Re: Web Development

on 10/8/00 2:25 PM, w3c-wai-ig-d-request@w3.org at
w3c-wai-ig-d-request@w3.org wrote:

> From: Suzanne Nikolaisen <nikolaisen@yahoo.com>
> Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2000 14:42:40 -0700 (PDT)

> creating with alternative browsers. Can you please
> recommend some freeware or shareware alternative
> browsers that are popular?

I can't say which browser or browsers, other than Navigator, Communicator,
or Internet Explorer, are popular on the mac, but here is one that may be:
http://icab.de/

Here are some browsers I use to test my web pages:
For compatibility with WebTV:
http://developer.webtv.net/design/tools/viewer/default.htm

For compatibiltity with a possible device that does not support forms (dunno
how likely this would be given the popularity of forms):
http://mindstory.com/wb2/
[ This browser displays pages very quickly so its nice to have when you are
in a rush to get to some information. ]

For compatibility with Lynx:
http://www.lirmm.fr/~gutkneco/maclynx/maclynx_beta1.sit.hqx

For compatibility with devices that do not support tables.
ftp://ftp.uconn.edu/pub/mac/internet(info-mac)/web/mac-web-111e-ppc.hqx





> As I learn about accessible web development techniques
> I will be sharing the information with other web
> developers.  

Just thought I would share some of my experiences. Hope you find something
useful.

A plug in that may be helpful to test with is:
http://www.surftalk.com/surftalk/demo.html

It allows you to speak the words in a link and have netscape navigator
connect to it. I tried the demo version once and found that it is helpful to
make the first few words in each link unique. Should there be several links
with the same first few words, I think (have not tried it in ages) it
follows the first link. So if there were a series of links on a page that
said: Download, it would follow the first Download link. As an example:

<a href="http://www.apple.com/education/k12/disability/">Apple Disability
Resources: </a><a href="http://www.apple.com/education/k12/disability/">
http://www.apple.com/education/k12/disability/</a>

would allow the person to say the key words Apple Disability Resources to
connect to that link (as opposed to h t t p colon etc.), and it would also
allow those printing the page to get a copy of the link also.

Some mac web browsers use plaintalk text to speech to read the contents of
the page (NCSA Mosaic, and MacLynx). I found that adding a lot of
punctuation (periods, or full stops) may help to prevent the page from
sounding like one run on sentence. Perhaps css 2 could help, but I am not
aware of a browser for the mac that supports acss, so sometimes I just over
punctuate my pages.






> My site for this (with very minimal
> information so far is located at
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nikolaisen/accessibility.htm

As an aside the page is inaccessible to macweb, and perhaps any browser that
supports  http 1.0 only. I don't know why. Perhaps it has something to do
with the earthlink server. You get the following message:

Old Web Browser!
The website you are trying to reach requires that you use an updated
browser that supports the HTTP 1.1 protocol. ...

You should be running version V3.0 or later. You can get an updated
version at Netscape's Web site. ...

Internet Explorer (Microsoft) You should be running version V2.0 or later
(V3.0 or later recommended). ...



 
-- 
Mark Andrew Nassy,
<URI:mailto:nassy@crosswinds.net>

Received on Sunday, 8 October 2000 21:46:14 UTC