hixie: Explain why summary= is discouraged now. (whatwg r3523)

hixie: Explain why summary= is discouraged now. (whatwg r3523)

http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/html5/spec/Overview.html?r1=1.2720&r2=1.2721&f=h
http://html5.org/tools/web-apps-tracker?from=3522&to=3523

===================================================================
RCS file: /sources/public/html5/spec/Overview.html,v
retrieving revision 1.2720
retrieving revision 1.2721
diff -u -d -r1.2720 -r1.2721
--- Overview.html 2 Aug 2009 02:09:50 -0000 1.2720
+++ Overview.html 2 Aug 2009 02:35:15 -0000 1.2721
@@ -64481,7 +64481,17 @@
   providing explanatory text for complex tables for users of screen
   readers. One of the <a href="#table-descriptions">techniques</a>
   described in the <code><a href="#the-table-element">table</a></code> section should be used
-  instead.<p class="XXX">It has been suggested that the summary="" attribute
+  instead.<p class="note">Use of the <code title="attr-table-summary"><a href="#attr-table-summary">summary</a></code> attribute is discouraged
+  because in practice it is poorly understood. Because the attribute
+  is not exposed in visual user agents, authors who have included it
+  have typically not been able to test it, and have therefore set the
+  attribute to values that are of no use to users of accessibility
+  tools. This has lead to accessibility tools introducing heuristics
+  to try to avoid exposing such usage of the attribute to users. Even
+  the few authors who have made the best use of the attribute have
+  often misused it, for example by including text that would in fact
+  be useful for all users, or that is redundant with other information
+  on the page separate from the table.<p class="XXX">It has been suggested that the summary="" attribute
   should not be obsolete, and the working group may vote on the matter
   at some future point.<div class="impl">

Received on Sunday, 2 August 2009 02:36:12 UTC