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Bug 23753 - A more informative message for “obsolete permitted DOCTYPE”
Summary: A more informative message for “obsolete permitted DOCTYPE”
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: HTML Checker
Classification: Unclassified
Component: General (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Hardware: PC All
: P2 major
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Michael[tm] Smith
QA Contact: qa-dev tracking
URL: http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html...
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2013-11-07 08:31 UTC by Leif Halvard Silli
Modified: 2013-11-07 08:31 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

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Description Leif Halvard Silli 2013-11-07 08:31:50 UTC
Most obsolete features are errors. The warning message for obsolete permitted doctypes thus makes you wonder why it is a warning - and not an error:t

   “Warning: Obsolete doctype.
    Expected <!DOCTYPE html>.“

For contrast, the error message for the XHTML 1.0 Transitional doctype (which, btw, is an obsolete doctype too despite that the word is not used(!)), hints to the user that the doctype is an error because it *is not* a strict doctype:

   “Error: Almost standards mode doctype.
    Expected <!DOCTYPE html>”

Example of a new text for obsolete permitted doctypes:

   ”Warning: An excessively long, no-quirks/strict standards mode DOCTYPE.
    Expected <!DOCTYPE html>”

('excessively long' is taken from the spec). This example 
  a) uses spec language, 
  b) hints to user *why* it is warned for but permitted:
     because it is a strict mode doctype. 

May be the wording'obsolete permitted DOCTYPE' should be worked into the message as well - not sure it is needed though. May be it is better to follow the pattern for the almost standard mode message, where 'obsolete' is not used.