Re: AERT Technique 13.6.1 and the WCA:UA agreements of yore

"Leonard R. Kasday" wrote:

>What happens if you have a link hierarchy, e.g. a series of headings each 
>of which  is a link, and each of which has a list of links 
>underneath  (e.g. the Yahoo home page).  How does map apply?

Put a MAP around nested UL lists.

[snip].
 
> But even if we had MAP, there would still
> be plenty of semantics that are not readable.  For example, if we had a
> page with lots of sets of links, where's the main navigation bar?  And
> there are other semantic units that have nothing to do with links.... e.g.
> "main section" "news" etc. that we often see. So MAP would address only a
> part of all the semantics that are needed anyway.  That means we do one of
> the following, seems to me:
> 
> 1. waiting for XML

I don't think that that's an option. XML is already here. We need
to do the right thing for XML. I think the question is what to do
for HTML.

> 2. defining conventions for class names  (hey, we accept D links)

D-links don't require anything from the user agent. But asking user
agents to recognize classes that are not defined in the HTML
specification
is problematic to me. It could be done - the UA Guidelines could require
that conforming user agents handle some predefined classes in a special
way - but I think that the HTML spec is the appropriate place for this
type of information.

> 3. defining conventions for titles  (well, I gotta have a third alternative)

<grin> 
 
> As you might guess, my vote is for 2, defining conventions for class
> names.  I realize this was discussed in WCAG and it didn't fly, but perhaps
> it's time to reconsider.

Here's a nice HTML trick that works with Lynx:
Define links to key parts of a page with the LINK element

    <link rel="start" href="#headline" title="Go to headline |"/>
    <link rel="contents" href="#contents" title="Go to table of contents
|"/>
    <link rel="index" href="#search" title="Search"/>

   Lynx renders these as links, but they do not show up on most
   graphical browsers. Thus the author can create skip-over links
   even if the UA doesn't support structured navigation to or
   past groups of links.

 - Ian


 
> Note that even if we wait for XML, that just postpones deciding on the
> semantic units.  So why not figure them out now, stick them in class for
> the time being, and then re-use them when XML arrives.
> 
> Len
> 
> At 04:12 PM 7/20/00 -0400, Charles McCathieNevile wrote:
> >I think I am just slightly keener on people recognising that they need to use
> >map than you are...
> >
> >Cheers
> >
> >Charles McCN
> >
> >On Wed, 19 Jul 2000, Al Gilman wrote:
> >
> >   At 12:18 AM 2000-07-19 -0400, Charles McCathieNevile wrote:
> >   >My thoughts and recollections, vague as they may be
> >   >
> >   >No, I think GL is correct - it is to identify for user agents (ie through
> >   >markup such as map). We have asked for both handling of map, and the more
> >   >general structural navigation you speak of.
> >   >
> >
> >   I am quite likely alone in my particularly pharisaical interpretation of
> >   what was agreed to in the joint meeting as regards "use MAP for related
> >   groups of links."  The clause "when you need to add a grouping element" was
> >   probably a loophole that I was perceiving and quite possibly nobody else.
> >
> >   I did bad things for the WAI interest in a similar way when the namespaces
> >   Rec went by and I placed a stricter interpretation (less constraining) on
> >   what it said than the proponents understood.  Their interpretation was what
> >   they promoted in public as for example on xml-dev and that leaves us with
> >   the conflicts exposed on xml-uri.  I should have dealt with what they
> >   thought the language meant, and protested more strongly at the time.
> >
> >   As you can tell from my message to the CG, I think that the best way to
> >   seek a good agreement that we can stick with into the future is to take
> >   Wendy's hint and view this as "in the light of what has transpired in UA
> >   since, it is worth revisiting this question."  Hope this works for people.
> >
> >   Al
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >--
> >Charles McCathieNevile    mailto:charles@w3.org    phone: +61 (0) 409 134 136
> >W3C Web Accessibility Initiative                      http://www.w3.org/WAI
> >Location: I-cubed, 110 Victoria Street, Carlton VIC 3053
> >Postal: GPO Box 2476V, Melbourne 3001,  Australia
> 
> --
> 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/

-- 
Ian Jacobs (jacobs@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel:                         +1 831 457-2842
Cell:                        +1 917 450-8783

Received on Friday, 21 July 2000 18:51:43 UTC