Re: CSS style sheets in SVG enable high and low contrast

Jim,

I dont agree at all, the style sheets referred to can be applied by the 
user, they could more usefully be applied across a greater variety of 
sites if another semantic layer were available that more fully 
described GUIs.
The fact remains that authors will have to understand the needs of 
users in order for any high contrast mediation to work, and this will 
remain true for many years.

afaik the common user agents do support stylesheets, it is the changing 
of stylesheets that remains problematical.
It seems possible that mozSVG maybe installed in the trunk within 3 
months, which isn't long to wait.
http://www.peepo.co.uk/style/contrast.svg is a simpler 'test' example 
that will work with any of the mozSVG releases in the past few years. 
It doesn't however offer the full features found in 
http://www.peepo.co.uk/launch/index1.svg .

Please provide any evidence that supports your statement: "the exact 
same can be achieved in other ways"
I've yet to see the examples you appear to be referring to. which 
brings me to a greater concern, the complete lack of recent examples or 
research, demonstrating that the WG, corporate members and developers 
have been addressing the needs of the disabled by using SVG, and 
incorporating feedback into the development of new guidelines. Without 
this evidence it is much harder to put faith in further specifications.

Whereas
CSS has been used for many years, and might almost be referred to as a 
mature technology, and there is a significant body of resources 
indicating some success in enabling users. Unfortunately the same 
cannot be said of SVG1.1 or the proposed SVG1.2.

It seems clear to me that much of SVG1.2 is an attempt to rewrite 
elements of HTML and CSS, without due consideration to this matter. 
Bert Bos sums the issues up so clearly, that I see no point in 
re-iterating them.

Please note that WAI have recently also published draft documents, but 
they dont refer to SVG.
It would be helpful if we new to what extent WAI or PFWG were involved 
in the creation of the SVG1.2 specs.
It was apparent that they were not invited to comment publicly.

regards

Jonathan Chetwynd
http://www.peepo.co.uk     "It's easy to use"
irc://freenode/accessibility
On 29 Nov 2004, at 11:06, Jim Ley wrote:



"Jonathan Chetwynd" <j.chetwynd@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:D44566D6-41F0-11D9-86AF-000A95C7D298@btinternet.com...
>
> A small number of SVG developers continue to consider that there is no
> role for CSS within SVG.
>
> The following example* enables the user to select high or low contrast 
>  :
> http://www.peepo.co.uk/launch/index1.svg
> It is intended to hint at, rather than demonstrate the full potential
> available.

Jonathon, the exact same can be achieved in other ways without 
stylesheets
(especially in 1.2).  User stylesheets I think you agree are 
incompatibile
with SVG (well for certain documents they may be safe, but never as a
general case) therefore the only use of CSS is by the author.   Your 
example
is also a good reason of why removing CSS now would impact so few 
users, as
you note it only works in one currently nightly build of one user 
agent, it
doesn't even work in a beta product!   The CSS Working Group have shown 
us
one thing, the W3 see nothing wrong in changing specifications with 
errata,
losing backwards compatibility, and just removing whole loads of the 
spec.
The SVG WG should follow this lead, and remove CSS from SVG.

Jim.

Received on Monday, 29 November 2004 14:16:18 UTC