Re: PROPOSAL - 1.1.B, 4.3.A - 1st call

aloha, chris!

speaking of interim solutions to expose the content of a LONGDESC, rather than
using a "D" link -- which i, as a screen-reader user have always found annoying
-- i have used style sheets to create a link to the LONGDESC of images on my
sites...

in order to provide a link to the LONGDESC of the 2 purely decorative images
on:
        <http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/silly.html>
i defined
        BODY.hide
so that the background and foreground colors are the same...  before i raise
the ire of others on the list for this practice,  with it's obvious
limitations, let me hasten to point out that the rationale behind this decision
stems from the fact that -- to my knowledge, no UA currently can be relied upon
to respect the { display : none } property... 

regardless of the obvious limitations of my particular use of CSS to hide
text,  it does pass muster at the W3C's CSS Validator, albeit with the warning
that for the element BODY.hide  the background and foreground colors are the
same...

besides, it works well with NetScape 4.x, MSIE 4.x, Opera 3.x, and Lynx --
passing along the information to speech users and braille users (as well as
those with graphics turned off) -- and i have heard nary a complaint from the
posse of low vision users that i use to check my blindness-related pages for
low vision compatibility -- not even those who are using a local style sheet to
change colors and effects to increase the contrast to their liking...

it is also a tactic i have used when constructing (and reconstructing) online
forms for commercial entities -- whist those footing the bills cringe at my
adding excess verbiage such as (choose 1 of 7) inside a LEGEND, they don't mind
if i "hide" the extra semantic information, which is still passed on to a
screen reader or braille display, and which, naturally, appears in Lynx...

of course, once { display : none } is implemented into mainstream browsers, i
will change the style sheets at my sites accordingly, but for now, i consider
hiding text by defining the same color for the foreground as for the background
of the BODY an acceptable interim solution

gregory
--------------------------------------------------------
He that lives on Hope, dies farting
     -- Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1763
--------------------------------------------------------
Gregory J. Rosmaita <oedipus@hicom.net>
   President, WebMaster, & Minister of Propaganda, 
        VICUG NYC <http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/vicug/>
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Received on Wednesday, 18 August 1999 11:39:44 UTC