Two Wishes for Bobby (or any accessibility checker)

Two Wishes for Bobby (or any accessibility checker)

1. Condition Bobby approval on validation.
   A document that is invalid should not 
   be accessibility-approved.

In order for this to work, different accessibility 
 criteria should be applied to different HTML versions.

a.  The base criteria include using HTML4.0
    accessibility features.

b.  Documents which are in HTML3.2 or HTML2.0 
    will have a reduced criteria consistent with 
    their limitations. (a tip to upgrade may be included)

c.  Documents in HTML4.0 or higher (voyager)
    and documents with SYSTEM DTDs must follow the base
    guidelines.  This allows to include non-standards features, 
    under validation constraints and the stricter accessibility
    criteria. When using a non-standard DTD Bobby should list 
    all elements that are not in HTML4.0 and warn the user 
    that Bobby can't assess their accessibility features.      

2. Spell check. (This now in the guidelines)
 Bobby can spellcheck documents (this will make it more 
 popular, and compensate for the loss of users due to 
 validation requirements)

Spell checking should be done by parsing the lang attribute(s) 
and checking against the corresponding dictionary. If the HTML
element has no lang attribute, Bobby should use the Content-Language
HTTP header. If this too is absent, Bobby should report that it can't 
spell check the document since it does not recognize the language of 
the document.  (Content-Language header may include several languages;
in this case one must rely on the lang attributes when spell checking).

Note that HTML3.2 documents without a Content-Language HTTP header 
will not be spell-checked. No ifs, no buts.

Nir Dagan, Ph.D.
http://www.nirdagan.com
mailto:nir@nirdagan.com

"There is nothing quite so practical as a good theory." 
-- A. Einstein

Received on Wednesday, 16 December 1998 19:08:29 UTC