CSE HTML Validator, the All-In-One HTML, XHTML, CSS, Link, SEO, and Accessibility Checker
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What's New

What's New

special offer Version 10 contains major new improvements:
  • Preliminary support for HTML5
  • Preliminary support for CSS3
  • WCAG 2.0 support
  • Improved checking (syntax, SEO, links)
  • Improved configurability
  • Improved speed and efficiency
  • Dynamic help for HTML and CSS
  • Many other improvements, updates, and refinements

NEW! Version 10 Version 10 is now available!

CSE HTML Validator Box

Version 10.0020 (v10.00) - MINOR UPDATE - (released 2010-08-03)

  • Fixed a bug that could cause an access violation, most likely if the link checker path mappings are edited.
  • Access to some of the link checking options and some affected menu options is now locked out if the Validator Engine Options dialog is opened while a link check is running.
  • Now displays deprecation messages for more HTML 4.0 deprecated attributes like "align", "border", "hspace", "vspace", which may not have been displayed before as might have been expected.
  • Documentation and program tweaks, improvements, and minor changes.

Version 10.0000 (v10.00) - MAJOR NEW RELEASE - (released 2010-07-01)

  • Validator Engine
    • Added preliminary HTML5 support. NOTE: HTML5 is still a work in progress.
    • Added WCAG 2.0 checking.
    • Added checking to support Canadian Common Look and Feel Standards for the Internet 2.0.
    • New option to disable messages by exact text match (using a case insensitive compare). This provides even finer control of what messages can be disabled.
    • Faster validations due to many miscellaneous performance and efficiency improvements.
    • Checks for unrecognized values for the "rel" attribute for "link" and "a" elements.
    • Improved accessibility checking and new accessibility tip message.
    • Improved, updated, and new SEO (search engine optimization) messages.
    • The keyword density message now includes the percentage instead of just the keyword count.
    • Ignores RDFa attributes instead of generating 'unknown attribute' errors for them.
    • New option to improve HTML Tidy messages that, when enabled, adds message IDs and makes other changes to some of the HTML Tidy messages.
    • Checks for unescaped less-than characters in attribute values in XHTML documents.
    • Added attribute value built-in types: (boolean-html5), (float-html5), (float-non-neg-html5), (float-pos-html5), (media query list).
    • Improved the analysis results for the attribute and attribute value analysis in the Configuration Editor. The attribute analysis now shows which elements and attribute groups include the selected attribute.
    • Major redesign of the Validator Engine Options dialog to improve usability.
    • New Message ID page in the Validator Engine Options to quickly view the message ID configuration and delete or disable/enable messages.
    • Added some brightness/contrast checking based on WCAG formulas recommendations when WCAG 1.0 Priority 3 checking is enabled (such as when a foreground and background color is specified in a CSS declaration).
    • Updated list of acceptable Unicode ranges from http://www.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/UnicodeData.txt
    • Various miscelleneous improvements and additions to the validator messages.
  • Validator Engine (CSS)
    • Added preliminary CSS3 support. NOTE: CSS3 is still a work in progress.
    • Improvements to the CSS syntax checking messages, including improved suggestions for unknown or misspelled CSS properties.
    • Improved auto-CSS document detection when the CSS document starts with an at-rule.
  • Validator Engine (link checking)
    • The link checker now displays comments about alt text and width and height attributes for image links.
    • New "always bad" and "always good" link filters for link checking.
  • Validator Engine (tag name programming language for advanced configuration programming)
    • New special function onDocTypeFlagsChange() called when the value of doctypeflags is changed.
    • Improvements to the tag name programming language, including performance and efficiency improvements.
    • New integer and string keywords for improved code readability and performance.
  • Editor
    • New end tag auto complete option - just type "</" and the end tag is automatically completed - or press Ctrl+. to type in the entire end tag.
    • New "dynamic help" feature that shows a context-sensitive help button on the main menu bar. Click the button (or press F1) to be taken to a web page for the relevent HTML element or CSS property. This feature can be disabled, if desired, using View->Menus->Dynamic Help.
    • New Insert menu on the editor pop-up menu.
    • New "Change References to Chars" and "Invert Case" options in the editor popup menu's Selection submenu.
    • New "Whitespace Characters" and "Duplicate Nonempty Lines" options in the editor popup menu's Selection->Remove submenu.
    • Miscellaneous improvements to the editor pop-up menu, including the Selection submenu.
    • Improved preview with the integrated web browser and now supports path mapping.
    • When asking to disable or enable a flag, displays the flag description (if available) in the dialog.
    • New File->Copy File Path to Clipboard menu option.
    • New Reload toolbar button on the File toolbar.
    • New dialog to confirm opening of any document that appears to be a CSE HTML Validator temporary file.
    • Improved handling of validator message selection for improved responsiveness in some cases.
    • Renamed the "Format and Fix HTML Tool" tool to the "Pretty Print/Fix" tool.
    • New "Show splash/status window" option to disable the startup splash/status window for slightly decreased startup times.
    • XML declarations and "html" start tags are now also inserted when inserting an XHTML DOCTYPE.
    • Major redesign of the Editor Options dialog to improve usability.
    • The "WB Source" tab that shows the source document in the integrated web browser can now be reloaded. When reload is chosen, a reload/refresh is done in the integrated web browser and the "WB Source" tab is updated.
    • Improved options to insert dates and times. More date/time insert options have been added and now they also show an example string of what will be inserted.
    • New "Reload All" option appears in certain reload dialogs to make reloading all changed files easier.
    • When specifying relative files to open on the command line, now converts them to absolute paths to avoid possible problems when re-opening them during another run.
    • Fixed a problem with the spell checker that caused it to (sometimes) not check all the words.
    • Improved shutdown routine so if it is canceled, then all documents still remain opened.
    • Faster startup.
  • Batch Wizard
    • Links in validator messages are now active links in the Batch Wizard reports.
    • When launching the Batch Wizard from the program shortcut, it should now automatically reload the last target list.
    • Major redesign of the Batch Wizard Options dialog to improve usability.
  • Tools
    • The "Quick Quote Attribute Values" tool doesn't quote the "/" character at the end of a tag.
    • In the editor, menu options are dynamically created for each Pretty Print/Fix tool profile, allowing easier and faster access to multiple profiles.
  • Command Line Processor (cmdlineprocessor.exe)
    • The "-q" option to send a quit signal to the editor/Batch Wizard will now wait up to 10 seconds looking for an instance to send the quit signal to (this solves some possible timing issues) if no instance of the editor is found right away.
  • Other
    • Updates to the spelling dictionaries.
    • Improvements and updates to the program documentation.
    • Other miscellaneous updates, improvements and tweaks.
  • Bug Fixes
    • Miscellaneous bug fixes and other improvements and updates.
    • Fixed a bug that caused improper encoding detection when reading some files in some cases.
    • Fixed problem with HTTPS links not being checked from 3rd party software like TopStyle.

Version 9.0300 - (released July 2, 2009)

  • Editor
    • Fixed a problem with the spell checker that caused it to (sometimes) not check all the words.
    • Improved vertical scrollbar.
  • Batch Wizard
    • Date and time stamps can now be used in custom footers.
  • Validator Engine
    • Now recognizes the CSS3 pseudo-element ":target".
  • Other
    • The installer will now ask if you want to first uninstall any previous versions that are installed (lite and std/pro except for the trial edition).
    • Minor issue fixed with the HTML scheme and "style" end tag when it wasn't all lowercase.
    • Can now use "(not specified)" to NOT set an agent when opening a document from the web.
    • The "line number color" setting should now work.
    • The Message Window should now be colored properly based on the chosen background and font colors.
    • Interface improvements (simplified some menus and dialogs for a cleaner look).
    • Updated HTML Tidy executable and made other miscellaneous improvements to the Format & Fix HTML (HTML Tidy) Tool.
    • Other minor improvements.
    • Miscellaneous bug fixes.

Version 9.0220

  • Improved dialog placements, especially when using multiple monitors.
  • Other minor improvements.
  • Miscellaneous bug fixes.

Version 9.0211

  • Improved the Tools->Edit with UEStudio/UltraEdit and Tools->Validate Style Sheet with TopStyle (now works with TopStyle 4).
  • Minor performance and efficiency improvements.
  • Bug fixes that could potentially cause memory corruption. Other miscellaneous bug fixes.
  • This version has been made available in all editions (lite, standard, and pro) and in the pro trial version.

Version 9.0201

  • Editor
    • New editor pop-up menu option "Selection->Remove->Whitespace at Line Ends" that removes any whitespace characters at the end of the selected lines. (New RC1)
    • You can now use the mouse buttons that are typically u:sed to go backwards and forwards in a web browser. Depending on the focused control, the buttons will perform different functions. For example, when editing, the buttons can be used to go to the next and previous validator messages. If the 'Control' key is held down when pressing the mouse button, then it will navigate to the previous and next documents. In the Shell Windows, the back button can be used to go up one folder level. Other functions may also be available for other controls. (New BETA 2B)
    • New Smart Indent/Unindent option in the Editor Options, Editor 2 tab. (New BETA 2B)
    • Easier copying of single validator messages to the clipboard, including a new Copy Messages to Clipboard->Selected Message Only option in the Results Window pop-up menu. (New BETA 2B)
    • The Resource Window has been replaced with separate windows that can float or be docked in various areas of the main editor window.
    • New View->Editor->Tabs option to show/hide the main editor tabs ('Editor' and 'Browser' tabs).
    • Can now specify the 'Accept-Language' header in File->Open from the Web.
    • Can now specify an indent width to use when indenting and unindenting and the focus time (in milliseconds) when highlighting lines that the cursor is moving to. These new options are in the Editor Options, Editor 1 tab.
    • Character entity menu options in the Tag Inserter now show the actual character.
    • Now tries to auto-detect UTF-8 files even without a UTF-8 preamble.
    • Supports variable width fonts.
    • Miscellaneous interface and other improvements.
  • Batch Wizard
    • New option in the Batch Wizard Options, Reporting 2 tab to automatically delete old report files before creating a new report.
    • Icons are now displayed for URL targets in the Target List tab.
  • Tools
    • New Format & Fix HTML (HTML Tidy) Tool option to preserve entities. (New BETA 2B)
    • New option to convert character references to actual characters when using the Quick Remove Tags Tool.
  • Validator Engine
    • Now displays the number of spell checked words (and number of spell checked words in comments). This may be useful for those estimating costs by word count.
    • Recognizes and checks the CSS3 "opacity" property. (New RC1)
    • Minor improvements to validator messages.
    • Added a way to specify user-defined content-types for JavaScript and CSS. (see SetValueString(17) and SetValueString(18)).
  • Improved Syntax Checking
    • New flag 119 to check for duplicate control names in forms.
    • Now checks "height" and "width" values and displays a warning message if one is a percent and the other is not.
    • Now checks for tags in attribute values for "title" and "summary" and displays a warning if any are found.
  • Bug Fixes
    • Printing a selection should now print the selected text rather than the entire document.
    • Miscellaneous bug fixes.
  • Other
    • The underlying components that CSE HTML Validator is built upon are now natively Unicode.
    • Updated "check for updates" system works in the background and should be more reliable. (New RC1)
    • Updated dictionaries and now includes an auto-correct dictionary and a British English dictionary. As usual, additional dictionaries can be downloaded separately. Please note that the auto-correct dictionary is enabled by default only if the program has not been run before. Otherwise, the auto-correct dictionary will have to be manually activated using Options->Spelling Options and the Language tab to activate the "autocorrect.adu" custom dictionary.
    • Updated HTML Tidy to 2008-12-07 release.
    • Many updated components.
    • Improved Unicode support.
    • Miscellaneous performance and efficiency improvements.
    • Improvements and updates to the documentation.

Version 9.0100 (v9.01) - (released October 6, 2008)

  • Editor
    • New editor pop-up menu option "Selection->Remove->Double Blank Lines" that attempts to fix the extra blank line problem that occurs when files are transferred/converted incorrectly.
    • New Save menu option in the editor pop-up menu.
    • An optional new results message is shown after a 'validate all' operation.
    • Fixed a bug that caused selected text to be replaced by an 'x' in some situations when using text insertion (such as when choosing to enclose the selected text in div tags using the tag inserter).
    • Fixed some printing issues.
    • Miscellaneous interface improvements.
  • Validator Engine
    • Better spell checker handling of words containing character references.
  • Other
    • Some updated components.
    • Minor updates and improvements to the documentation.

Version 9.0010 (v9.00) - (released September 9, 2008)

  • Editor
    • New Save menu option in the pop-up menu of the Open Documents Window.
    • Fixed some loading/saving toolbar position issues.
    • Removed an unnecessary/confusing "search string not found" message box when searching/replacing.
    • Shift+Del now cuts text like Ctrl+X and like in v8.0.
    • Shift+Enter now inserts a new line like in v8.0.
  • Batch Wizard
    • Fixed a bug when saving floating point values in the Limit to Age tab for folder targets.
  • Validator Engine
    • Fixed a potential rare crash bug.
  • Other
    • Fixed a bug that could cause freezing or crashing when using word-wrap.
    • Miscellaneous bug fixes, tweaks, and improvements.

Version 9.0000 (v9.00) - MAJOR NEW RELEASE - (released August 25, 2008)

  • Editor
    • Major update to the editor
      • Improved support for Unicode and various encodings
      • Improved syntax highlighting
      • Adds live spelling
      • Adds code folding features
      • Improved search and replace with improved support for regular expressions
      • Other improvements
    • New File->Save Copy/Backup, File->Open with Encoding and File->Save with Encoding menu options.
    • New File->Open from Recent Folder submenu to easily open a file in a recently used folder. The Open dialog box is opened with the initial folder set to the desired folder.
    • New File->Save As to Recent Folder submenu to easily save a file to a recently used folder. The Save dialog box is opened with the initial folder set to the desired folder.
    • If a document is loaded with a specified encoding, then the encoding is remembered if the document is reloaded at the next run or reloaded from the File->Open Recent File menu.
    • New Copy Full Path to Clipboard menu option in the pop-up menu of the Open Documents Window.
    • New Edit Configuration Files submenu in the Options->Validator Engine Options menu with easy ways to edit certain configuration files.
    • Improvements to Open from the Web. Now shows a detailed progress dialog that may be helpful with debugging HTTP requests.
    • New Open From Web Options submenu in the Open From the Web dialog box - with new way to access the proxy/network settings.
    • New automatic daily check for updates - results displayed in the status bar and a non-obtrusive message in the lower right of the editor window.
    • New Editor and Browser tabs. Can dock the integrated web browser in the Browser tab for a bigger web browser window.
    • Current-user new document templates are now supported. User-specific new document templates can now be added on a per-user basis by adding the templates to a user-specific folder.
    • New Links->Show Only Bad Links When >500 option in the Results Window context menu will show only the bad links when there are more than 500 total links. This is useful when the link list is large (more than 500 total links) because large amounts of data (hundreds or thousands of links) can slow performance while the links view is populated.
    • Most of the columns in the Results Window Links tab can now be shown or hidden using the new Links->Columns submenu in the Results Window context menu and the new View->Windows->Results Window Tabs->Links Tab Columns submenu. If a column is hidden, then it will be remembered at next program launch.
    • New Bytes column in the Results Window Links tab to show the byte-size of the link if available.
    • New editor pop-up menu options under "Selection->Sort Lines" to sort the selected lines case sensitively or insensitively and in ascending or descending order.
    • New editor pop-up menu option "Selection->Change All to References" to convert all selected characters to numeric character references. May be useful for changing mailto links for fighting spam.
    • New editor pop-up menu option "Selection->Remove->All Blank Lines" to easily remove all blank lines from the selected text.
    • Added option to lock the toolbars.
    • New "Highlight focus line" option in the Editor Options to make it easier to visually locate the cursor when it moves by highlighting the line it moves to.
    • New print options to print hidden/folded text, print line numbers, and print special symbols.
    • New "M" button in the Results Window that lets you easily toggle the Message Window.
    • Now creates the shell objects only when needed for improved speed and efficiency.
    • New Edit->Fold menu options (also in the editor popup menu).
    • Improved the opening of URLs in the editor to better respect the character encoding/charset.
    • The Editor tab is automatically selected if the Browser tab is selected when the focus is switching to editing a document (such as when a document is opened).
    • Enhanced Options->Internet Explorer Source Viewer->Make Source Viewer in Internet Explorer to offer a choice between opening the source in the editor (new option) or validating the source and viewing the results in Notepad (previously the only method).
    • New Close menu option in the pop-up menu of the Open Documents Window.
    • Other miscellaneous interface and editor improvements and editor bug fixes.
  • Batch Wizard
    • New folder target option to limit adding file targets when expanding the folder target to files that are less than a user-specified number of days old.
    • Improved "navigation bar" for multiple page reports including a new "Spread" for report navigation links option to limit the number of navigation links in the "navigation bar" of reports that contain a large number of pages.
    • Improved handling when requesting URLs that contain space characters. Spaces are now converted to %20 to properly request the URL.
    • New options to include optional Bytes and Content-Type columns in a target's link report have been added to the Links tab of the Batch Wizard Options. When the Bytes column is checked, the byte-size of each link in a link report will be shown when available. When the Content-Type column is checked, the content-type header of each HTTP link in a link report will be shown when available.
    • New "Process ONLY these targets" option in the Target List Options tab.
    • Resolved some Batch Wizard issues.
    • Now starts checking links immediately while continuing to process the target list. In version 8 and below, the link check would not be started until all documents were processed/validated.
    • Added new anchor "a name" tags for many headers in the Batch Wizard reports.
    • Now shows the number of targets in the Target List tab caption.
    • Added a new "Spread" for source document lines option to limit the amount of source document text shown in the report when a source line is very long.
    • Improved handling of UTF-8, UTF-16LE, and UTF-16BE documents. Should now work with UTF-16 documents downloaded via HTTP.
    • Report files are now encoded in UTF-8.
    • Improved progress reporting, including link checking progress.
  • Format & Fix HTML (HTML Tidy) Tool Improvements
    • New Options->Wrap Attribute Values option to make it easier setting the "wrap-attributes" option.
    • Minor interface improvements to the tool dialog.
    • Improved support for Unicode documents.
  • Validator Engine
    • New Search Engine tab in the Validator Engine Options to control search engine messages.
    • New "Enable keyword density message" option to generate a search engine message with the top words used in the document.
    • New warning message that can be disabled when expression() (an IE 5+ specific entity/value) is used for a CSS property value.
    • Much improved messages when an invalid/bad character reference is used in an attribute value. In addition to better message text in many cases, the exact location of the bad reference is now used instead of the entire attribute value. Also, multiple character reference messages (one for each bad character reference) may be generated for the same attribute value if the value contains multiple bad character references. Previously only one bad character reference message would be generated for the entire attribute value even if there were multiple bad character references in the value.
    • The maximum number of misspelled words to list in the misspelled word list message can easily be changed in the Validator Engine Options. In the previous version (v8.0), a manual registry change was needed.
    • New "Allow underscores in class and ID names" option in the Styles tab of the Validator Engine Options which defaults to checked because current versions of modern browsers shouldn't have problems with underscores in CSS class and ID names.
    • New "Ignore attributes with colons" option in the Validator Engine Options.
    • Now tries to automatically store an example message in the message ID config file (msgidcfg.xml) when a validator message is enabled or disabled or its type changed using a message ID. This makes it easier to know what messages the message ID settings apply to when looking at the config file.
    • Now displays a "source document is empty" warning message for empty source documents.
    • New tag name program functions beginsWithCase() and beginsWithNoCase() to compare strings based on the beginning of the string.
    • If available, checks the content-type of a document being validated and displays a "can't check" message if it the document type can't be checked (instead of trying to check it anyway).
    • Miscellaneous efficiency and performance improvements.
  • Improved Syntax Checking
    • Improved CSS checker to better support CSS2.1 which is meant to replace CSS2, including CSS flag 608 for CSS2.1 messages. Note that CSS2.1 is still a work in progress at the time of this writing. Includes CSS2.1 updates to syntax checking for: "background-position" and more
    • When possible, will now check the encoding specified by the web server in the HTTP headers with any encoding/charset specified in the meta "Content-Type" tag.
    • New flag 118 to check for preceding and trailing space characters in the text content of certain tags like "a" and "title".
    • Hidden input controls (type="hidden") now generate a warning if there is no "value" attribute.
    • CSS checker now recognizes the new CSS3 attribute selectors "$=" and "*=" ("^=" was already recognized) and displays a message that these are CSS3 attribute selectors.
    • Added the 0-9 and `-=[]\;',./ characters to the accesskeys used and available message that displays when any accesskey is used.
    • Added "asia" to list of recognized top-level domains.
    • In some cases, where possible, new warnings will be displayed when a "height" or "width" attribute does not match the actual image dimensions. Also, where no "height" or "width" attribute is used, a message may be generated recommending the actual image height and width be specified (and the validator message will include the actual height and width of the image).
    • Now checks the content of "msnbot", "slurp", and "teoma" meta tags. "nosnippet" and "noydir" are now recognized.
    • Now checks the content of the "google" meta tag.
    • Checks meta refresh links for spaces and displays a warning messages if spaces are found.
    • Displays a warning when "callto://" (with double slashes) is used instead of "callto:".
    • New "congratulations" message in std/pro if there are no errors and no warnings.
    • Accesskey checking and messages improved; accesskeys are now considered case insensitive (to find more potential problems) and displays two new comment messages about accesskey use if any accesskey is assigned.
    • Now accepts/validates three letter language codes from ISO 639-3. Also updated recognized two-letter language codes.
    • Improved the "web-safe" typeface message to also display the names of any unrecognized typefaces.
    • Recognizes more fonts and more fonts categorized (serif, sans serif, etc).
    • Miscellaneous improvements to various validator messages.
  • Improved Link Checking
    • Supports HTTPS link checking.
    • New Link Checking tab in the Validator Engine Options with a new filter to exclude certain links from being link checked.
    • New "Recheck bad links at next link check" option (default is checked) in the new Link Checking tab so that bad links can optionally be rechecked automatically (otherwise the link cache remembers and doesn't keep checking bad links to see if they've been fixed).
    • New path mapping feature which is helpful when link checking local documents that contain "root-relative" links - see the path mapping forum topic for more information.
    • The options in the new Link Checking tab are now imported and exported with the other options.
    • If the "value" attribute for an "option" tag appears to be a link that can be link checked, then it is added to the list of links to be link checked.
    • New "Auto detect text files containing links (one per line) when validating" option (default is checked) in the Link Checking tab of the Validator Engine Options to recognize and process text files that contain links (one per line).
    • In some cases, such as for local files, and for some image types (such as JPG, GIF, PNG, and BMP) image dimensions (and sometimes other information) is now displayed in the link comment field.
    • Includes a more efficient link cache that should be able to handle thousands (even tens of thousands) of links more efficiently.
    • Memory efficiency improvements and other improvements.
  • Command Line Processor (cmdlineprocessor.exe)
    • New "-v0" option to suppress the viewer.
    • New "-outputfile" option to specify the output file, overriding the default.
    • New "-veofile" option to specify a validator engine options export file that is loaded before the main command. This allows commands to be performed using different sets of validator options (the options can be exported from the Validator Engine Options).
  • Bug Fixes
    • When using the Batch Wizard and a folder target, CSS files are now picked up.
    • Fixed some minor bugs (keyboard shortcut bugs) in the Open From the Web dialog box.
    • Fixed a bug in the Batch Wizard that didn't set the follow links "Limit to" option when the "Automatically set the follow links option when targets are added" option is checked and a target is added.
    • Now recognizes the link (for link checking and Batch Wizard following) for @import rules without url() like @import "cssfile.css" (as compared to @import url("cssfile.css")).
    • Fixed a problem with the CSS parser's handling of space characters in attribute selectors.
    • Fixed Selection->Open File in the editor context menu.
    • The nsgmls options in the Validator Engine Options are now imported and exported.
    • Minor bug fixes with the Import/Export options in the Validator Engine Options.
    • Corrected handling of "callto:".
    • Fixed an issue where a message box would display during uninstall when it was suppose to be suppressed.
    • Fixed a bug in the CSS checker that caused some valid 'background-position' values to generate an error.
    • other miscellaneous bug fixes.
  • Other
    • Improved UTF-8 and UTF-16 handling.
    • Documentation improvements and updates.
    • Minor improvements to update checking (Help->Check for Updates).
    • Miscellaneous user interface improvements.
    • Updated installer.
    • Minor Windows Vista improvements and tweaks.
    • Improvements to task dialogs - can now hit the 'Escape' key to exit/close many of them.
    • Miscellaneous component updates.
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