Re: defining table data for layout purposes

> Using the HTML code below does not work. <TH> tags won't work as the
> contents in each column is different and therefore cannot have a general

Then it is not, semantically, a table, and any use of table can only be
justified as a work round for broken browsers.  (On the other hand, the
example looks to me like a table with headings Moon and Braille, so
the images should be in TH *elements*.)

>            <TD id="header1"><img src="" alt="Braille picture"></TD>
>            <TD id="header2"><img src="" alt="Moon picture"></TD>

Unless the page is about describing the contents of the pictures, these
alt text values are wrong.  It seems likely that alt="" is the right thing
here.

>            <TD headers="header1"><A href="">Braille Category</A></TD>
>            <TD headers="header2"><A href="">Moon Category</A></TD>

Given your affiliations, the people you serve are likely to use Lynx, if
they are poor, and IE/JAWS if they are rich.  Lynx will make a mess of
this, and JAWS supposedly can cope with what IE can manage (although 
that only really impacts visual use).

If both the image and the text are important and you are just using the
table for layout, the ideal is to use CSS positioning instead, and place
the text immediately before/after the corresponding image.  You may then
have to compromise to support IE4 with CSS enabled.

On the other hand, if it really is a small table, the right way is probably
to put Braille and Moon as separate rows, rather than separate columns.

> 
> NOTICE: The information contained in this email and any attachments is 
> confidential and may be legally privileged. If you are not the 

It clearly isn't confidential, so, when RNIB uses this disclaimer they
clearly don't mean it, so it is just a waste of space (my employer has
a similar one and I no longer post from work).

Received on Tuesday, 9 April 2002 17:49:38 UTC