Re: [techs] Summary of techniques teleconference 14 January 2004

>The relationship of technologies like HTML and SVG, either one of 
>which can be the "host" technology and the other supporting, 
>furthers the complexity of these relationships. How we label and 
>deal with these technologies has been a source of confusion for some 
>time. We ended up with three terms: "parent" technology is the main 
>technology displaying content, "embedded" technology renders a 
>discrete subset of the content, e.g., as an embedded SVG or movie 
>clip, and a "style" technology affects the presentation and 
>accessibility but does not itself play a role in content.

"Embedded" is a poor choice of words. The Working Group may not 
understand that <embed> isn't an HTML element, and that elements like 
<object> and attributes like longdesc call *other* files into being. 
This is to be contrasted with alt text (always present in the source 
document) or the possible case of enclosing alternatives inside 
nested <object> elements.

Hence SVG and movie clips aren't "embedded" in Web pages at all. They 
are separate files called by the source document.

Nonetheless, you're certainly on the right track.

>The HTML techniques [8] have "tasks" as well as code examples and 
>resources. Other repositories like John Slatin's [9] and Chris 
>Ridpath's [10] exist. We thought we should use the model from the 
>User Agent Accessibility Guidelines [11]. Chris and Jenae will work 
>further on this.

I trust Chris and Jenae's task will be to locate the many, many other 
test suites already available online, several of them *published by 
the W3C*? That would bring the Working Group up to about the year 
2000.

>Jenae: Survey some sites for things that would go into test framework

That seems a bit vague. Standards-compliant developers have been 
building test cases and compiling bug reports *and making extremely 
rich sites* for the last three years under the Working Group's nose, 
as I have been explaining to the Group for that time. Please explain 
exactly what this to-do item will actually do.

It is nonetheless commendable that a Working Group document actually 
deigned to mention the CSS Zen Garden and Eric Meyer. There may be 
hope for you yet.

-- 

     Joe Clark | joeclark@joeclark.org | <http://joeclark.org/access/>
     Author, _Building Accessible Websites_ | <http://joeclark.org/book/>
     Expect criticism if you top-post

Received on Friday, 16 January 2004 16:40:41 UTC