Re: object vs embed + bgsound

> otherwise you'd realise that our sounds load before they are accessible
> using tab or mouseover.

I read mail offline.  However, if the sounds on the pages that I've 
experienced take 30 seconds to a minute before they start, it could
mean that there is a similar delay between when your page appears and
it becomes useable.  My experience is that sounds and web pages only
work where the sound is linked from the page and there is a conscious 
attempt by the user to invoke the sound.

(It's also an added objection that I have to mouseover image animation.
Many if not most such pages take about a minute to load even without
scripting.  With scripting, it can be up to two minutes before the page
is fully useable.  I'm almost certainly off the page as soon as enough
of the initial version images have appeared to allow me find the right
button (even better if the alt text is there and easy to read.)

> your response is unhelpful. please consider answering the question as set,
> rather than the one you would like asked.

This is a debating forum, not a commercial support service.  If you
pay for a service you can expect people to suppress their own views
(and thus programmers aware of accessibility issues may still produce
highly inaccessible pages because their customer has told them to do so),
but there is no obligation here to answer the whole question and only
the question.

> There is a serious contradiction in expecting that valid code should use
> 'object' if that word remains unsupported.

That simply reflects a conflict between the idealism of W3C and the
commercialism of the browser developers.  However, using an external
application doesn't even conflict with the idealistic aims of HTML.
W3C HTML is not a multimedia language.  It can support navigation to
multimedia resources, or single, non text, media resources, such as
sound files.  Half hearted attempts to make browsers multimedia tools
are more to do with exploiting fashions in spite of the pre-existence
of tools much better designed for multimedia use.

The main impact of object being treated as an ActiveX vehicle, for me,
is not so much that it cannot support the media but that one gets all
the ActiveX security warnings, but for non-executable content.

> it is even more peculiar when there is a recognised work around.

bgsound and embed are attempts to make a multi-media language out of
a non-multimedia language.  object was an attempt to provide similar
capabilities in a more structured way and specifically in a way that
allowed for multiple levels of fall back.  Once authors find a way that
works, they are not interested in more idealistic solutions.  Without
extensive use by authors, developers spend little on implementation and
even less on maintenance.

Received on Saturday, 28 July 2001 13:13:33 UTC