Re: Analyzing Intranet Pages

Quite feasible

Although it couldn't be quite as convenient as the HTML validator if the 
tool required multiple pages.

For example, if a page used frames, you'd have to do an upload for each 
frame.  Also, if the tool needed to look at style sheets or images you'd 
have to upload each of those by hand.

Unless of course the user was willing to download an active X component 
that had permission to upload any file it pleased.  I doubt if most 
organizations would allow that. Possibly you could construct a safe Java 
applet that was restricted to a particular directory.

Another way to handle this is to put the files on the net but behind 
password protection, and type the password into the tool.  That would keep 
the files private.   For additional security, you could perform the steps 
via SSL.
------------
The system would also need access to the files on your computer if you 
wanted to be able to click through the site: i.e. when you're looking at a 
displayed page, and you want to look at a link on that page, just click the 
link instead of going through an upload process.
------------
And of course, the tool would need access to files on your computer if you 
wanted it to do some sort of overall site analysis.
------------
On the other hand, if we're just talking about one page at a time with no 
dependencies, none of that applies.  All you'd have to do is upload the one 
page.

(Note that it's perfectly feasible for the tool to _display_ images from 
the original page, e.g. as in Bobby or the Wave, without uploading the 
images.  It only needs the images if it's _analyzing_ them.)

-----------------------

So there are various feasible methods.  It's  question of what priority to 
give this feature relative to other features in the development pipeline.

Len

At 09:05 AM 7/19/00 -0400, Karl Hebenstreit, Jr. wrote:
>A major area of concern for federal webmasters has been the analysis
>tools' inability to evaluate Intranet pages.   The HTML Validator tool
>developed by the W3C (Gerald Oskoboiny) recently added an option to
>allow files to be uploaded from the user's computer.
>http://validator.w3.org/file-upload.html
>
>Adding this functionality could provide a way to have people save a
>Intranet page to their local PC.   The only potential obstacle to this
>would be if an organization's firewall won't allow this.   How feasible
>is it for other analysis tools to provide this same type of capability?
>
>Karl Hebenstreit, Jr.
>US General Services Administration
>Office of Governmentwide Policy
>Voice:  202-501-0004
>E-mail:  Karl.Hebenstreit@gsa.gov
>Websites:   http://www.firstgov.gov , http://www.policyworks.gov

--
Leonard R. Kasday, Ph.D.
Institute on Disabilities/UAP, and
Department of Electrical Engineering
Temple University 423 Ritter Annex, Philadelphia, PA 19122

kasday@acm.org
http://astro.temple.edu/~kasday

(215) 204-2247 (voice)  (800) 750-7428 (TTY)

The WAVE web page accessibility evaluation assistant: 
http://www.temple.edu/inst_disabilities/piat/wave/

Received on Wednesday, 19 July 2000 11:26:05 UTC