Re: Proposed change to checkpoint 5.3

While a few people have expressed some support for my proposed rewording of
5.3 (and I thank you), I think that Jason's most recent attempt (5.3 and
5.4 below) is very good and pretty succinctly captures his previous
comments.  This wording gives us (authors) the flexibility we need to work
with the current crop of agents and yet leads us not into temptation
(pardon the ever expanding and probably irreligious religious theme I
started.) <Grin>

Cheers!
Chuck

At 16/04/99 12:12 AM , Jason White wrote:
>
>A formulation similar to the following might be appropriate (comments are
>welcome):
>
>"5.3: Avoid using tables for layout unless the required formatting effects
>can not be achieved with style language features supported by user agents.
>(Priority 2).
>
>[Note discussing the evolution of style sheet positioning and the
>anticipated implementation of this capability by user agents, and pointing
>out that layout tables constitute an abuse of HTML markup as defined in
>W3C Recommendations on HTML.]
>
>5.4 If tables are used for layout, (a) do not use TH cells to produce
>special font effects; this will also enable screen readers, braille or
>speech-based browsers, etc., to distinguish layout tables from those which
>contain genuine tabular information. (b) Ensure that within the table
>cells, correct markup is used to convey the structure of the document
>(including headings, paragraphs, lists, etc.), and that an appropriate
>reading order would be preserved if the table were linearized. See also
>checkpoints 3.2, 3.3 and 3.4.
>
>Priority 2
>
>Note: Some screen readers can not decolumnize tables. It is therefore
>necessary to avoid the use of layout tables, or provide an alternative
>page, if a multi-column format is desired. See checkpoint 10.3."
>
>In the glossary, definition of linearization as applied to tables:
>ignoring table-related markup, etc.
>
>

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Received on Friday, 16 April 1999 12:42:32 UTC