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<!--#set var="title" value="Developer Documentation for The W3C Markup Validation Service"
--><!--#set var="relroot" value="../"
--><!--#include virtual="../header.html" -->

<div class="doc">
<h2>Installation and development information <br />for the W3C Markup Validator</h2>

<h3 id="TableOfContents">Table of Contents</h3>

    <div id="toc">
      <ul>
	<li><a href="#participate">Participate</a></li>
        <li><a href="#devel-frame">Development Framework</a>
	  <ul>
		<li><a href="#bug">Bugs and Issue Tracking</a></li>
		<li><a href="#test">Test suite</a></li>
        	<li><a href="#todo">TODO</a></li>
	  </ul>
	</li>
      </ul>
    </div>
    
    <p>
    <a id="skip" name="skip"></a>
      This document is an overview of how developers can modify the Markup Validator, and how to contribute
      to the development of the project. It is intended for system administrators and developers.
      <strong>This is not end user documentation</strong>. See the <a href="users.html">User Manual</a> for usage instructions.
    </p>
	
     <h3><a id="participate" name="participate"></a>Participating in the development of the Markup Validator</h3>
     <p>The Markup Validator is managed as an open source project by a <a href="http://www.w3.org/QA/Tools/qa-dev/">team 
     of volunteer developers and people from the W3C Team</a>.</p>
     <p> Help on this project is always welcome, usually as <a href="../feedback.html">feedback</a>,
     but developers may also be interested in working directly on the code, which is certainly encouraged.</p>

     <p>This document tries to give a general overview of the development framework for the Markup Validator, and
     should help developers get a good idea of how the project is managed.</p>
     <p>The next steps would certainly be to read about <a href="../source/">source availability</a> and then try 
     a <a href="install.html">local installation</a> of the validator, if not done yet. We also (obviously) recommend
     to get in touch with other developers, either through <a href="../feedback.html">regular means</a>, or on the
     IRC channel #validator on irc.freenode.net where many developers and contributors often are.</p>

     <h3><a name="devel-frame" id="devel-frame"></a>Development Framework</h3>

	<h4><a id="bug" name="bug"></a>Bug and Issue Tracking System</h4>
      <p>
        Bug and Issue Tracking for the Validator happens in the <a
          href="http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/">W3C Public Bugzilla</a>
        instance. Developers should feel free to set up an account
        and report bugs, enhancement requests, patches, etc. directly there
        (end users should continue to send reports and ideas to the 
	<a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator/">mailing list</a>).
      </p>
      <h4><a id="test" name="test"></a>Test suite</h4>

       <p>
         Any changes to the service will attempt to maintain
         compatibility with a <a href="../dev/tests/">list of test cases</a>.
       </p>

       <p>The validator has an <a href="http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/markup-validator/file/tip/misc/testsuite/">automated test suite</a> which is used 
           frequently to check that no change has broken any feature or resurfaced a bug. Whenever possible, join a <em>test case</em>
           with your patches.</p>
           
       <p><em>example</em>: for a patch for the detection of document encoding in the &lt;head&gt;, join as a test case a simple 
           HTML document with encoding information in the &lt;head&gt;, and another document without.</p>


      <h4><a id="todo" name="todo"></a>TODO</h4>
      <p>
        The TODO list for the Validator is online at
        &lt;<a href="../todo.html">http://validator.w3.org/todo.html</a>&gt;.
 	      This is probably the best place to start.
 	    </p>
      <p>
        However this list is by no means comprehensive. Feel free to suggest
        other features that should be on this list or send patches for your
        favourite feature.
      </p>
      <p>
        Keep in mind that features should be of general utility and that the
        point if the validator is that it does an <em>objective</em>
        validation instead of just what some random developer happens to
        think is a Good Idea&reg;. While extra features are nice, they
        shouldn't dilute the value of the validator as an objective check.
      </p>


</div>
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</html>