Re: Remarks on Checkpoints

On Thu, 7 Jan 1999, Charles McCathieNevile wrote:

> On the other hand, there is no such mechanism for TABLE. 

Right, but TABLE isn't a problem, it's a solution.  And sometimes it's
the wrong solution.

If your content is genuinely tabular in nature, then TABLE is the
exactly right solution, and if the client doesn't support it, then
it's the fault of the client (Lynx versus emacs-w3).

Often the content isn't genuinely tabular in nature, it's just a
misguided attempt to achieve visual formatting on the available
mass-market browsers.  Then Lynx is the clear winner, and the results
with a character-mode emacs-w3 are distinctly inferior, because the
author hadn't the first clue what a table would look like on a
text-mode browser.

> Either your
> browser understands it, (eg JAWS + IE4.xx) or it doesn't (Lynx 2.8, JAWS +
> Netscape 3 I believe). If it doesn't, then you are reasonably likely to be
> served incomprehensible gobbledygook.

With the greatest of respect, and honestly having no intention to be
rude to anyone, it's necessary to understand the _real_ problem
before addressing the solution. 

Lynx can often produce a _better_ result by not understanding TABLEs.
But only because authors leaped on TABLEs as a visual formatting
strategem.

Received on Thursday, 7 January 1999 18:38:35 UTC