Validating page with "embed" command

I.N. Galidakis · Apr 29, 2008

After spending some time validating my webpages for transitional 4.01 HTML I
find that some pages of mine which contain the "embed" audio/video command fail
stubbornly to validate. For example, my music page:

http://ioannis.virtualcomposer2000.com/music/index.html

fails because of the embedded music command:

<embed src="Fugue_BWV_999_g.mid" hidden="false" border="0" width="310"
height="16" autostart="true" autoplay="true" loop="false" volume="58%">

Is there any way to make this page pass the validation test?

Many thanks,

Jukka K. Korpela · Apr 29, 2008

Scripsit I.N. Galidakis:

After spending some time validating my webpages for transitional 4.01
HTML I find that some pages of mine which contain the "embed"
audio/video command fail stubbornly to validate.

That's no wonder, since the embed "command" does not belong to HTML 4.01
at all.

<embed src="Fugue_BWV_999_g.mid" hidden="false" border="0" width="310"
height="16" autostart="true" autoplay="true" loop="false"
volume="58%">

That's user-unfriendly. I was listening to Sibelius on my computer, and
visiting your page, this gets intrerrupted by some BWV noise. At least
change "true" to "false".

Is there any way to make this page pass the validation test?

Surely; use a DTD that allows the embed element; e.g. with
<!DOCTYPE HTML SYSTEM "http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/html/tagsoup.dtd">
modifying it with the attributes you consider as appropriate; see
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/html/own-dtd.html

Jonathan N. Little · Apr 29, 2008

Jukka said:
Scripsit I.N. Galidakis:

That's no wonder, since the embed "command" does not belong to HTML 4.01
at all.

That's user-unfriendly. I was listening to Sibelius on my computer, and
visiting your page, this gets intrerrupted by some BWV noise. At least
change "true" to "false".

Surely; use a DTD that allows the embed element; e.g. with
<!DOCTYPE HTML SYSTEM "http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/html/tagsoup.dtd">
modifying it with the attributes you consider as appropriate; see
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/html/own-dtd.html

Careful Jukka, the OP may not catch the sarcasm.

To OP, the best solution is just remove the embed. Chances are your
visitor to not really want to hear the Fugue. You can give them the
option with a simple link, and it will pass validation.

<p>If you really want to hear <a href="Fugue_BWV_999_g.mid">JSB's
Prelude in C Minor</a>!</p>

Travis Newbury · Apr 30, 2008

After spending some time validating my webpages for transitional 4.01 HTML I
find that some pages of mine which contain the "embed" audio/video command fail
stubbornly to validate.

So what. Does the page work correctly?

Validation is a tool. NOT a goal.

Jukka K. Korpela · May 1, 2008

Scripsit Jonathan N. Little:

Jukka K. Korpela wrote: [...]

Surely; use a DTD that allows the embed element; e.g. with
<!DOCTYPE HTML SYSTEM
"http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/html/tagsoup.dtd"> modifying it with
the attributes you consider as appropriate; see
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/html/own-dtd.html

Click to expand...

Careful Jukka, the OP may not catch the sarcasm.

There was no sarcasm in my message, including the part quoted above,
where I answer the direct question.

To OP, the best solution is just remove the embed.

I think I said that, indirectly but not sarcastically. _This_ would have
been sarcastic:

which guarantees all said:
You can give them the
option with a simple link, and it will pass validation.

Surely that's almost always the best approach. The technical answer to
the technical question still stands.

Besides, real multimedia isn't strictly illegal, and it may actually
make sense and not just noise on the web. For example, you could have an
HTML page containing embedded music, embedded video, text, and images,
telling a story better than any of these media forms alone could tell.
Of course, to avoid nasty surprises to visitors, authors should not link
to such pages except with explicit warnings about content, and any
reasonable effort should be made to keep them out of search engine
databases (and to create versions without such embedding and with links
to multimedia versions, with any reasonable effort to make search
engines index _these_ pages).

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Validating page with "embed" command

I.N. Galidakis

Jukka K. Korpela

Jonathan N. Little

Travis Newbury

Jukka K. Korpela

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