Is it possible to add HTML5 validation to Visual Studio?

Question

I'm working on a page using <canvas>, which is a HTML5 tag, in Visual Web Developer Express Edition 2008, and the validator in the HTML editor is telling me it's an invalid tag. That's because it's set to validate against XHTML 1.0 Transitional. I'd prefer for it to not do that and tell me what's valid or invalid based on the HTML5 doctype, but I can't find anywhere in the preferences that suggests this would be possible.

Is there a way to tell Visual Studio to validate against HTML5, or add a new spec reference manually? I'd prefer not to have to go in and add tags manually, which appears to be the only option at the moment.

Answer 1

You can define your own validation standards.

You need to add the file to the folder in VS install, and add to the registry.

This is the description I used (HTML and CSS have a very similar approach): http://blogs.msdn.com/mikhailarkhipov/archive/2007/10/19/how-to-create-custom-css-intellisense-schema-in-visual-studio-2005-and-2008.aspx

Answer 2

I created a validation schema that you're free to use: http://johndyer.name/post/2009/07/21/HTML5-XHTML5-Validation-Schema-for-Visual-Studio-2008.aspx

Answer 3

It looks like the Visual Web Developer team solved the problem by adding HTML5 support themselves: http://blogs.msdn.com/webdevtools/archive/2009/11/18/html-5-intellisense-and-validation-schema-for-visual-studio-2008-and-visual-web-developer.aspx

You all probably know that new HTML 5 standard is coming. We made a new intellisense schema that you can add to VS 2008 or VWD Express 2008 and get intellisense and validation on HTML 5 elements.