidy/report/warn appropriately,

This is my current stalling point, and seek ideas...

Regards,
Geoff.

[skynet]

Geoff -

We shall continue the due diligence for contacting and getting W3C to acknowledge the situation but instead of waiting I would just fork and move on - I am sure there are a lot of developers waiting to contribute and help with testing. Thanks for yours and other's interest in reviving this project.

Ionel

[geoffmcl]

Hi Ionel,

Yes, as you suggest am moving on with
my fork ;=)) But still not many 'testers'...

I just did a push to always show the
DOCTYPE information provided NOT quiet!

And in fact have accepted my first
feature request to support AngularJS
attributes...

Especially treating -
<script type="text/ng-template" id="id">
html content
<script>
as HTML5 content rather than javascript.

See here -
geoffmcl#2

Do you know what is the W3C position on
AngualarJS?

I note they have a tutorial on it in
W3Schools...

All for a better tidy...

Regards,
Geoff.