Minutes 22 January 2001 ER WG Telecon

http://www.w3.org/WAI/ERIG/2001/01/22-minutes.html

Minutes 22 January 2001 ER WG Telecon

Summary of resolutions and action items
·       Resolved: issue #12 Check that longdesc file exists and that it has 
some text. Requires manual check to determine if text is appropriate 
description of image.
·       Resolved: Issue #14 Tool should flag mime types that are not part 
of its base already. When new type comes along informs the user of the tool.
·       Resolved: Issue #15 Check contents of NOSCRIPT according to spec, 
i.e. only contains ·  a block: P | %heading; | %list; | %preformatted; | DL 
| DIV | NOSCRIPT | BLOCKQUOTE | FORM | HR | TABLE | FIELDSET | ADDRESS
·       Action WC propose language to WCAG for issue #16.
·       Resolved: Issue #16 is closed for us, when WCAG makes a change in 
techniques send notice to AU/ER with list of changes, then up to AU/ER to 
incorporate into AU/ER techniques.
·       Resolved: Issue #26 If you find ismap and the map file is 
available, here is how you can convert it to a client-side image map with 
usemap. If you find INPUT type="image" then a heuristic you can use is to 
probe the image to determine if it is used as a server-side image map. If 
any probes come back different
·       Action LK write up proposals for issues 12, 14, 15, and 26 and send 
to AU.

Participants
·       William
·       Chris
·       Len
·       Wendy

Regrets
Sean, Kynn, Charles

Testing equivalent alternative pages
CR If original page has images and alternative does not, not sure about 
equivalence.
WL Depends on well the alt-text is written.
LK One page has image with alt-text, the other with all text and no images, 
to compare them with a machine then probably not a need for the alternative 
page. Main reason for alternative page is when original page is not accessible.
WL Which is why we have the "if all else fails" caveat.
CR Is there an example of where the "if all else fails"?
WC Flash site.
WL But we've got Macromedia on board to help make that directly accessible. 
Would like to imagine there is not an example.
WC Saw an example last week where mouse rollovers provided information 
through text. Had a text-only page but those clues did not show up in that 
view.
WL Since most of my experience is with blind guys, their best form of 
access is usually Wife1.0. Nothing compares to a human.
LK When I see a text-only page, I first check that all of the links show up 
on both.
WL I would assume that tool exists. Pretty straight forward to do, right? 
If it doesn't exist, it should.
CR I don't know of a tool like that.
WL Build into A-prompt?
CR Sure. What else would you look for?
WC Could have text-only branch through site in which case links would not 
match between versions. Other option is one HTML page becomes 5 WML pages 
since WML divide into smaller chunks.
WL Part of device independent authoring process.
WC Right, actually most transformations are not arbitrary (e.g. every 10 
lines) and thus the author will indicate breaks.
WL Every transformation comes under ATAG.
LK Another possibility for EARL is to make statements about heuristic tests 
that someone might have that are not part of the checkpoints. For example, 
that the alternative have same links as original. Not be included in 2.0 
not in 1.0, because there are valid objections, but could be something to 
check for.
WL Person could then explain why images were not included in alternative 
page. For example, "this page has photos of trip to bristol an amusing one 
is..." I am on a list that is discussing creating a semantic web browser. 
The IBM intermediary is part of the concept. So more than tracking where 
you've been, but why you've been there - your schema. SWAG - semantic web 
agreement group - writing dictionary of terms. It's a discussion on 
e-groups that you can join. Sean, Aaron, and others are there. It's 
happening very fast. It's the tower of Babel problem. You get hung up on 
language rather than idea. For example people using communication boards. 
They are hung up on words. Changing radically in the last few years.

Open issues
open issues list

12. Valid "longdesc"
LK Have to check the file not the pointer.
CR Check that the file is valid, that it has some text.
WL Sounds like a job for a-prompt.
Resolved: issue #12 Check that longdesc file exists and that it has some 
text. Requires manual check to determine if text is appropriate description 
of image.

14. Elements that might have audio
LK All kinds of things that could be audio, we would have to check APPLET, 
EMBED, SCRIPT, etc because they could all contain audio. Plus anytime you 
have a CGI script or anything that goes to the server, the server could 
return an audio file. The proposal is that you check them all for audio. 
This is the ideal tool, what may happen might be another option.
WL But its just a recommendation.
LK In AU they have to figure out what constitutes compliance. Does it just 
pop up an alert box or does it do some tests.
WL What happens when you haven't bound a particular extension to a 
particular rendering application? You get an error message that says 
"unrecognized, how do you want to handle?" What happens when someone comes 
up with something different?
LK What happens when a new mime type comes along? None of the media formats 
are under W3C?
WC Right. except PNG and CMG or whatever, image formats.
LK How do we deal with formats that are not W3C but that are essential to 
operation of page.
WL With realaudio, i would imagine that a huge percentage of blind users 
love it.
LK Every day there can be a new plug-in on a site. A tool would have a 
bunch of recognized mime type. When it sees a new mime type it flashes a 
manual warning to the user.
WC Seems related to 8.1.
Agreed.
Resolved: Issue #14 Tool should flag mime types that are not part of its 
base already. When new type comes along informs the user of the tool.

15. Checks for NOSCRIPT
LK In AERT NOSCRIPT is text, but can be markup. Check if what's inside 
NOSCRIPT is accessible.
WL Can it be an object? an applet?
LK Check that it is valid HTML? Can only contain a block: P | %heading; | 
%list; | %preformatted; | DL | DIV | NOSCRIPT | BLOCKQUOTE | FORM | HR | 
TABLE | FIELDSET | ADDRESS
WL Some tools put weird stuff in despite DTD.
LK Write, AOLPress insists on putting BODY in NOSCRIPT.
Resolved: Issue #15 Check contents of NOSCRIPT according to spec, i.e. only 
contains a block: P | %heading; | %list; | %preformatted; | DL | DIV | 
NOSCRIPT | BLOCKQUOTE | FORM | HR | TABLE | FIELDSET | ADDRESS

16. Checks for ISMAP
WC Propose that add text to HTML Techniques section 7.6 (image maps) that 
says, if using a server-side map as well as client-side then the 
client-side is providing the text links for the server-side. Then the 
checkpoint that applies is adding redundant text links for client-side 
image map (priority 3).
WL How does A-prompt handle?
CR Not sure. ismap is not very common anymore.
Action WC propose language to WCAG for issue #16.
Resolved: Issue #16 is closed for us, when WCAG makes a change in 
techniques send notice to AU/ER with list of changes, then up to AU/ER to 
incorporate into AU/ER techniques.

26. Server-side to client-side image map conversion
CR Have map file, can convert. Sent to list last week.
LK Do we want to include the brute force method as well?
CR We looked at that, to do it properly requires many exchanges with the 
server and becomes impractical.
WC Any way to request the map file?
CR Looked into, couldn't find any way to do it.
LK If they haven't done their security patches... <laughter/>
WL Or call up the author.
CR This just be for older files. Not used much anymore.
LK Input form that has a submit button. that image acting like an image 
map. everytime have one of those tags should be probing to see if server 
side map. Theoretically probe all image tags in an INPUT element to 
determine if server-side image maps (INPUT type=image").
Resolved: Issue #26 If you find ismap and the map file is available, here 
is how you can convert it to a client-side image map with usemap. If you 
find INPUT type="image" then a heuristic you can use is to probe the image 
to determine if it is used as a server-side image map. If any probes come 
back different
Action LK write up proposals for issues 12, 14, 15, and 26 and send to AU.

$Date: 2001/01/22 17:56:51 $ Wendy Chisholm

--
wendy a chisholm
world wide web consortium
web accessibility initiative
madison, wi usa
tel: +1 608 663 6346
/--