DESC and TABLE: descriptions for groups of elements (fwd)

Once upon a time Kasday, Leonard shaped the electrons to say...
>organization is obvious to a sighted user, because of the visual design
>principles implemented by the layout.  However, a blind user has no way
>of immediately knowing this organzation.   I think it would be useful,

Wouldn't this fall under the use of AXIS, AXES, and SCOPE to group
table information?

>	3. HTML syntax may limit  use of DIV: for example, is it legal
>to have <DIV> in the middle of a table row and matching </DIV> in the
>middle of the next table row?  

DIV would be all wrong - it is a block element.  SPAN would be a better
choice to start working with.

As long as it is nested ok, it would be alright - as long as TABLE was
modified to allow SPAN as content.

The problem is nesting order.

This should be ok:
<TABLE>
<SPAN><TR><TD>stuff</TD><TD>stuff</TD></TR>
<TR><TD>stuff</TD><TD>stuff</TD></TR></SPAN>
</TABLE>

I don't believe this would be ok since the first </TR> should
close the <SPAN>;
<TABLE>
<TR><TD>stuff</TD><SPAN><TD>stuff</TD></TR>
<TR><TD>stuff</TD></SPAN><TD>stuff</TD></TR>
</TABLE>

I don't see a way to use a container to do this without violating nesting
order.  Attributes on the elements would be better.

Is there something you are thinking of in particular that AXIS, AXES, and
SCOPE wouldn't handle?

>	1.   ALT text and long description attributes for   TABLE, TR, TD

How would both of these be used?  Examples?


>	3.   A GROUP tag that defines as a group any other elements in
>the page, which may or may not be contiguous in the file.  It would have

>	     ALT
>	     LONGDESC
>	     ELEMENTS

Why ALT?  When would this element ever NOT be displayed in order to 
require alternate text?  It would already have TITLE, that and LONGDESC
should be enough.

>	     ELEMENTS is a list of element ID's.  This is to define as
>groups elements that are not contiguous.

That seems like it could get messy.  Is there a demonstratable need for it?

-MZ
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Received on Thursday, 23 October 1997 01:45:28 UTC