- From: David Woolley <david@djwhome.demon.co.uk>
- Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 22:54:44 +0100 (BST)
- To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> Please excuse the novice level of this question. Is the <hr> tag = > accessible? Or how can one make it so? It's difficult to answer without more context. The main problem with BR elements is that they are misused, somewhat in the way that your email program has been abusing DIV in the pseudo-HTML version of the mail (please disable this). BR means ensure that the following text starts at the beginning of a line in a visual presentation. It doesn't mean start a new paragraph, but without a blank line. It doesn't mean move the writing point down one line (even though most browsers do this); vertical motion is only necessary if there is output on the current line. Even someone with normal senses and a GUI browser, could have line lengths set such that it is not possible to distinguish between the effect of BR and an automatic line break, so you cannot rely on BR providing much semantic information to the user. Simple screen readers and a text mode browser are unlikely to detect short lines. I suppose a reader with access to the document object model could announce BRs, but the result would be noisy for the many pages that abuse them, either as an attempt at author controlled wrapping (making unreasonable assumptions about font sizes or line lengths) or gap-less paragraphing (again vulnerable to misreading if line lengths cause the last line to be more or less full). I'd say that, used properly, as between the lines in your address in the (pseudo-) HTML version of your email, there should be no problem, but their abuse will always cause some problems and not only for the disabled. > <DIV><FONT face=3DArial></FONT> </DIV> > <DIV><FONT face=3DArial>Thanks in advance!</FONT></DIV> > <DIV><FONT face=3DArial>UCP National<BR>1660 L Street, NW, Suite=20 > 700<BR>Washington, DC 20036<BR>Ph: 800-872-5827<BR>Fax:=20 > 202-776-0414<BR>Web site: <A=20
Received on Wednesday, 11 July 2001 17:56:52 UTC