Re: Comments/Quibble on "Making Classes Accessible"

At 05:58 PM 2000-12-11 +0000, Sean B. Palmer wrote:
>> Is there any part of w3c space you haven't
>> perused <grin/>?
>
>"If there is, I don't wanna know about it" :-)
>
>> We want to give this rapid scan capability to users who are
>> blind.  Hence, it would be useful for the browser to enable
>> the user to choose any class and then step through elements
>> of that class.
>
>That's a very good idea. I always thought we needed more forms and
>definitions of "class". We can use it for style, transformations, and
>sectioning, and that's a lot for one attribute to handle. It's potentially
>the most semantic attribute in XHTML, and yet it can also be used to infer
>presentation...highly irregular!
>I like the idea of binding classes to ID's, as per Dan Connolly's HyperRDF:
><http://www.w3.org/2000/07/hs78>http://www.w3.org/2000/07/hs78 which extends
the class mechanism, but a lot
>of browsers don't allow for escaped characters in CSS:-
>
>     .rel\:class { color: #000000; }
>
>Which is very frustrating.
>
>> and the opinion that all XHTML is presentation, and that true
>> content would be XML
>>
<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2000OctDec/0757.html>http://
lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2000OctDec/0757.html
>
>True content would be RDF/XML. I created an example for a fake meeting where
>all of the meeting details are stored in RDF [1] and transformed [2] on the
>fly to produce an XHTML [3] output. The short decription is at
><http://infomesh.net/swdemo/#demo>http://infomesh.net/swdemo/#demo I urge you
to take a look!
>     [1]
<http://infomesh.net/swdemo/demo/rdfmeeting.xml>http://infomesh.net/swdemo/d
emo/rdfmeeting.xml
>     [2]
<http://infomesh.net/swdemo/demo/meetingtoxhtml.xsl>http://infomesh.net/swde
mo/demo/meetingtoxhtml.xsl
>     [3]
<http://infomesh.net/swdemo/demo/meeting.asp>http://infomesh.net/swdemo/demo
/meeting.asp
>The XSLT files are a bit scrappy for now, but they work!
>
>> what I'm suggesting here is that when authors use classes
>> (e.g. stainless-steel) to add semantics to web pages, let's
>> create a  way so that people with disabilities get the equivalent
>> benefits.
>
>Any form of semantic equals a benefit to disabled users, because they don't
>miss out on anything :-) That's the whole point of Semantics, everything is
>raw information, and then from that you can convert it into the medium of
>your preference. I could write a stylesheet to transform that meeting
>example of mine into content for Aural Browsers, flashy IE5 types, WAP, or
>whatever!
>
>> The simplest way is to squeeze it into CSS, but that
>> runs counter to the philosophy that CSS has only "presentation".
>> RDF is another way, and Sean has corrected my initial amateur
>> attempts to do that.  We could also do an XML schema.
>
>Why would we be writing an XML Schema? Unless you mean we could write an XML
>Schema for XHTML ("don't even go there!"), Schemas are the third layer: 1)
>Data, 2) Metadata, 3) Schemes for metadata (i.e. metadata about metadata).
>Like A.S. says, we are struggling with how best to attack data, and only a
>handful are working on metadata. Schemas are way ahead of us! I challenge
>you to find some RDF that has a non 1 dimensional structure as dictated by a
>Schema. It isn't even possible yet...
>Schemas are great, but only in the right places!
>
>> Having said all that,  if we want to continue this, the question is
>> what list to put it on?
>
>Your choice. As the original document was an ERT production, I thought it
>best to direct my comments here. It might move to PF...
>

AG::

Somehow we need to a) address the general W3C language architecture through PF
while still b) working the specfic case of capturing evaluations in ER.

Note: There are some architectural ideas expressed above, such as the idea
that
semantics does not include presentation, that metadata can be semantically
distinguished from data in the absense of a schema, etc. that bear further
investigation.  Ideally the way to conduct such examination is in the light of
more concrete access-related scenarios (situations and the functions you need
in those situation).

Related point:

With regard to a metadata module, Sean, have you reviewed the SMIL 2 metadata
module?  Is that module something we could use in EDL?  It would seem to be
the
"RDF in XHTML modularization" precedent that is furthest down the
Recommendation track.

Al

>Kindest Regards,
>Sean B. Palmer
><http://www.mysterylights.com/sbp/>http://www.mysterylights.com/sbp/
>"Perhaps, but let's not get bogged down in semantics."
>   - Homer J. Simpson, BABF07.
>

Received on Monday, 11 December 2000 14:05:18 UTC