mews.page/spec/NOTES.md
randogoth 060d4e00fd refactor: split the repo into self-contained validator, directory, quickstart, spec and site folders
validator/ holds mewslint (lint, css, fetch, DTD/CSS data); directory/ holds
the mews.page service (app, db, check, pages, cli) and depends on validator/;
quickstart/ holds mews-quickstart and md2mews.py for third parties who want
to create Mews content without cloning the repo; spec/ consolidates doc/ and
dtd/ with the canonical mews-0.1.css; site/ becomes a Pelican project with
the forward-facing pages as Markdown, the check form kept as a raw HTML
snippet. Root pyproject.toml is now a virtual uv workspace over validator,
directory and quickstart, with cross-cutting tests that span more than one
of them staying at the repo root. Makefile and flake.nix updated to match.
2026-10-13 12:29:23 +03:00

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# Known issues
Things that are true of the implementation but not yet of the spec, or the other
way round. Each one is a decision waiting to be made, not a bug to work around.
## The hosted XHTML-MP DTD cannot validate offline
Section 9.1 says the project hosts a copy of the original XHTML-MP 1.2 DTD "so
validation never depends on the Open Mobile Alliance's server." The copy in
`spec/xhtml-mobile12.dtd` is only the OMA *driver*: it pulls about twenty-two
modules from `http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-modularization/DTD/*.mod`, one module
from openmobilealliance.org, and a relative `xhtml-mobile12-model-1.mod` that is
not in this repository. Hosting it therefore removes one network dependency and
leaves the rest.
It does not affect Mews validation. `spec/mews-0.1.dtd` is self-contained, and
the only thing the declared doctype has to provide is the character entity set,
which `validator/mews/lint.py` builds in memory from `html.entities` — the same
252 names, no network, nothing to keep in sync.
Two ways out, when it matters: reword 9.1 to say the hosted copy is a
convenience, or vendor the modules under `spec/xhtml-mobile12/` with a
public-ID resolver. Only the second would let a test prove section 3's claim
that every page passing the Mews DTD is also valid XHTML-MP 1.2 apart from
`lang` and `dir`.
## The head element order is normative, and surprising
`<!ELEMENT head ( title, meta, ( meta | link )* )>` means the title comes first
and at least one meta follows it, so a `<link>` before the first `<meta>` is
invalid. That follows section 3.3, but 3.3 does not say the order is normative,
and the validator's message has to explain it. Worth a sentence in the spec.
## The copies under validator/mews/data
`validator/mews/data/mews-0.1.css` and `validator/mews/data/mews-0.1.dtd` are
copies of the canonical files in `spec/`. They exist so the validator finds
them when it is installed as a wheel with nothing else on disk. `tests/test_data.py` fails if a copy drifts from its original.