Re: Authoring Tool Recommendations?

Sure, I'll give it a shot.
--wendy

At 02:54 AM 9/23/99 , Charles McCathieNevile wrote:
>Does anyone have a good conformance profile for Hotmetal?
>
>Wendy, do you want to do one?
>
>Charles
>
>On Wed, 22 Sep 1999, Wendy A Chisholm wrote:
>
>   Hello,
>
>   I have used SoftQuad's HoTMetaL for the last three years.  It is extremely
>   easy to use and includes some accessibility checks.  The checks are more
>   stringent than WCAG 1.0, however, so I actually don't use them.  I just 
> ran
>   one of my pages through and received a summary of 16 inaccessible elements
>   (yikes!?).  These messages seem to by in synch with an old version of the
>   Unified Guidelines.  I claim the page conforms at the AAA level of WCAG 
> 1.0.
>
>   Ben, the Webmaster here at Trace, uses HomeSite and TopStyle.   He says
>   that there are not explicit accessibility checks that it performs but that
>   "you can pretty easily customize the tag inspector feature to look for
>   certain attributes within elements, validate for them, etc..."
>
>   It's going to be hard to recommend a tool that will create a nice layout
>   without gunking it up with tables.  Although, Adobe's GoLive uses a table
>   grid and seems to lay things out without needing to create a new table for
>   each element (this statement is not based on extensive use).  I haven't
>   played with the other WYSIWYG tools in a while...
>
>   At this point, the best recommendation may be to use a tool that produces
>   clean HTML (like HoTMetaL, HomeSite, Amaya, etc.) and check accessibility
>   with Bobby.
>
>   just fyi,
>   --w
>
>   At 08:30 PM 9/16/99 , Charles McCathieNevile wrote:
>   >SoftQaud's HoTMetaL 5, Allaire's HomeSite, are two pieces of Software 
> I have
>   >heard good reports about, although I have not been able to test them for
>   >myself. W3C's Amaya creates clean HTML, and as WYSIWYG editor's go it 
> is not
>   >bad, although it is not very accessible itself at the moment. I use 
> it, and
>   >it allows pretty well any accessible authoring practice, and provides 
> clean
>   >valid HTML 4.0, which is nice. Othrewise, familiarity with HTML and a text
>   >editor that supports HTML (emacs, dreamweaver, cyberstudio, hotdog, 
> and many
>   >other popular editing tools fall into this category) are a good idea.
>   >
>   >One of the reasons for the Authoring Tools group to try and review
>   >implementations is to e able to anser just such questions. I agree that it
>   >would be nice if there were easy answers. On the other hand, 
> collecting these
>   >requests is going to assist developers in justifying the work to make 
> their
>   >tools compliant, which will also help the situation.
>   >
>   >Charles McCN
>   >
>   >On Thu, 16 Sep 1999, Kynn Bartlett wrote:
>   >
>   >   I just got off the phone with one of the Deans of Orange Coast
>   >   College (a southern california junior college) -- if you've been
>   >   following Cynthia Waddell's posts on IG, you know that California
>   >   community colleges are required to attain at least level single A
>   >   compliance with the WCAG.
>   >
>   >   The chap who called me said that his technical people advised
>   >   against using FrontPage 98 because it didn't produce accessible
>   >   web pages -- and he wants to know what does.
>   >
>   >   I didn't have an answer.  I still don't have an answer.  The HTML
>   >   authoring tool industry should be ashamed of the fact that I don't
>   >   have an answer.  But at least this group is working toward that
>   >   goal.
>   >
>   >   I know that we will complete our guidelines, and I know that we
>   >   will be able to evaluate existing tools against our standards, and
>   >   I know we'll have a "what's okay and what's bad and what's better"
>   >   answer soon -- "soon" being on the order of several months.
>   >
>   >   Right now, though, Orange Coast College needs an answer -- they
>   >   want to do the right thing, they just want to know what that is.
>   >   They want to know which software they should start training their
>   >   instructors to use.
>   >
>   >   Anyone got an answer that's more useful than mine?  I mumbled something
>   >   about FrontPage being not quite as bad as it used to be, and about
>   >   Dreamweaver apparently being decent -- but I don't use a web editor
>   >   myself (all coded by hand or via perl script) so I have no direct
>   >   experience.
>   >
>   >   Thoughts?
>   >
>   >   --
>   >   Kynn 
> Bartlett  <kynn@idyllmtn.com>                   http://www.kynn.com/
>   >   Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain 
> Internet      http://www.idyllmtn.com/
>   >   Catch the Web Accessibility 
> Meme!                   http://aware.hwg.org/
>   >
>   >
>   >--Charles McCathieNevile            mailto:charles@w3.org
>   >phone: +1 617 258 0992   http://www.w3.org/People/Charles
>   >W3C Web Accessibility Initiative    http://www.w3.org/WAI
>   >MIT/LCS  -  545 Technology sq., Cambridge MA, 02139,  USA
>
>   wendy chisholm
>   human factors engineer
>   trace research and development center
>   university of wisconsin - madison, USA
>
>
>--Charles McCathieNevile            mailto:charles@w3.org
>phone: +1 617 258 0992   http://www.w3.org/People/Charles
>W3C Web Accessibility Initiative    http://www.w3.org/WAI
>MIT/LCS  -  545 Technology sq., Cambridge MA, 02139,  USA

wendy chisholm
human factors engineer
trace research and development center
university of wisconsin - madison, USA

Received on Thursday, 23 September 1999 10:09:59 UTC