Re: text as images...

> So here we have a dilemma. There is a loss of presentation quality if text
> is rendered as images. There is a loss of presentation quality if people
use
> Netscape, and the author "correctly" uses CSS to style the text.
>
> Do we have a mechanism for working out whether one of these is a bigger
> problem in terms of accessibility?

At this point in time, I have to say I believe non-current Netscape
compatibility should no longer be a consideration.

First, this is primarily a problem with Netscape 3, since it doesn't support
CSS at all. But version 3 has been obsolete for five years, and CSS support
is adequate in most competitive browsers released since then. Version 4 has
its own idiosyncrasies, but sometimes it does what's necessary. Version 6 is
more than adequate (and by the time WCAG 2 is released, a version of
Netscape 6 based on Mozilla 1.0 should be available).

Previously, we've broached the subject of a user's responsibility to keep up
to some extent with browser technology. I think this is an ideal example of
where we say it is a user's responsibility to be on a browser that supports
standards adequately. In the situation of Netscape, where better options are
available for the user, I can't find an argument for including non-recent
versions of it in a set of user agents for which developers should
explicitly increase access. Updates are free, readily available and
internationalized. Netscape's earlier support of standards was unimpressive
at best. And, perhaps more importantly, where IE is embedded in other
applications/kiosks, etc., Netscape largely is not, which means there are
few barriers that I can see to get off the platform where accessibility for,
say, low-vision users, is a concern.

-
m

----- Original Message -----
From: "Charles McCathieNevile" <charles@w3.org>
To: <gian@stanleymilford.com.au>
Cc: <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>; <wendy@w3.org>
Sent: Friday, February 01, 2002 10:16 AM
Subject: RE: text as images...


> So here we have a dilemma. There is a loss of presentation quality if text
> is rendered as images. There is a loss of presentation quality if people
use
> Netscape, and the author "correctly" uses CSS to style the text.
>
> Do we have a mechanism for working out whether one of these is a bigger
> problem in terms of accessibility?

Received on Friday, 1 February 2002 14:15:05 UTC