Re: Braille media type

The basic approach to media types which Al has developed, and which I have
championed, is outlined at
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-hc/0061.html

Within the context of that general approach, I would recommend that a
media type for braille (media="braille") be reserved as a base type; this
is indeed the current position as reflected in the HTML 4.0 draft.

The question of whether any TTY styles or style sheets would be relevant
to braille devices, in spite of the formatting differences between braille
and character-based terminals, is a question that should be left for later
consideration by the Formats and Protocols working group.

I have been discussing with Al by private e-mail some of the disanalogies
between TTY and braille formatting. These are concerned principally with
the effects of contractions and hyphenation, the use of different braille
codes depending upon which country's braille standard is in use (and this
is not equivalent to a change in language or character set), etc.

Another difference lies in the primacy which is rightly given to
considerations of space conservation in braille formatting conventions.
Blank lines are normally suppressed; indentation is normally limited to
two characters per level of indent, etc.

Received on Saturday, 18 October 1997 00:12:46 UTC