Perfect XHTML in Blogger Blogs

One day, perhaps, website developers will be able to create the perfect template to display blog pages that comply to W3C standards with perfect XHTML in Blogger blogs. The goal is currently impossible because of how the blog "engine" generates blog posts at the instant you publish.

Content generated external to the template and css that web developers design for blogs is the reason. This content includes hidden code that identifies the blog as shown below in this snippet of results from the W3C XHTML validation service for just one post on my blog:

g?blogID=38647469&postID=5457517960262

The highlighted and underlined content above is the culprit. The ampersand symbol is a special reserved character in XHTML, and to display properly without creating a code error it must have it's full ASCII 5-character code and not just the single character as typed from your keyboard. The highlighted text of &postID should read &postID to be correct per W3C.

Unfortunately, this small problem generates multiple instances and errors on each post, and it is completely out of the control of you or your blog designer. The only solution will happen when the technical team and programmers at Blogger choose to modify their system to insert the ampersand with the full ASCII 5-character code. Don't hold your breath. It's like pushing a glacier.

Does this really matter? From a technical point, no. From a practical point, yes, because the solution is easy. Your blog will look fine with 250 code errors, yet if browser companies and web developers are driven to comply with standards for zero code errors, it would be nice to have Blogger get on board, too.

Finally, if you follow a permalink to any individual post on this blog, and then validate per W3C, there are 28 code errors. Unlike my main site which displays the Valid XHTML 1.1 and CSS2 badges with zero code errors, the blog is doomed for now to being nice, not perfect.

The blog issue and other external factors used to create multimedia content use deprecated code, so my goal of perfect code has been revised to accept the reality of designing with near zero errors.



TAGS: blog blogger blog template website design xhtml

About the Author: Jim Degerstrom offers small business advice based on 30 years in management, sales, and marketing, including President or General Manager of small companies in 5 states. He is proficient in website and graphic art design, and runs his online Small Business Resource Center which includes his SBRC Blog from Kissimmee FL USA.