RE: media type(s) for braille

On Wed, 19 Nov 1997, Masafumi NAKANE/[ISO-2022-JP] 中根雅文 wrote:

>      > I think that the question of which country's braille codes to
>      > use should be decided by the user and the braille translation
>      > software, and that style sheets should merely indicate when to
>      > change into, for example, computer notation, the mathematics
>      > code, etc. The whole issue requires further consideration
>      > however.
> 
> This sounds right in today's technology.  But what if we have
> something like self-brailling browser?
> 
JW: In that case, the selection of an applicable braille standard will be
a function of configuration parameters internal to the browser, and this
is no different from a situation in which the braille translation and
formatting are carried out by an external access agent. For example, the
user might choose British braille, in which event, any French text
(lang="fr") found in the document will be translated according to British
rules for the transcription of French, rather than in conformity with
French braille standards as used in France.

> If we assume the existence of access-agent (braille translator in this 
> case, and screen-reader in case with speech), we need to be clear
> which tasks should be handled by the access-agent and which should be
> dealt with by the browser.

JW: I agree. If an external access agent is used, then the application of
braille style sheets would be its responsibility. The browser need only
expose the braille style sheet parameters via DOM or a comparable
mechanism, together with the markup. The access agent would then apply
this information in the generation of a properly coded and formatted
document.

Received on Thursday, 20 November 1997 23:39:41 UTC