Guidelines

There seems to be a gap in the guidelines - this is certainly a 
perception of the UA group - which do not adequately deal with "dynamic 
HTML".

There are several things that leap to mind.

1. For automatically generated websites (eg sites produced by 
database-backed systems, perl scripts, etc) ensure that the output is 
valid and accessible HTML.

2. The use of 'event' attributes (onMouseOver, onFocus, etc) can cause 
problems, because only some of these events have keyboard (let alone 
voice-input) equivalents. I think this is one that needs to be talked 
through with UA, PF and DOM (the groups that spring immediately to mind) 
but a sensible first pass would be to suggest that only those events 
which can be described as logical rather than device-dependent (onSubmit and 
onChange are the two which spring to mind, although with a little help 
from our friends it should be possible to expand the repertoire, and UA 
are dealing with this problem at the moment) should be used.

3. The future use of 'DHTML' for such joys as group editing (which is 
currently possible in Lotus Notes I think), very flash displays, 
context-sensitive information, and all those things I can't make out 
(even from the shoulders of the giants I ride) look likely to ensure that 
we need to revisit the techniques document, and the more 'technically 
specific' guidelines, often in consultation with the UA group at least. 
That gives us all more to look forward to.

Charles McCathieNevile

Received on Thursday, 22 October 1998 04:35:36 UTC