Weblog Tools Collection

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Matt Read posted a quick mention of the release of PHP Markdown on the WordPress Support forums so I thought I would pass this along to everyone.

Michel Fortin has ported over John Gruber’s original Markdown into a plugin for WordPress as well as a tool for bBlog, Smarty, and other PHP-based tools. Here is some information directly from Michel’s site:

PHP Markdown is a port of the original Markdown program from John Gruber.

Markdown is a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML).

The overriding design goal for Markdown’s formatting syntax is to make it as readable as possible. The idea is that a Markdown-formatted document should be publishable as-is, as plain text, without looking like it’s been marked up with tags or formatting instructions. While Markdown’s syntax has been influenced by several existing text-to-HTML filters, the single biggest source of inspiration for Markdown’s syntax is the format of plain text email.

PHP Markdown is available on Michel’s site for download. Note that if you are currently using WordPress, Markdown is already bundled, but this is likely a more up-to-date version.

Happy Markdown, everyone!

I ran into some trouble with the forms validation because I was using a javascript:document.formname.submit() which would require a name for the form. As it turns out, form name is deprecated in XHTML 1.0 Strict and XHTML 1.1.
In other words <form name="blah" ... > is not valid in XHTML 1.0 Strict and XHTML 1.1.

To get around this issue, I used <form id="blah" ... > and in my link I used javascript:document.forms['blah'].submit(); which validates correctly.

Also, to get around the carriage return problem in input tags of forms (for input tags to validate correctly in XHTML 1.0 Strict and XHTML 1.1, they have to surrounded by <p> or h1 etc. ) I surrounded my inputs by (gasp) fieldsets and then hid it by styling the fieldset so I could get them all in one line. Im sure a lot of people know about these already, but this is for my future reference.

Following up on an old article form Jesse Ruderman I wanted to have a way from within WordPress to validate XHTML through the Quicktags buttons. I rewrote the “Bloggidate” set of hacks to work from within WordPress.

So this will let you validate the content of your post before you actually post it to the blog to ensure things do not ever break in terms of validation. Just type in the post and click on validate from the quicktags.

The installation is relatively simple and I have included functions for both XHTML 1.0 Transitional and XHTML 1.0 Strict.
You can download the instructions from here:
http://weblogtoolscollection.com/b2-img/validatexhtml.txt
PS: Tested and working in both FF and IE

Again, much of the code comes from Jesse Ruderman, so thanks go out to him.

In keeping with my previous post about promoting better programming/coding/markup/style practices among present developers and designers, I have decided to add a couple of categories to this blog and promise to add a few articles every week to those categories. XHTML syntax, better semantics, (common) validation issues and fixes for them, better explanation of validation errors are fair game. I invite my readers to contribute to this process as well and would appreciate a small post if and when you solve a complicated (or simple) validation issue for yourself.

On a similar note, I am still looking for more authors for this blog. WordPress people are, as always, more than welcome, but my focus is on getting some authors for other blog tools such as Drupal, MT, Bloxsom etc. If you would like to write (and conversely get exposure for your site/blog/tool) a couple of articles a month for weblogtoolscollection.com, please register and send me an email with the registration information so I can give you the proper permissions.

Upcoming (planned, or half written) articles in this series:

• Better Link Name Choices
• Validating Forms in XHTML 1.1 Strict
• “Script Language” Boo Boos

While validating this blog (as XHTML 1.0 Strict, mind you) I was reading through some of the banter between the w3c and various XHTML fanatics while reading through a comment left on pictorialis by another XHTML fanboy. The fanboy had a loud mouth, was wrong in his assumptions and just looked really moronish in his assertions. In spite of that idiot, what the heck is wrong with the standards people?

Take the work of w3c for example. They make standards which are too hard for end users to understand (P3P), standards which are too brittle for the real world (XHTML 2.0) and standards which developers can’t be bothered with (XHTML Basic) (quote: mpt). This is, of course, the view of a usability guru. There are various other opinions littering the web ranging from “XHTML and DTDs are the *only* future of the web” to hate and scorn for XHTML types. I love reading through elaborate definitions and arguments that the heavyweights of the industry put forth in their weblogs and then reading through the comments that ensue. The only item missing from *all* of these dicussions is any speak of compromise.

What was the original goal of any and all of this? Are we trying to make the web a better place or are we more interested in Utopian ideals about ampersands (no offense anne’s post on unescaped ampersands). Ampersands will break real XHTML browsers, but how would one feature, one weakness, make adaptation of XHTML more pervasive? Are web standards ever going to be serious business with all of this infighting? If any of the “heavyweights” (read: people with a voice, people that can make a difference and turn other people’s opinions) are reading this, please understand that the mom and pop shop that is coding the next NewEgg is not going to give a hoot about your stupid wars, they have already written code (or will write) which is validated by no one at the sweat shop they get their code written from!

I have a few points to make here and then Im done.

• Stop the cribbing and the bitching. Its getting us nowhere and people are getting tired of every design/markup blog telling us that every new standard is somehow bad/wrong/broken.
• Start bitching about bad style/markup in existing software and trying to promote what we have already. Anne does make the very important point of trying to goad software developers and CMS developers into generating valid markup through their tools. The benefits of good markup that is semantic are tremendous.
• Continue your work on making standards better, but please, please do not make that crux of your work or the emphasis of your campaign.
• Be nice to other people. If you disagree, there are many ways to say that. Say it nicely, apologize if you think you are being offensive, be very open to criticism, be quick to say you are wrong if you know that you are. One thing I would like people to remember is that written text/chat is a terrible way to actually conduct a good discussion and understand feelings or expressions. I think IRC is killing programming as we know it. So try a little harder to look at the other persons’ perspective.
• Promote, Promote, Promote instead of Fight, Fight, Fight