- From: Jim Ley <jim@jibbering.com>
- Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 21:24:45 -0000
- To: <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Checkpoint 4.1 Scripting has some problems, there are holes which are standardised by anyone - "DOM Level 0" - required for any scripting at all; exists only in proprietary implementations, so 4.1 success criteria 4 isn't possible for scripting, is it therefore the intention that scripting isn't an appropriate choice, or is "widespread workable support" [1] ok? Checkpoint 4.2 By only using standard DOM methods in the real world, you limit your browser audience, to those that have implemented those standards, however due to the organic way that scripting and standardisation has gone, you can have good browser support for your script by using slightly different methods without breaking any others. Scripting does increase accessibility, and as a developer I'd like to support every browser I can that doesn't harm others, limiting me to only standardised ones will be prevent me supporting widely used platforms. (I won't convince others if they can't support IE5 for example - which generally can be done without danger.) Checkpoint 4.3 Validity of CSS and of Scripting languages cause a problem, it means you can not use any browser extension without breaking this checkpoint, even if the extension is one that increases accessibility without damaging it elsewhere. ECMAScript allows developers to extend the language in pretty much any way they want, this is outlawed by HTML [2] and CSS (as I understand it.) HTML I can understand much more than CSS, but adding a proprietary CSS property like "border-radius", will not harm accessibility, yet the alternatives if that's not available will certainly not be as clean, and may well harm things. Jim. [1] By workable support I mean the differences in implementations can be hidden from the user by use of the scripting language [2] XHTML may be different, but from my perspective that does not appear to be an option for web publication until browsers actually support it, rather than giving unpredictable results.
Received on Thursday, 24 January 2002 16:29:29 UTC