RE: summary attribute required? history.

I've seen this (variants on <Q>summary="table used for layout"</Q>) quite a
bit.  I am almost ashamed to admit that I have been doing this routinely,
primarily to quiet Tidy (and Bobby et al.).  I used to include the number of
rows and columns, but stopped that when JFW started to vocalize that
information by default.  I understand the argument that this technique is
"too uselessly chatty" and am quite sensitive to that position.

Here's my proposal (which should, amazingly enough, keep everyone happy):
We promote <Q>summary=""</Q> as the preferred technique for layout tables --
in much the same way that <Q>alt=""</Q> is the preferred technique for
spacer gifs.

Can Triple-A pages use tables for layout?

> ----------
> From: 	Charles McCathieNevile
> Sent: 	Monday, March 5, 2001 11:58 AM
> To: 	Leonard R. Kasday
> Cc: 	Al Gilman; William Loughborough; w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
> Subject: 	Re: summary attribute required? history.
> 
> The words say, provide a summary (a short synopsis, precis, etc), and
> give,
> as one example of how to do t in one language, the use of HTML's summary
> attribute. I would also be looking for a summary in testing for triple-A,
> but
> in reaching for it myself I prefer to have a caption element, and possibly
> add additional information in a summary. (This is because I don't use
> layout
> tables. If I did I would note that they are layout tables in the summary).

Received on Monday, 5 March 2001 13:01:14 UTC