If its a requirement that all templates have proper validated code before release then why isn’t this happening? I could at any time put the top 20 newest templates in any category through the validator and most will have lots of warnings and errors.
Any chance of a moderator or somebody from themeforest adding to this thread, it really is a big issue and it obvious its not being checked before the themes go live.
It would be great to get an answer, I have taken this up with support in the past and was advised that proper validated code is a requirement, so why is this blatantly not happening.
I actually agree with you on this but I do think that buyers/reviewers etc. need to consider what the errors are and the accuracy of checker tools and what impact they have.
e.g. whatever tool you use like W3 is not 100% accurate and some results make little to no difference on the file, certain elements or code force errors that cannot be avoided etc.
I agree with you, & on that basis I think a buyer negative review should not be based on code validation error reasons, any author I have contacted for help has agreed to help me fix them which is great.
But most of the errors I am seeing can be avoided & they do impact on seo no matter how trivial unfortunately.
(edited earlier post, great to get a reply, thank you)
Hi everyone, this has been brought to the attention of the ThemeForest review team for investigation. I’ll ask them to reply here once it’s been looked into further.
Thanks for raising this. I can confirm that it is a requirement for all author generated code to pass the W3 validator and that items that don’t validate will be soft-rejected. This is our current requirement:
All author-generated HTML needs to be validated via the W3C validator. However, browser prefixes and any other cutting edge code will be exempt.
We understand that some of the errors caught by the W3C validator are marginal and we will be revisiting this requirement at some point in the future. However, we do currently review for this requirement.
We do work hard to ensure consistency within the review process. We’ve checked a few of of the newer items and found them to meet the requirements, but we will ensure that all reviewers are checking for this going forward.
@StephenCronin thanks for the reply. @johnmc65 This validator does not check so accurately. Sometimes lines of code appear as errors, but these are only the conflicts and are non significant.
Reviewers are people and while there’s a rule for all of them, some of these errors might pass some reviewers but not others. It’s a matter of subjectivity. For example, our latest template was sent to “Soft Reject” cause a placeholder banner had no ALT attribute (though it’s supposed to be replace with Google Ads code or something) and a FORM tag - used for design show off - had an empty ACTION attribute. Different levels of subjectivity for different reviewers. Gotta admit we got a bit lazy and while these were not seriously strong errors, they could have been sorted in less than 5 minutes.
Now, after 13 days in queue, more days to come for an ALT and an ACTION. So, bottom line: validate period. You can’t be sure who’ll review it and if they’ll be more indulgent than others and with the queue these days…
As a buyer this happens a lot where I have narrowed down a design for a new website to 3 or 4 preferred themes but cannot decide, I check the W3C and 1 of the 4 has no errors and no warnings so decision made & I purchase this theme.
I have 2 main reasons for this, the first is that its very comforting to know that a Theme Developer has went to the trouble of sorting out even the most insignificant errors and warnings and in turn tells me that this template is most likely going to be built to a high standard.
The second is that as a buyer looking at a page of errors and warnings I really don’t know immediately what is insignificant and what isn’t. Yes I could go over it in detail and work it all out but I rarely do.
Not sure if this helps but I guess as a developer you would want to make your template as appealing as possible & code validation is something I know I always check.