Media types

• From: Jason White <jasonw@ariel.ucs.unimelb.EDU.AU>
• Date: Fri, 31 Oct 1997 08:33:23 +1100 (AEDT)
• To: WAI HC Working Group <w3c-wai-hc@w3.org>
• Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.95.971031082640.1573A-100000@ariel.ucs.unimelb.EDU.AU>

I would like to summarise briefly in this forum the media type issue which
I raised on the IG list yesterday.

The problem, essentially, is that if media type values are truncated prior
to being matched against the media type of the output device, then so soon
as parameterized values are introduced, the truncation which is mandated
by the current HTML 4.0 draft will result in different media types being
treated as identical. For example:
media="screen enlarged" and media="print enlarged"
become:
media="screen" and media="print" respectively. Furthermore, since "screen"
is the default media type, a style sheet without an explicit media type
value would be applied as part of the cascade, even if the default style
sheet was of type media="screen enlarged"

I do not regard this as a desirable result from the standpoint of
accessibility.

Received on Thursday, 30 October 1997 16:33:45 UTC