- From: Charles McCathieNevile <charlesn@srl.rmit.EDU.AU>
- Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1998 12:02:40 +1100 (EST)
- To: Nir Dagan <nir@nirdagan.com>
- cc: w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
<LANG="LA">Mea maxima culpa. Non Cogitavit. Nonne sum?</LANG> <LANG="EN">Oh. Sometimes I forget how stupid I can be. I had made the fairly fatal error of not checking how browsers implemented the specs, and what was in the older specs. Which explains why Nir must have thought I was stupid - right again. It is possible to achieve what I am setting out to achieve - the graphic imagemap at the top for Microsoft (and everyone who has a site that looks like that) which can be rendered instead as a set of text links at the bottom for anyone who prefers to read their site that way. This is based on the premise that people really do like using imagemaps. The difference is that to my examples AREAs must be added. <BODY> <IMG SRC="map.gif" USEMAP="the-map" ALT="Imagemap - links at end of page"> ... ... <DIV> <MAP> <AREA SHAPE="rect" COORDS="0,0,100,100" HREF="some.htm" ALT="Somewhere"> <AREA SHAPE="rect" COORDS="100,0,200,100" HREF="some.htm" ALT="Elsewhere"> <AREA SHAPE="rect" COORDS="200,0,300,100" HREF="some.htm" ALT="Otherwhere"> <P><A HREF="some.htm" SHAPE="rect" COORDS="0,0,100,100">Somewhere</A> | <A HREF="else.htm" SHAPE="rect" COORD="100,0,200,100">Elsewhere</A> | <A HREF="other.htm" SHAPE="rect" COORDS="200,0,300,100">Otherwhere</A> </P> </MAP> </DIV> With CSS2 positioning and Attribute Matching, this enables styling on the presence of USEMAP and on MAP itself to control which parts are rendered, and when or where. With CSS1 it is possible for an author to hide the MAP and for a few users to force its display. (Communicator apparently won't allow the use of an author style sheet) Using classes would provide a kluge that allowed CSS1 control of the imagemap's presentation. So the implications for the guidelines are: Imagemaps: Don't use server sided ones. Use Client-side, with ALT on AREAs and a set of text links. [P1] Place the MAP itself, including the redundant links, at the end of the page [P3] Rationale: non-visual users find it tiring to wade through standard links before getting to the content. In the ALT text of the element which provides the Imagemap say "Imagemap - links repeated at end of page" or something[p2] Rationale: It will help non-visual users orient themselves if they know that the imagemap and text links are the same set of links before they wade through them all. For UA's we then ask them to implement text links as content for MAP as per HTML4.0, with the text of the link providing alternative content in the same way as ALT does for AREA [p2?] Am I making more sense now? Charles McCathieNevile
Received on Monday, 16 November 1998 20:06:32 UTC