Re: CSS: @media handheld ...]

At 03:29 AM 2002-07-11, jonathan chetwynd wrote:

>The intention of the following* seems to be contrary to our generally agreement that alternatives should be available, and to leave the choice with the user.

If this is indeed being applied at an intermediate server, then the user indeed
should have a way to control that server.  But you are reading too much intention
out of a quote out of context.

The point you are raising is the standard "server side techniques" design space 
with both good and bad outcomes possible.

For the stake in the ground that the PF group has shared with the DI group, please
see

 some WAI comments on Device Independence
 http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2001Nov/0069.html

In addition, the PF understanding with the CSS working group is that we are 
jointly working on rendering control schemes for the multi-media delivery context,
together with the MMI and DI groups.  So they are agreed that the principles 
are yet to be fully defined, and that within this refinement process the DI and
MMI groups have the lead in their chartered areas.

So the fact that one could use some construct in CSS in a given processing 
flow does not make that processing flow a statement of intent or policy.

On the other hand, CSS itself is in the process of adding media queries to
stylesheet selection, so that the stylesheet selection process can be more
subtle.

For your clients in particular it is in fact pretty important that the 
author be able to create inbuilt situation-adaptive author nominations 
of the stylesheet to use, as the user is not that likely to be up to 
managing the injection of alternate stylesheets.

In particular, the page template recommended by the learning disabilities
guidelines, for example

<quote
cite="http://www.learningdisabilities.org.uk/html/content/webdesign.cfm">

    * Put the most important information in the middle of the screen.
    * Put things like buttons and links in the same place on each page,
      so that people know where to find them.
    * Put these buttons on every page: Exit, Home, Help, Next Page, Last
      Page.

</quote>

seems to me to be a natural for a) a requirement on the information content that all
these things be recognizable in the content and b) an alternate presentation that is
_not_ the default for the general user but is doable by a simple algorithmic processing
to segment, order and elaborate the content according to these features.

For further development of the vision for delivery-context-spanning authoring and 
delivery-context-adaptive service-delivery-chain control for services please see

 http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/wai-xtech/2002Jul/0015.html

Al

Received on Thursday, 11 July 2002 12:29:31 UTC