- From: Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis <bhawkeslewis@googlemail.com>
- Date: Wed, 4 May 2011 14:17:07 +0100
- To: Leif Halvard Silli <xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no>
- Cc: Laura Carlson <laura.lee.carlson@gmail.com>, HTML Accessibility Task Force <public-html-a11y@w3.org>
On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 12:20 PM, Leif Halvard Silli
<xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no> wrote:
> May be a list of acceptable formats should be given rather than
> 'structured host language content'.
What list?
There is the drawback that we bar long text alternatives from being presented
in some future superior format. Imagine in a decade, there's a
new "better" markup language like XHTML2 was supposed to be,
we wouldn't necessarily want to bar it from being used for long
descriptions for HTML content.
>> Note that if we impose such a constraint we will render some existing
>> longdesc use non-conforming. Three of Laura's examples of @longdesc
>> in the wild use plain text for long descriptions.
>>
>> http://www.d.umn.edu/~lcarlson/research/ld.html#fakoo
>> http://www.d.umn.edu/~lcarlson/research/ld.html#securian
>> http://www.d.umn.edu/~lcarlson/research/ld.html#buffalo
>
> HTML5 is not about blessing existing content.
I didn't say it was. Do we have any reason to say the above should be
non-conforming though? Is it inaccessible?
> I remind you that @longdesc all too often points to images.
Yes. I think under the suggested text @longdesc pointing to an image
is non-conforming because an image is not a long text alternative.
> Also, remember that accessibility and validity are orthogonal: may be above example works,
> just like many invalid things do.
Are the above examples inaccessible?
> Purpose of longdesc is structured content. We undermine its legitimacy,
> IMHO, if we water it out.
The purpose of @longdesc in the suggestex text is twofold:
1. Structured text alternatives.
2. Long text alternatives.
Long text alternatives, as opposed to structured text alternatives, can
be fairly represented by text/plain.
> Also, regarding rendering: if the UA can't expect a HTML - in the broad
> sense, how can it usefully present description in a new browsing
> context inside the same window? On an edge, we do not want that
> @longdesc becomes some kind of image presenter tool.
Not sure what you mean by the above.
--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
Received on Wednesday, 4 May 2011 13:17:37 UTC