Timbru

Dave H. on his weblog: Once the parser is finished, I then display the Web page, but with a badge of shame, namely an error report at the top that lists all of the discovered errors. This is not a halt-at-first-error system, which is cool, since it means you’ll see *all* the errors in your page and not just one.

I think the idea of obtrusive error reporting is GREAT! However, I don’t like it when the error report is mixed with the page content. I find better the way IE reports JavaScript errors. You get a small alert triangle in the status bar instead; double click it and you get the full report.

I like even more the way the browser in Macromedia Contribute warns the users about any page-related problems or features. Some sort of status bar slides in from under the address bar and you see a summary of the errors in the page. See a screen-shot here. This bar may include other all types of errors, like not-found linked files and JavaScript errors.

I think the status bar could be used instead, but I prefer the yellow Contribute status pop-down.

Update: Here a little something about how I see the obtrusive error reporting in Safari.

5 XML errors details, 3 linked files not found details, 4 JavaScript errors details.