The first page was the worst, because header.php, index.php, sidebars.php, footer.php, it ALL gets nested in there together. Holy moly that was a bear figuring out. Or maybe the sidebars were the worst because practically every code I ever received for a widget was not valid! You would think they could do a little better than that. My amazon widget, which you no longer see here until I figure out how to make it valid, had 60 errors! Stupid things like a bunch of ampersands that need to be coded the html way, and other strange stuff. Some of them I solved by going to tinyurl and making a more reasonable link.
So right now, every single thing on this blog is valid except an old pictobrowser post. Which hopefully I’ll get that one figured out too. I am amazed at how many plugins do not validate. My gravatar plugin was throwing errors. On the setting page it puts css styling in there and a size. In the error list, the size was not enclosed in quotes, and it wouldn’t let me enclose it in quotes! It also wouldn’t let me delete the styling that was throwing an error. So I disabled it, set it here to use avatars and they show up okay. It was a bit trickier sending it to my choice for a default avatar. The Youtube plugin does not validate either, nor the audio player plugin. Pretty annoying, now if I could remember what that Google Analytics that I disabled was interfering with… My test blog with all those different media examples must be a real disaster.
I also think I have those bloody threaded comments working.
Now that I have this good, remind me to check my new stuff every month or so :p It would be so much easier if I didn’t like all that media stuff. Check yours, go to W3C Markup Validation Service to test it. You can just put your main blog address in but when there are several posts it does get confusing. I just went page by page like blog/, blog/page/2/, etc. Of course you should also check your css at their CSS Validation Service. I’ll admit I was lazy with my blog, my websites I always make sure validate 
I haven’t worried too much about validating. I figure if it works …… But my blog is driving me crazy with things I want but don’t have. Bit like my life right now really, if I think about it. =)
I love being totally wrapped up in coding though – when I’m in the mood. Especially with some good music pumping, I’m in heaven!
I’d just like to make the ones I have work AND validate. I think I’m somewhat obsessive about it
And I love coding can sit here happily for hours doing that.
Saw your post about this in Twitter. (The TinyUrl took ages to locate the page, but I suppose it’s very busy.) I sometimes validate my main website pages, and get Dreamweaver to put them in XHTML (or is it XML?) Transitional – but never thought to validate my blog. Interesting! Will have a go, though I don’t know if I dare tinker too much with the code if I find faults, as I only know ‘Get By In HTML’!
Thanks for posting about it. I am shocked that WordPress stuff is so poorly written! You would have thought that the programmers would take a bit more trouble.
See you next LVS session!
I do all my page editing in notepad++ and the tricky part was matching up all of the div’s since some of them don’t close on each page but in the footer.
Yeah I’m surprised with all the plugins and widgets that don’t validate. I’m sure they can be made to.
Hi Sliloh,
This sounds terribly complicated and clever. I think I will stick to letting wordpress do it all for me (though it’s time I updated my website, I must say).
quirkyartist’s last blog post..More handmade boxes
It was a bear but I’m glad I have most of it straightened out
Ha… don’t even think I’ll go there yet. I do need some counsel, though. Will have to PM you from somewhere.
Barb Hartsook @OverCoffeeBlog’s last blog post..How Do You Find the Time to……..?
I have a question here — how’s come the Do Follow’s are not up to date? Everywhere I go, How Do You Find the Time to…..? shows up under my comments. That was about 6 or 7 blog posts ago. Hmm…..
Barb Hartsook @OverCoffeeBlog’s last blog post..How Do You Find the Time to……..?
I think it has to do with your Feed or Feedburner Barb. I found this thread about it: http://www.fiddyp.co.uk/support/not-pulling-latest-post-t11.html
trying again…
Barb Hartsook’s last blog post..How Do You Find the Time to……..?
[...] Hope this helps, someday I might tackle the issue of actually making your widgets validate. I’m obsessive about valid code and was real surprised when I tackled my blog and found out how many plugins and widgets don’t validate! [...]