Re: Using preformatted text or excluding preformatting text as an exception to no two dimensional scrolling as failure for Reflow 1.4.10

Hi Wayne,

> It certainly would be nice to enable young students of computer science
with low vision to read code examples in books.

No disagreement there. I'll fine-tune my response by saying that for a
'rule' like that, there would have to be an exception for when the
formatting of the text is crucial to the understanding (or in the case of
some code examples, perhaps functionality of the content , or because of
the desire to convey the structure indicated according to the conventions
of that language.) In some IDE's, adding a carriage return is the
equivalent of adding a white-space, which potentially could break some code
examples <http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20001206164827794>,
so again, the decision to wrap (or not wrap) code examples with <pre> needs
to be an informed decision, and not just a blanket declaration that all
<pre> formatted text = failure (which is what I understood Patrick to be
suggesting).

As an educator, I'd want to ensure that low vision CS students learned
those code conventions as well, as (presumably) they will one day find
themselves dealing with real production code written with those very same
conventions, so it's a bit of a balancing act, no?

JF

On Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 12:06 PM Wayne Dick <wayneedick@gmail.com> wrote:

> It certainly would be nice to enable young students of computer science
> with low vision to read code examples in books.
>
> Each time I read an O'Reilly book I have to cut out the code and pull it
> into an IDE with word wrapping. It is a very slow process.
>
> There seems to be no standards for formatting PRE content. Each publisher
> tends to have a format, but there are no standards that would permit
> reliable parsing.
>
> Best, Wayne
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 9:49 AM John Foliot <john.foliot@deque.com> wrote:
>
>> ...and this is why I so dislike Failure Techniques...
>>
>> > I'm guessing the failure per se is the use of preformatted text,
>>
>>
>> We cannot do this or say this as broadly as that. There are many
>> instances where pre-formatted text would be required (the most common
>> use-case being poetry).
>>
>> Haiku:
>>
>> The summer river:
>> although there is a bridge, my horse
>> goes through the water.
>>
>> Example of a Robert Service
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Service> poem
>> <https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45081/the-cremation-of-sam-mcgee>
>> :
>>
>> On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
>> Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
>> If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't
>> see;
>> It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.
>>
>> In these examples, the formatting of the text also conveys the Pentameter
>> <https://literarydevices.net/pentameter/>of the rhymes/poems. Conveying
>> this critical literary device is wholly dependent on the formatting of the
>> text.
>>
>> JF
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 10:33 AM Joshue O Connor - InterAccess <
>> josh@interaccess.ie> wrote:
>>
>>> Patrick H. Lauke wrote:
>>>
>>> On 29/01/2019 14:30, Joshue O Connor - InterAccess wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> Is there any progress on the potential Failure "Using preformatted text
>>> or excluding preformatting text as an exception to no two dimensional
>>> scrolling". [1]
>>>
>>> I find this really difficult to parse - can anyone explain the thinking
>>> behind this one to me please?
>>>
>>> [1] https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/reflow.html
>>>
>>>
>>> I'm guessing the failure per se is the use of preformatted text, with
>>> the addition of wrongly thinking that it might be something that's valid to
>>> exclude as being required to reflow? And that in the end, the failure will
>>> be retitled to just "Using preformatted text" with a clear indication in
>>> the prose of the failure that no, it doesn't count automatically as an
>>> exemption?
>>>
>>> Go you.. I'm still confused but somewhat reassured that someone I know
>>> does understand it :-)
>>>
>>>
>>> P
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Joshue O Connor
>>> Director | InterAccess.ie
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> *​John Foliot* | Principal Accessibility Strategist | W3C AC
>> Representative
>> Deque Systems - Accessibility for Good
>> deque.com
>>
>>

-- 
*​John Foliot* | Principal Accessibility Strategist | W3C AC Representative
Deque Systems - Accessibility for Good
deque.com