[Playlist] Ready to go: New validator and "Valid XSPF" button

[Sebastian Pipping]

Hello again, I have some fresh XSPF news for you:



== Overview ==
The shortest possible summary of this mail probably is:

  (1) The Online XSPF Validator has moved to
      http://validator.xspf.org/

  (2) The validator's source code has been released

  (3) The "Valid XSPF" button is ready to go

Also at the end a description on GET usage (4) and
the current issues (5) of the validator.

Let's got for the details...



== (1, 2) Online Validator ==
Thanks to Ralph (giles), Silvia (nessy/ginger) and Robert (rbu)
the Online XSPF Validator now is hosted on Xiph ground:

   http://validator.xspf.org/

In addition the source code has been released under GPL
and can be found here:

   https://trac.xiph.org/browser/websites/validator.xspf.org

To minimize breaking links the old location (http://xspf.binera.de/)
is still working and from now on redirecting to the new location.
GET parameters are passed over as well.

Please use the new location from now on and update any
links you come across.



== (3) The "Valid XSPF" Button ==
Websites producing valid XSPF files can now show that they care
about interoperability: We have been working on a button and the
related HTML code so caring people have one more way to spread
the word. Here it is:

   <a href="http://validator.xspf.org/referrer/"><img src="valid-xspf.png"
   width="88" height="33" style="border:0" alt="Valid XSPF Playlist"
   title="This website produces valid XSPF playlist files" /></a>

The "referrer" suffix will let the validator work in an auto-
validation mode later. The image file can be found here:

   https://trac.xiph.org/browser/websites/xspf.org/images/banners

Please copy it over to your server instead of linking to Xiph's
image directly.

That's it for the most important things.
Have fun with button and validator and report bugs please.



== (4) Appendix A: Direct HTTP-GET usage of the validator ==
I said it somewhere on the list before but I think it should
be said here again:

The validator can also be used in HTTP-GET mode:

  * Validate an URL:
    ?url=<percent_encoded_URL_to_check>

  * Validate XSPF text:
    ?submitPasted=Submit&pasted=<utf8_encoded_XSPF_text>



== (5) Appendix B: Current validator issues ==
* The referrer mode is not implemented yet. Plan is to
  parse the referring website for links to XSPF files
  and batch validate them. If you have concrete ideas
  how to do this or what to do instead please share them.

* The validator currently does not check URIs for validity
  because Python does not come with an RFC compliant
  URI parser. It is worked on a Python bindings for
  the uriparser library and as soon as it is ready I
  will try to make the validator use it.

* XML namespaces are not fully supported yet.
  libSpiff has this but it hasn't been ported over to
  the validator yet.

* Whitespace bugs may still be in there.
  Also to be ported over from libSpiff.

* Poor testability. Yes, it's true. The validator
  code currently not very testable. The reason it works
  well in most cases is that it's a more or less
  direct copy of the libSpiff implementation (both based
  on Expat) which is testable and tested. It cannot stay
  that way forever nevertheless.

* Bad code/layout separation.



Sebastian