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04 Jan 2004 : A new version of BBTidy that supports text with multi-byte characters and BBEdit v7.x is now available.

14 Dec 2003 : The FTP site is temporarily unavailable.

17 Aug 2003 : Finally, an updated version of MacTidy (only), that fixes a number of bugs and adds new features. New versions of the other Tidy for Mac OS products will be coming in the future.

17 Feb 2002 : The Tidy project is now hosted on SourceForge. Many bugs have been fixed, and several new features have been added to the base Tidy source code. New versions of Tidy for Mac OS will be available sometime in the future - please keep checking here for announcements. Alternative download links are now available. My EMail address has changed again - please see below for the new address.

Introduction

When editing HTML it's easy to make mistakes. Wouldn't it be nice if there was a simple way to fix these mistakes automatically and tidy up sloppy editing into nicely laid out markup? Well now there is! Tidy for Mac OS is designed for doing just that. Tidy for Mac OS checks and corrects HTML and XML to make it compliant with the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) HTML standards.

Tidy for Mac OS also works great on the atrociously hard to read markup generated by specialized HTML editors and conversion tools, and can help you identify where you need to pay further attention on making your pages more accessible to people with disabilities.

Tidy for Mac OS is able to fix up a wide range of problems and to bring to your attention things that you need to work on yourself. Each item found is listed with the line number and column so that you can see where the problem lies in your markup. Tidy for Mac OS won't generate a cleaned up version when there are problems that it can't be sure of how to handle. These are logged as "errors" rather than "warnings".

Tidy for Mac OS corrects the markup in a way that matches where possible the observed rendering in popular browsers from Netscape and Microsoft.

Tidy for Mac OS is based on the freely available Tidy program by Dave Raggett. Tidy for Mac OS performs in a compatible way to the standard command line driven Tidy, but has a graphical user interface (GUI), and takes advantage of Mac OS features. Several different versions of Tidy for Mac OS are available, depending on your environment and needs.

Tidy was originally written by Dave Raggett, and is now maintained by a group of developers as an open source project on SourceForge. Tidy is freely available for a number of platforms.

For more information on Tidy, visit the Tidy project home page on SourceForge or the original Tidy project home page.

The original source is Copyright © 1988-2004 W3C.

Product Line

Several different versions of Tidy for Mac OS are available :

• "BBTidy" - a plugin for the popular BBEdit text editor, that allows you to "tidy" HTML and XML source "on-the-fly".A Carbon version for Mac OS X is available.

  For more information on BBEdit, visit Bare Bones Software's web site, or EMail support.

• "MacTidy" - a standalone application that uses a graphical user interface (GUI). This allows quick porting of the "Tidy" source with minimal changes at the expense of slightly less flexibility.

  A Carbon version for Mac OS X is available.

• "TidyHTML" - a FilterTop filter - FilterTop provides a graphical user interface (GUI) and many other powerful features (Screen dump preview).

  For more information on FilterTop, visit TopSoft's web site.

• "MPWTidy" - a MPW tool version, complete with Commando interface.

  For more information on MPW, visit Apple Computer's developer web site.

  To be automatically notified of updates, I recommend using the mailing list subscription feature offered by

System Requirements

Any Macintosh (except Macintosh 128K, Macintosh 512Ke, Macintosh Plus, Macintosh SE, Macintosh Portable, PowerBook 100, Macintosh Classic) running System 7.0 or later (debug versions may require System 7.5 or later). A/UX is also supported.

The "Carbon" versions of MacTidy and BBTidy require Mac OS 8.1 + CarbonLib 1.0.2 or later (Mac OS 8.6 + CarbonLib 1.1 or later), or Mac OS X. At the time of writing, Apple Computer Inc. has made v1.0.4, v1.2.5, v1.3.1, v1.6 of CarbonLib publically available to end-users; other versions are available to members of the Apple Developer Connection.

Disk space required is less than 1 MB; available free memory required is approximately 2 MB minimum, more memory is recommended.

"BBTidy" requires BBEdit or BBEdit Lite. "MPWTidy" requires MPW. "TidyHTML" requires FilterTop.

Download

Files are stored as StuffIt (.sit) binary files, not MacBinary (.bin), and not BinHex (.hqx). You may require an appropriate FTP client and/or settings.

The ".mac" (or iDisk Public Folder for user "teague") web site appears to have more reliable file transfers.

There is not a direct download link to the file on the iDisk - look in the "2. Tidy" folder.

The FTP site is temporarily unavailable using FTP, but can be accessed via the AppleTalk Filing Protocol (AFP) - i.e. AppleShare.

• "BBTidy" v1.0b10 (released 04 Jan 04, based on Tidy sources of 01 Dec 02) - a plugin for BBEdit; you will also need BBEdit or BBEdit Lite (BBEdit Lite is freely available from Bare Bones Software, Inc.). A Carbon version for Mac OS X is available.

  [HTTP | iDisk | Alt. HTTP | AFP]

• "MacTidy" v1.0b14 (released 16 Aug 03, based on Tidy sources of 01 Dec 02) - a standalone application for Mac OS that uses a graphical user interface. A Carbon version for Mac OS X is available.

  [HTTP | iDisk | Alt. HTTP | AFP]

• "TidyHTML" v1.0b13 (released 07 Jan 01, based on Tidy sources of 04 Aug 00) - a FilterTop filter; you will also need to download FilterTop (v1.0.x release or v1.1 pre-release), which is freely available from TopSoft, Inc.

  [HTTP | iDisk | Alt. HTTP | AFP]

• "MPWTidy" v1.0b4 (released 04 Nov 00, based on Tidy sources of 04 Aug 00) - a MPW tool; you will also need MPW, which is freely available from Apple Computer, Inc.

  [HTTP | iDisk | Alt. HTTP | AFP]

The FTP (and web) server operated by TopSoft, Inc. runs on a Power Macintosh G3 with a high bandwidth connection to the Internet. The server runs AppleShare IP, so if you are a Macintosh user with an AppleShare client (Chooser) of v3.7.x and later (Mac OS 7.6.x and later), you can mount the FTP site directly in Finder with Chooser (ftp.topsoft.org).

Online Support

I am thinking of using Userland's Manila software to provide online support. To this end, I have created the Tidy for Mac OS Support site. It is not quite ready for prime time yet.

Online Documentation

Documentation is now available online for BBTidy and MacTidy. The same documentation is provided as part of the downloadable packages.

Change History

04 Jan 04 :

BBTidy v1.0b10

Updated to last "Tidy Classic" source of 01 Dec 02 (many bug fixes and features added since 04 Aug 00). Added support for updated configuration dialog, including character encoding popup menu, more config options dialog. Added support for multi-byte savvy versions of BBEdit. Updated to latest version of BBEdit Plug-In SDK. Added Preferences ResEdit template resource ('TMPL'). Use later versions of BBEdit callbacks where available. Changed way multi-byte text is handled. Added BBEdit plug-in info "plist" resource. Rewrote the documentation (replacing all previous separate documentation pieces). Fixed bug in config dialog event filter function - crash would occur on older Systems when an update event was received - removed UpdateDialog() call.

17 Aug 03 :

MacTidy v1.0b14

Updated the base "tidy" source code to the latest version available (01 Dec 02) for "classic" Tidy (future versions of MacTidy will use a new base "tidy" source code, called TidyLib). This version of the base "tidy" source code fixes many bugs, and adds many new features since the previous release - too many to list here.

Output actual tab chars rather than spaces, to be compatible with versions of Tidy on other platforms.

Add support for the Character Encoding popup menu.

Add support for a separate dialog for additional configuration options specified on the command line.

Add support for input files with no filetype/creator.

Dim/undim the controls on the main dialog when a second dialog/Alert is being displayed/dismissed.

Changed initialization code to support checking for 68000 based machines when compiled as 68020 code.

Balloon Help updated for the new dialog layout. Improvements to the dialog layout for Mac OS X Aqua GUI.

"Read Me First" documentation rewritten and delivered as a PDF document.

07 Jan 01 :

MacTidy v1.0b13

Fixed a crash on launch bug with the 68K version (when it is checking for A/UX support). Fixed the FAT version to actually have the 68K code included. Fixed the non-Carbon debug versions to check if running under System 7.5 or later, avoiding crashes on older Systems.

TidyHTML v1.0b13

Fix bug with Windows/Mac char mapping tables not being initialized correctly.

Previous change history

Known bugs in "tidy" for all platforms

While there may be bugs in Tidy for Mac OS, specific to the Mac OS platform, there are known bugs that affect the base Tidy code on all platforms. Generally these bugs won't be fixed in the Mac OS specific versions until the next release of the base Tidy source code.

Many of these known bugs only occur in esoteric HTML, and you shouldn't be too concerned.

For a list of known bugs in Tidy for Mac OS, visit the known bugs page.

For a comprehensive list of all known bugs in Tidy for all platforms, visit the Tidy project bug tracker on SourceForge or the "html-tidy" mailing list archive and "tidy-develop" mailing list archive pages.