Re: Using onMouseOver [was Re: FW: making applets accessible

> How does OnMouseOver driving the status line interact with screen readers?

Well the first thing to realise is that not everyone has the latest 
browser-aware screenreader.  I know several in the UK who rely on 
seriously outdated technology and we can't all keep up-to-date.  We'd 
better not make the thing *dependent* on the use of the status window.

The problem with the table row/column thing is it requires you to make 
every cell into what looks like a link.  This would be horribly 
confusing and unfortunately I see no other way of doing it, at least not 
with the status window.  But I'll have a little play when I get a 
moment (you never know, Netscape might let you say onMouseOver in the 
TD tag).  Somehow I doubt it though.  It would be easier to actually add 
them into the text itself, but this could get a bit much in some cases.

The other problem is, what exactly are the row and column headings?  
Different table authors do different things and it would be naive to 
assume that they are the topmost row and the leftmost column.  Some 
tables have column headings but not row headings, or vice versa.

Regards

-- Silas S Brown, St John's College Cambridge UK http://epona.ucam.org/~ssb22/

"Better is it that you vow not than that you vow and do not pay"
 - Ecclesiastes 5:5

Received on Wednesday, 17 February 1999 16:55:35 UTC