- From: Laura Carlson <laura.lee.carlson@gmail.com>
- Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2012 06:48:32 -0500
- To: Sam Ruby <rubys@intertwingly.net>
- Cc: John Foliot <john@foliot.ca>, public-html-a11y@w3.org
Hi Sam, > At one time Richard participated in a discussion concerning deprecating > longdesc when aria-describedby was introduced.[1] I'll note that that was > over 4 years ago. > > Later Richard and Steve worked on an unofficial aria-describedat > document.[2] That was earlier this year. > > Sadly, neither have gotten much traction to date. > > Perhaps neither are appropriate, Agreed. Neither are viable: http://www.d.umn.edu/~lcarlson/research/constriants/ariadescribedby.html http://www.d.umn.edu/~lcarlson/research/constriants/ariadescribedat.html > but that's not the point. > I can't help but wonder if we would have been done by now if but a small > fraction of the effort that was put into "instating longdesc" focused > instead on developing a solution to the "long description" need that browser > vendors are willing to implement. I agree Sam, it can't be that difficult for browser vendors to implement. Use cases have been documented. http://www.w3.org/html/wg/wiki/ChangeProposals/InstateLongdesc/UseCases We have new spec text to help them in the effort. http://www.w3.org/html/wg/wiki/ChangeProposals/InstateLongdesc#Main_Spec_Changes: In particular we wrote the text and provided with illustrations for the rendering section a year and a half ago: http://www.d.umn.edu/~lcarlson/research/ld-rendering2.html > I'll go further, and say that the most optimistic estimates have HTML5 going > to REC in 2014, and if we could find a way to produce a collective "we" > instead of continuing to refer to a collective "you" that a comprehensive > solution could be designed by the early next year and deployed and tested > for interoperability by year end and make it in time for HTML5. We already have two browsers that implement longdesc natively. Building upon that without breaking backwards compatibility [1], is the way forward. Starting from zero is nonsensical. It only reinvents the wheel. Best Regards, Laura [1] Breaking Backwards Compatibility is an Intolerable Cost http://www.d.umn.edu/~lcarlson/research/constriants/backward-compat.html -- Laura L. Carlson
Received on Tuesday, 18 September 2012 11:48:59 UTC