BUGS: WordPress Editor Bungles HTML Causing Validation Failure & Other Gripes

I am using WordPress 2.7.

I want to offer feedback that the WordPress editor bungles the HTML code of posts if one tries to undo formatting. I am referring to the normal editor, not any plug-in or the HTML editor.

I tried validating my HTML output (w3.validator.org) a few times this week and all attempts at validation resulted in failure. The reason is that the WordPress editor leaves in extraneous tags which should not be there.

Emtpy Span Tags
The W3 validator reports 71 errors on my homepage HTML output. There are span tags littered all over the place. I’m not checking every one, but most of them appear to be opening and closing tags right next to each other with nothing between them. The span tags are empty.

Open Paragraph Tags
Then, I also have numerous open paragraph tags all over the place. How the did those get in there? In the HTML output, there are sometimes two open paragraph tags right next to each other. How is this happening? What is causing this?

I looked at the posts in the database and noticed nothing unusual. Perhaps the WordPress code that is generating the output is inserting extraneous paragraph tags. Maybe some extra newline or return codes got into the datbase by the editor or something. At this point, I do not know.

Empty List Item Tags
Using the editor to put in a bulleted list also leaves empty tags if you should attempt to remove a line.

Table Header Tag Output Bungled
Then, there is the issue of tables. As we all know, the WordPress editor does not support tables. Those have to be entered manually by hand. Table header tags <th> are not rendered properly by WordPress. I looked in the database and they appear to be fine. But when WordPress generates the output, it substitutes a paragraph tag in place of the table header (th) tag.

An editor that bungles HTML code is of little value. The WordPress editor needs a lot of work before it is of any real use. Otherwise, it is just screwing up HTML code resulting in validation failures.

Multiple Draft Versions Of Posts Remain In The Database
I just checked my database and noticed that every draft that I saved manually, and was possibly saved automatically by the WordPress editor, remains in the database. Why would I want to take up space in the database unnecessarily by keeping 10 or 20 copies of drafts? This is stupid and unnecessary. I guess I will have to manually remove HUNDREDS of useless drafts that I neither want to keep nor have any use for. There should be a separate table for drafts. When a draft is published, it should be into the the “posts” table. Everything including the trash can and kitchen sink should not be stored in the posts table!!!

WordPress 2.7 admin section is slow.
Doing a search for ‘wordpress 2.7 slow’ reveals that many others think that the admin panel is slow. That’s because it is.

Javascript intensive editor slows down typing
I am using a reasonably fast computer with a 1.7 GHz CPU. The javascript in the post editor really slows down typing and hampers writing progress. My initial suspicion is that it is the event-driven javascript that updates the word count statistic at the bottom of the post screen. A word count feature is nice, but it does not need to be triggered with every keystroke. As I said, I am using a respectably fast computer. Any post of more than 500 words or so causes noticeable lag between the keystroke and the movement of the cursor.

Final opinion.
I like WordPress a lot. But this version 2.7 is not ready for prime time, I don’t think. I feel that the developers of WordPress should keep new versions in Beta a little longer before issuing a final release. If that had been the case with 2.7, the slowness and other issues, some of which I have mentioned above, could have been worked on.

I am sure the many thousands of people (if not millions) who use WordPress want the best possible. I will bet the developers feel the same way.

Thank you for taking the time to read my feedback. If you have any questions or comments for me, my email is [email protected].