Re: 3rd try: proposal for marking up groups of links

At 05:36 PM 9/16/99 -0500, thatch@us.ibm.com wrote:
>
>
>Comments on the proposed reqording.
>
>Wendy, your rewording included: quote
> ... appears at the top of a page, a user who is reading
>the page through speech synthesis will have to listen to
>all of those links for each page they visit at the site ...
>endquote.
>
>The example using MAP with block content. 

it is actually only inline content in the example. I think it must be block
in HTML4.0
In anycase <map name="foo"><p>...some links</p></map> should do it.

>I am disappointed to say that:
>1. HPR does not today handle the MAP element with block content. I just
assumed
>we did.

what do you mean "does not handle"? does it render the content or not?

>2. Netscape and IE basiaclly ignore the MAP element in this case (your
example)

You mean they render the content, right? That what Netscape4.6, IE5.0,
Opera3.60 and 
Lynx2.8.2 do for me. (I used a <p>..</p> inside the map in my test.)

>3. Amaya does not even render the MAP of your example.

That's a bug in Amaya, (reported already by Charles McCathieNeville to the
Amaya mailing list) but it practicallly doesn't matter since people are
using Amaya 
only as a fifth browser. (people use for authoring, testing pages in yet
another 
browser, etc. It is a testbed browser; not exactly designed for usability 
and mass consumption anyways)

>4. IBM TopPage "corrects" the error and combines the <MAP> and the </MAP>
lines!

Didn't get that. Please explain.

>
>I don't know what to conclude with this.

The conclusion is that block content in MAP is rendered by quite a lot of
browsers.
(it would desirable to check also Netscape 3, and IE4 and 3)
on the other hand, realy making an image map out of it is not supported.

Regards, 
Nir

>
>Finally, your examples use the "tradition" of enclosing links in
>square brackets. I think that is now bad advice. It sounds awful
>with speech browsers, and screen readers, and it undermines
>one of the best "skip strategies" in the business, "Skip to next
>non link" available in Window-Eyes.
>
>
>Jim Thatcher
>IBM Special Needs Systems
>www.ibm.com/sns
>thatch@us.ibm.com
>(512)838-0432
>
>
>Wendy A Chisholm <chisholm@trace.wisc.edu> on 09/16/99 01:55:01 PM
>
>To:   w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
>cc:
>Subject:  3rd try: proposal for marking up groups of links
>
>
>
>
>
>Here's the revised proposal, the first proposal is available at
>
>http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/1999JulSep/0314.html
>the 2nd proposal was at:
>http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/1999JulSep/0328.html
>the original text that we are proposing to change is at:
>http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WAI-WEBCONTENT-TECHS-19990505/#links
>
> 4.6.1 Grouping and bypassing links
>
>When a navigation bar - a set of links that appears on every page
>throughout a site
>highlighting other areas of the site - appears at the top of a page, a user
>who is
>reading the page through speech synthesis will have to listen to all of
>those links
>
>for each page they visit at the site before they get to new content.
>Other users, such as some users with physical
>disabilities, may have to tab through all of these links to reach links
>further down the page.
>
>There are several methods that you can use to allow users to quickly pass
>groups
>of links (navigation bars, table of contents, etc.) to get to other
>portions of a page.
>In today's browsers, you will need to
>provide a link before the group of links that will take the user to the first
>bit of text after the group of links.  In the future, using structural
>markup like the MAP
>element will allow a user agent to navigate past the group on user command.
>To support both today's
>and tomorrow's browsers, we suggest using the MAP element with
>the "title" attribute to group and label the links, plus a "skip" link
>before the group.
>The "skip" link may be hidden using style sheets or be a 1 pixel image that
>is only
>visible by alt-text when images are not loaded.
>
>Example.
>
>In this example, the MAP element groups a set of links. The "title"
>attribute gives it a human readable label, which may be anything from
>"Credits," "QuickLinks around
>our site." The "class" attribute identifies  the group as a navigation bar
>(e.g., for style sheets). The link at the  beginning of the group  links to
>the anchor after the group.  This link will not be necessary once user
>agents allow users to jump over block content.
>
>     <HEAD>
>     <TITLE>How to use our site</TITLE>
>     </HEAD>
>     <BODY>
>       <MAP title="Site-wide navigation bar - 12 choices" class="nav"
>name="navbar">
>         [<A href="#how" title="Bypass the links you have seen on every
>other page and get right to the content.">Skip navigation bar.  Go to "how
>to use this site."</A>]
>         [<A href="home.html">Home</A>]
>         [<A href="search.html">Search</A>]
>         [<A href="new.html">New and highlighted</A>]
>         [<A href="sitemap.html">Site map</A>]
>         [ ... 8 other links ....]
>       </MAP>
>       <H1><A name="how" id="how">How to use our site</A></H1>
>     <!-- content of page -->
>     </BODY>
>
>  End example.
>
>other options that are not as forward or backward compatible:
>1. Provide a style sheet that allows users to hide the group of links.
>2. Provide a script that shows or hides the set of navigation links as
>desired by the user.
>
>
>wendy chisholm
>human factors engineer
>trace research and development center
>university of wisconsin - madison, USA
> 
===================================
Nir Dagan
Assistant Professor of Economics
Brown University 
Providence, RI
USA

http://www.nirdagan.com
mailto:nir@nirdagan.com
tel:+1-401-863-2145

Received on Thursday, 16 September 1999 20:21:04 UTC