Re: More issues with checkpoint 5.1 (DOM access to content)

It is perfectly possible for us to specify that for a User Agent, having
access to any defined list of DOM methods, properties or interfaces is an
accessibility requirement. It is extra work for us to go through the
specification and say what parts of the DOM need to be available as an
accessibility requirement, ireespective of whether a User Agent implements
DOM or just does a few things in the specification.

I agree that namespace support is going to be important as soon as there is
namespace-qualified content available. Since it is a W3C recommendation, we
might expect that to be common already (it is used to add MathML and RDF
metadata to XHTML, for example, which works in existing browsers) or in the
very near future. It could also be implied by the requirement to implement
the latest available and appropriate specifications.

Charles McCN



On Thu, 17 Feb 2000, Ian Jacobs wrote:

  Hello,
  
  I have just been talking with Philippe Le Hegaret,
  who is the W3C DOM Activity Lead about checkpoint 5.1, which
  in the Candidate Rec [1] reads:
  
     5.1 Provide programmatic read and write access to content by
  conforming 
         to W3C Document Object Model (DOM) specifications and exporting 
         interfaces defined by those specifications. [Priority 1] 
  
  There have already been much Candidate Rec discussion about this
  checkpoint
  (refer to issues 190 [2] and 194 [3]). Here are some additional comments
  from my conversation with Philippe:
  
  1) DOM only addresses HTML and XML. Therefore, checkpoint 5.1 would not
     cover programmatic access to content in any other format, such as
  SGML.
  
  2) Philippe feels that user agents should be required to conform to DOM
  Level
     2 core and Level two HTML. DOM Level 2 core is the same as DOM Level
  1 core, 
     but adds XML namespaces. DOM Level 2 HTML is the same as DOM Level 1
  HTML. 
     Conformance to the other DOM Level 2 modules is optional according to
  the DOM
     2 spec. His point is this: requiring DOM Level 2 core/HTML
  conformance is not
     much more than DOM Level 1 conformance and not including namespace
  support would
     be a mistake. Also, if you want to implement events, you can do so on
  top of
     DOM Level 2. You can't on top of DOM Level 1 alone.
  
  3) The DOM does not specify a notion of "read-only DOM", although the
  DOM Working
     Group has considered doing so (in a future version). It is not clear
  that the
     UA Working Group could make a requirement that user agents implement
  the
     "read-only" parts of DOM 1 and/or 2 since the specs do not define
  "read-only".
  
  We conclude therefore that:
  
  a) We need a checkpoint that ensures access to content that may not be
  HTML/XML. 
  b) We need to reconsider the "read-only" checkpoint proposal. 
  
  Thoughts?
  
   - Ian
  
  [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/CR-UAAG10-20000128/
  [2] http://cmos-eng.rehab.uiuc.edu/ua-issues/issues-linear.html#190
  [3] http://cmos-eng.rehab.uiuc.edu/ua-issues/issues-linear.html#194
  -- 
  Ian Jacobs (jacobs@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
  Tel/Fax:                     +1 212 684-1814 or 212 532-4767
  Cell:                        +1 917 450-8783
  

--
Charles McCathieNevile    mailto:charles@w3.org    phone: +61 (0) 409 134 136
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative                      http://www.w3.org/WAI
Location: I-cubed, 110 Victoria Street, Carlton VIC 3053
Postal: GPO Box 2476V, Melbourne 3001,  Australia

Received on Friday, 18 February 2000 01:10:56 UTC