Re: role of DOM vs. SPEAKROW

To answer Daniel's question more directly, the macro function fulfilled by
my hypothetical SPEAKROW and SPEAKCELL properties clearly needs to be
under the control of the document's author rather than merely the user,
and is therefore a style sheet issue. This is well illustrated by T.V.
Raman's original example: "Population in [cell1] was [cell2]", where the
variables enclosed in brackets refer to data cells. Such a combination of
fixed strings and table data could only be put together by the author,
since specific knowledge of the content of the table is required.
Similarly, the order in which the elements comprising a table are
presented to the user should also e available for the author to
manipulate. If the reader decides to browse the table interactively
instead of allowing the default or author-supplied reading order to take
effect, obviously the interactive navigation of the table is entirely a
function of the user agent; but it should be possible to present a table
adequately without requiring interactive browsing. This is why the author
should be given the opportunity to control the audio representation
through flexible and appropriate style properties.

An important principle is that W3C standards should not favour one medium
over any other; all media should be treated as worthy of full support.
Thus, it would be wrong to provide a full set of style facilities for the
screen and print media, and not to do likewise in the case of braille and
audio.

Received on Monday, 17 November 1997 19:02:25 UTC