RE: Twisties re notes/domino

Actually I have seen this done in straight HTML. It is a visual metaphor, 
but it seems that it could be translated functionally to a more general 
technique. A simple approach would seem to combine the use of HTML lists 
with a marker which actually explained its function.

The following example is very simplistic, but should be implementable in 
a tool which provides the mechanism in an accessible way. It assumes a 
new version of the page is generated, with an item expanded or collapsed, 
and ignorse the problem of keeping track of what is currently 
expanded/collapsed. The solution could certainly be applied recursively 
to give the tree structure familiar to visual users of this UI. 
Presumably the contents listed would also be linked to something, but I 
have left that out for legibility. I haven't looked at the spec to see 
what happens when using both a # and a ? extension - it may be the case 
that the server process needs to direct the browser to the named anchor. 
The idea is just to ensure that although the document changes the 
location remains static, for ease of navigational understanding.


<UL>

<LI> <A HREF="thispage.xyz#chap1?expand=1" NAME="chap1"> <IMG 
SRC="expandicon.gif" ALT="Expand this item"> </A> Chapter 1

<LI> <A HREF="thispage.xyz#chap2?collapse=2" NAME="chap2"> <IMG 
SRC="collapseicon.gif" ALT="Collapse this item"> </A> Chapter 2

	<UL>

	<LI> Section 1

	<LI> Section 2

	<LI> Section 3
	
	</UL>

<LI> Chapter 3

</UL>

Charles McCathieNevile
RMIT University

Received on Tuesday, 11 August 1998 03:33:56 UTC