Re: Aural extensions

Gregory, your points are well taken and I advise that we do indeed have a
broad climate here, by broad I mean in this case down and up or
multiplatform rather than back or forward.  it is nice as you say to take
care of the forward because that perhaps in one way or annother is where
we are all headed eventually perhaps looking forward to the day when
streaming computers are the network and the device is not dependant on
cost or anyother inhibitting factor.  However.  as you well point out and
should be heeded today we face the challenge of what is and not
necessarily what ms wants to be the standard.  I propose that we take up
the challeng we've been handed in this model and attempt to develop a
parellel model.


On Wed, 22 Oct 1997, gregory j. rosmaita wrote:

> aloha, al et. al.!
> 
> how sadly ironic that the MS proposal should degrade so ungracefully when
> rendered by lynx or any other text-based browser...  i can get realaudio
> to stream through my desktop when browsing with lynx32, yet i can't get
> consistently comprehensible aural output from a document automatically
> converted into hypertext by Word97...
> 
> if MS is to convince me that they are serious about accessibility and
> standards, then they will either bundle an HTML parser/validator with
> their HTML generators, or at the very least, take the time to _validate_
> the output of their automatic conversion utilities before posting,
> mounting, or circulating any hypertext documents generated by such
> utilities... checked against
> 
> 	http://www.webtechs.com/html-val-svc
> 
> for compliance with HTML 3.2 the MS proposal contained 199 errors...
> 
> and, while--for the most part--the actual body of the document was
> comprehensible, the front-matter most decidedly is not--save for those
> fortunate few who have access to a cell-by-cell capable browser...  in
> particular, anyone listening to the proposal as rendered by lynx 2.5
> and greater, would have heard the table-ized content as:
> 
> Version Author Date Change 0.9 Or Ben-Natan 6/6/97 Initial version
> 
> of course, this is the root of the problem which we are attempting to
> solve through our participation in the WAI and its working groups...
> but what of the user who will not reap the benefits of our work?  those
> who, for whatever reason, physical and/or financial, have no choice but to 
> use antiquated equipment and/or access the web via a shell account that
> features an ancient version of lynx which doesn't even support lynx's
> de-table-ization kludge?  while it is the purpose of this list to look 
> forward, we must not forget that true accessibility looks as far 
> backwards as it does forward...
> 
> what am i talking about?  perhaps a listen to/look at/feel of
> 
> 	http://www.njin.net/caldwell/vicug/iaap/table_32.html
> 
> will make my point more forcefully...  and, should Microsoft (and
> its rivals in the GUI-based browser market) consider implementing an Aural
> Accessibility Protocol/Patch, such as that outlined at:
> 
> 	http://www.njin.net/caldwell/vicug/iaap/
> 
> which would (amongst other things) allow the user to de-table-ize
> table-ized information, backwards-compatible access is extremely realizable...
> 
> by way of conclusion, i should stress that it is not my intention to
> scapegoat Microsoft on this issue--invalid HTML is endemic to the
> output of HTML authoring/conversion programs/utilities...  and, while
> SoftQuad has taken steps to remedy this with the release of HoTMetaL 4.0,
> HTML validation within authoring/conversion programs is still in its
> infancy...  this, coupled with the ever-increasing popularity and
> ubiquity of such authoring/conversion applications and utilities, presents
> one of the most serious threats to an accessible internet...
> 
> gregory.
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> oedipus@hicom.net
>         	http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/index.html
> 	                                                gregory@afb.org
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 

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Received on Thursday, 23 October 1997 06:50:38 UTC