W3C Proposes Widget 1.0 Standard

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the governing body that determines Internet standards, has a working draft proposing a specification for online widgets.

The proposal covers "small client-side applications for displaying and updating remote data, packaged in a way to allow a single download and installation on a client machine." The standard covers widgets that run on the desktop as well as in the browser.

The W3C says widgets include "clocks, stock tickers, news casters, games and weather forecasters. It also notes that widgets go by many names, including "gadgets" or "modules".

While I can't say I understand all the technical in the spec, what I did find interesting was that it includes "widget autodiscovery." This spec, if approved, would allow Web  browser to recognize when a site has an associated    widget available. It's sounds very similar to RSS autodiscovery.

The W3C is calling for comments on the draft. This should be an interesting development to watch. As I understand it, right now Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Apple - the major proponents of widgets - all have their own formats. Widgets that work on one platform, don't work on the other. (Correct me if I have this wrong.) If the Widgets 1.0 standard is approved, it would alleviate a lot of headaches for developers. On the other hand, thousands of widgets might need to be re-written

Comments

[Amanda Chapel]

Steve,

WTF do you know about standards? Your landing page presently failed validation with 164 errors: http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.micropersuasion.com%2F . Hypocrite or fake geek? (See http://www.strumpette.com/archives/188-Fake-Geeks-and-Big-Boobs.html ). I say both.

- Amanda

[Mike Abundo]

And I'm sure the Amanda construct character has a great coder.

Unfortunately, some of use are real people hand-cobbling our own blogs. I myself register 116 errors, and I don't care. I reach my audiences, valid XHTML 1.0 transitional or otherwise.

On the other hand, I know some annoying bloggers with zero errors right here in the Philippines who've completely alienated their audiences.

[Wayne Smallman]

Hi Steve!

This is interesting news, so thanks for that.

I've got a bit of a Google / Apple / Web Standards theme going on at the minute, so this will keep things going nicely.

It's the kind thing that was begging for a standard, and while I'm sure Apple and Google will no doubt play nicely, question is: will Microsoft? Or will they just 'embrace & extend'?

Oh, by the way, I've got about 40 errors on my company website...

[Shel Holtz]

Mike, the problem with validating a blog using the W3C validator is that each Web page identifies the version of HTML or XHTML that it is using, and the validators expect everything to comply with that version. However, when you pull content in form other sites that use a different standard, it'll show up as an error. For instance, many of the errors showing up in the W3C validator for my site are from the Amazon.com content I pull from the Amazon site. I cannot control the versions they use in order to make sure they comply with my version, so any blog that uses this kind of content -- and there is tons of such content available and used by many bloggers -- won't comply. It's just plain stupid to expect blogs to adhere to that kind of standard unless the blogger intends to draw no content in from other sites (e.g., Technorati, etc.).

[Amanda Chapel]

Shel,

No. Pulling a feed doesn't pull their code standard. It should pull a compliant feed. Now, if you are pulling crap, of course it will not validate.

I pull feeds without any issues.

- Amanda

PS Shel, your site has 117 errors: http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.holtz.com%2F

[Shel Holtz]

Mike, just to clarify, I asked a friend who is a programmer and web developer about the W3C validation (he has no connection to PR, by the way). Here's what he wrote back:

"In short, while I'm sure there are things we could clean up for you,
with all the little java-scrip includes you have, book sales, hot
topics, ads and the like, you may never get your pages to validate.

"Those little scripts likely all validate under a different version of
html or xhtml or xml, but your web page can only be one version as
stated at the very top of your code.

" > "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
>

"Everyone of your affiliate click-graphics would need to validate
under xhtml 1.0 transitional, and I would bet dinner and drinks for
four that they don't."

[John]

I have also try my site to validate with w3c validation and it resulted that i have a lot of errors to fix.

[Amanda Chapel]

Shel,

Again, if you pull crap into your page, it won't validate. The idea with standards is to validate before you post not rationalize crap once it's posted.

Lastly, I particularly noted that you had to ask a programmer, i.e. you have no clue. That’s exactly the hypocrisy of a flack talking tech.

- Amanda

PS Podcast this!

[Marcos Caceres]

I thought we were talking about the widgets spec, not validation issues of this page? It be nice to get back on topic.

[Tim Raines]

It will be quite nice for you, Steve, to be able to look back a year or two from now and know that you absolutely nailed it long before everyone else.

Great job!

[Marcos Caceres]

For the record, validating to xhtml does not mean anything because IE does not support xhtml anyway. Validating to transitional is a waste of time because it is not strict. And even validating to strict is a waste of time unless you serve it as application/xhtml+xml. And serving as application/xhtml+xml is a waste of time because, like I already said, IE does not and will probably never actually support it. And when all browsers support tag soup processing anyway what is the point? You can have a valid page and still write shit code, so unless you are a total n00b validation does not mean shit.

Besides, you can write html code that is just as accessible as xhtml code and only idiots who don't know anything about standards will embarrass themselves commenting on it.... unless you are Amanda's shitty bot, which has no feelings and hence does not care:P