Re: Future of HTML

In regard to the future of HTML,

1. Phonetic information
2. DOM

1. Phonetic information.

One problem that exists in the HTML4.0 spec.
is the lack of a mechanism to provide phonetic information.
This problem is very severe in non-European languages, where 
many things are written the same but pronounced differently.
This is vital for aural medium. In many cases it is logically impossible
to get things pronounced correctly (by the rules of grammar), 
and human (Author's) intervention in needed.

There was a proposal placed on this list by Nakane:

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/1997OctDec/0137.html

I think that the idea there is good but it needs some working. 
I am writing a proposal in the same spirit and am considering 
submitting it to the Future of HTML workshop. (if I'll get it 
ready in time)

2.  DOM

I agree with Chuck that DOM has high potential
in accessibility matters, since it allows to rewrite documents 
contingent on user's situation and change documents 
in ways impossible by media contingent style sheets.

My belief is that style sheets will take in 
the long run many things people are trying 
to do with scripts, and I would put 
stylesheets in higher priority (at least from the point 
of view of what an author should learn), 
but there is certainly a need for DOM 
standards as well.

Regards,

Nir Dagan                            
Assistant Professor of Economics      
Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Barcelona (Spain)

email: dagan@upf.es
Website: http://www.econ.upf.es/%7Edagan/

Received on Thursday, 12 March 1998 06:22:29 UTC