Useful authoring tools RE: Simplicity of Authoring and Accessibility Tools

I use Amaya as my main authoring tool, becuase I like the HTMl and CSS
interface, and becase it produces valid code automatically.

Tidy is great for importing junk content and cleaning it up

I use Lynx as a browser for looking at stuff in - between it, Amaya, and a
couple of common graphics browsers I get a quick idea of what is going to
appear. (In general I use Lynx as my first browser)

I also use iCab as a browser - despite the fact that it doesn't support style
sheets, it does a lot of other things reasonably nicely for me. (I use it if
I need a graphic browser as my first choice)

W3C has a link checking tool, so I use that.

I also use the Amaya views for testing in. And if all else feails, of course,
I read the source...


cheers

Charles McCN

On Fri, 19 Jan 2001, Gatewood, Joy wrote:

  I use a combination of tools to discover what fixes are needed
  to improve accessibility.

  -Linkbot has a web site scan that includes a listing of pages missing
  attributes (such as images missing alt tags and pages without titles);
  -Dreamweaver also has these options;
  -Homesite (I use the 3.2 old version with a built in HTML validator)
  lets you run the validator over a web page and see not only the HTML
  errors, but also prompts the user to add alt tags to images lacking them;
  -Bobby is useful to find problems with your web site/page that you may
  have overlooked; and
  -JAWS is also useful to beta test your site with, especially to mimic a
  blind
  person's visit to your site.

  Then one can consult a checklist and go over it manually to fine tune
  any errors and/or omissions.

  I'd be interested to hear what others use.


  Joy Gatewood
  Vector Research, Inc.
  www.vrionline.com

  -----Original Message-----
  From: Charles McCathieNevile [mailto:charles@w3.org]
  Sent: Friday, January 19, 2001 12:19 PM
  To: Kynn Bartlett
  Cc: Charles F. Munat; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
  Subject: RE: Simplicity of Authoring and Accessibility Tools


  I also agree that we need a good tool. For my pusrposes, I use Amaya as a
  WYSIWYG tool. It doesn't do everything, but it does the things I need. Which
  is my compromise. (In particular, it suffers from being somewhat
  inaccessible
  to a number of users. On the other hand it has an interface that makes it
  fairly easy to create reasonably structured content, although it is not the
  same interface as many common editors. I guess I should confess that I
  actually don't find those editors intuitive either - I have to learn every
  single piece of software I want to use).

  There was a thread a while ago on editors that people like using. I thought
  it was very valuable to see what people liked and why, and what the
  limitations were.

  cheers

  Charles McCN

  On Fri, 19 Jan 2001, Kynn Bartlett wrote:

    At 1:48 AM -0800 1/19/01, Charles F. Munat wrote:
    >As for teaching HTML, I've been teaching for the better part of 20 years
  and
    >I've yet to meet anyone who was incapable of learning. Different people
  may
    >need different pedagogical techniques, and may learn at different rates,
  but
    >anyone who's capable of operating FrontPage is certainly capable of
  learning
    >enough HTML to code a web page. Whether they want to is another question.
    >For those who don't, I hope we get a decent WYSIWYG tool soon.

    We are in definite agreement that we need a good WYSIWYG tool.  I
    don't think there are any at the moment, sadly, so compromises are
    often necessary.

    --Kynn




-- 
Charles McCathieNevile    mailto:charles@w3.org    phone: +61 (0) 409 134 136
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative                      http://www.w3.org/WAI
Location: I-cubed, 110 Victoria Street, Carlton VIC 3053, Australia
until 6 January 2001 at:
W3C INRIA, 2004 Route des Lucioles, BP 93, 06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France

Received on Friday, 19 January 2001 15:19:19 UTC