Re: Linking to binary URLs

Hi Al
    Thanks for the message.
     I wasn't really intending to comment on the WAI guidelines so much as
the resources provided by the WAI community including contributions to
mailing lists.  When I view the mail archive on the web URLs are converted
to links - so arguably you shouldn't give URLs for binary files.  I
understand that the W3C don't want to be seen advising people what they
should do in email, but I think it's useful for people interested in WAI
issues to be aware of the implications of typing in something like binary
URLs (e.g. http://dodgysite.com/delete.exe) - see
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/1998JulSep/ to see what
happens.

Brian

(BTW It's just occured to me that using a tool like Bobby across the web
archive of this message could / should give an accessibility warning - with
the obvious implications of what is a website, and can accessibility checked
be turned off for certain areas).

-----Original Message-----
From: Al Gilman <asgilman@access.digex.net>
To: Brian Kelly <lisbk@ukoln.ac.uk>
Cc: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Date: Wednesday, September 23, 1998 8:54 PM
Subject: Re: Linking to binary URLs


>Greetings, Brian.  Good to hear from you.
>
>> I would like to suggest that WAI consider guidelines for
>> linking to binary resources (e.g. PDF, Word and PowerPoint
>> files) and also citation of such resources in email (e.g. to
>> this list).
>
>Let's return to the email issue later.
>
>> I would suggest that URLs should *not* point to binary files
>> directly but instead point to an intermediate HTML file which
>> provides links to various versions of the file e.g. PowerPoint
>> (best suited for presentation and printing thumbnails), HTML
>> conversion of PowerPoint file (suitable for viewing if you
>> don't have a PowerPoint viewer, or the wrong version of
>> PowerPoint, can be indexed) and, in the future an aural
>> cascading style sheet version of the PowerPoint file (we're
>> waiting for MS to develop something like this).
>
>Please check out the provisions in the Page Author guidelines.
>In the following guideline you will find this issue addressed:
>
>   Linkname: WAI Guidelines: Page Authoring
>        URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/WD-WAI-PAGEAUTH-19980918/#contents
>
>   Linkname: C.1. Only use technologies defined in a W3C specification
>        URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/WD-WAI-PAGEAUTH-19980918/#C1
>
>> Pointing directly to a resource will not provide any flexibility to do
>> things like this (or embed other useful metadata, such as Dublin Core
>> resource discovery metadata, rights metadata, version number details,
file
>> sizes, etc.)
>>
>> As example of what I suggest see:
>>
>> http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/jusw-sep1998/
>>
>
>Now to return to the issue of "web pages" vs. email references
>to ftp accessible resources, etc. ...
>
>It is true that accessible usage of HTML doesn't depend that much
>on whether it is served by HTTP or MIME.  On the other hand, the
>W3C is not so convinced that it is in a position to make
>recommendations about usage in email and the Internet at large.
>Getting the techniques described in the WAI Page Authoring
>Guidelines adopted for Internet information distribution on a
>broader scale may be an Education and Outreach task best done by
>networking with Email For All and other activities that are more
>directly concerned with those modes of communication.
>
>Al
>

Received on Wednesday, 23 September 1998 15:11:58 UTC