Problems with "onload" and XHTML Validation - php

Question

My name is Manuel, I am a web design student and am starting to take my first steps with web design. Recently I tried to validate
this site:
http://accesosnormalizados.com
I used the W3C validator, at first I found about 30 errors, and can correct them all except one that says: 'there is no attribute
"onload"'.
Apparently not support XHTML onload tag, and I use a Joomla extension called Vertical Menu using onload. This is a free extension and works well but I have found it has some bugs, especially when validating the website.
This is the PHP code for extension:
get( 'menutype', 'mainmenu' );
$qry = "SELECT id, name,parent, link,type,browserNav FROM #__menu WHERE menutype = '".$menutype."' AND published = 1 ORDER BY ordering";
$database->setQuery($qry);
$rows = $database->loadObjectList();
if(isset($GLOBALS['vertical_menu'])) $GLOBALS['vertical_menu']++;
else $GLOBALS['vertical_menu'] = 0;
function getMenuChildList($rows, $parentId) {
$childRows = array();
foreach ($rows as $row) {
if ($row->parent == $parentId) {
$childRows[] = $row;
}
}
return $childRows;
}
function drawVerticalMenu($rows, $showsubcats, $parentId = 0) {
$categories = $showsubcats || !$parentId ? getMenuChildList($rows, $parentId) : array();
if ($parentId) {
if (!count($categories)) {
echo '';
return;
} else echo '';
echo '';
} else echo '';
echo '';
foreach ($categories as $category) {
$link = $category->link. (preg_match("/^http:\/\/|^https:\/\//",$category->link)? "" : '&Itemid='.$category->id);
$blank = $category->browserNav? ' target="_blank" ' : ' ';
echo 'id.'" class="menu">'.$category->name.' ';
drawVerticalMenu($rows, $showsubcats, $category->id);
}
echo '';
if ($parentId && count($categories)) echo '';
}
$document = &JFactory::getDocument();
$document->addScript('https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/dojo/1.5.0/dojo/dojo.xd.js');
$document->addScript('modules/mod_vertical_menu/script/menu.js');
$document->addStyleSheet('modules/mod_vertical_menu/style/menu.css');
$document->addCustomTag('
div#MenuContainer'.$GLOBALS['vertical_menu'].' table#VerticalMenu'.$GLOBALS['vertical_menu'].' {
width: '.$params->get('categorymenu_width', 150).'px;
opacity: '.$params->get('categorymenu_out', 0.8).';
FILTER: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Alpha(Opacity='.($params->get('categorymenu_out', 0.8)*100).');
}
');
echo '';
drawVerticalMenu($rows, $params->get('show_subcats', 1));
echo 'get('categorymenu_out', 0.8).',over : '.$params->get('categorymenu_over', 1).',duration : '.$params->get('categorymenu_fade', 300).',id : '.$GLOBALS['vertical_menu'].',width : '.$params->get('categorymenu_width', 150).'});" alt=""/>';
echo '';
?>
The problem is at the end:
echo '';
drawVerticalMenu($rows, $params->get('show_subcats', 1));
echo 'get('categorymenu_out', 0.8).',over : '.$params->get('categorymenu_over', 1).',duration : '.$params->get('categorymenu_fade', 300).',id : '.$GLOBALS['vertical_menu'].',width : '.$params->get('categorymenu_width', 150).'});" alt=""/>';
echo '';
?>
I think the extension uses the onload event to display the sub-menus when the user moves the mouse pointer over it.
What I want is to replace the onload with other event handler or some other label that is supported by XHTML and that is as similar to onload.
I would appreciate your help ...

Answer 1

You can remove the onload attributes and then add some simple javaScript to your page to run some functions when the page finishes loading.
It would look something like this:
<script>
window.onload=function(){
new WW.VerticalMenu({out : 1,over : 1,duration : 300,id : 0,width : 180}); // example of one of the functions being run
};
</script>
Good luck with your studies

Answer 2

It appears the source comes out like this right
<img src="/modules/mod_vertical_menu/images/center.gif" style="display:none" onload="new WW.VerticalMenu({out : 1,over : 1,duration : 300,id : 0,width : 180});" alt=""/>
As that looks like imho an unsavoury method of instantiating the menu I would try and loose that attribute completely by removing the offending php echo section and instead add javascript to load
as this is using dojo maybe this will help -- sorry I do not use dojo
http://mail.dojotoolkit.org/pipermail/dojo-interest/2012-May/066106.html
so php wise this would be
echo '<img src="modules/mod_vertical_menu/images/center.gif" style="display:none" alt=""/>'; echo '</div>';
echo "<script>" ."javascript or dojo script here ".</script>"
I would even suggest removing the image and using the window onload advocated below if you can