- From: Michael R. Burks <mburks952@worldnet.att.net>
- Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 05:33:41 -0500
- To: "Charles McCathieNevile" <charles@w3.org>, "SHARPE, Ian" <Ian.SHARPE@cambridge.sema.slb.com>
- Cc: "WAI \(E-mail\)" <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
I could not agree more, the problem in general and not just with style sheets is things are getting so wrapped up highly technical solutions that those who are not immersed in this are being excluded. But I believe this has been mentioned before. Sincerely, Mike Burks -----Original Message----- From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Charles McCathieNevile Sent: Friday, March 15, 2002 5:02 AM To: SHARPE, Ian Cc: WAI (E-mail) Subject: RE: CSS positioning The problem with applying this solution generally should not be solved by having to read source code and do wierd things, it should be solved by better tools. In particular, having a style-sheet authoring tool built nto a browseer, that doesn't require the user to know much about source code, is important. The only example I know of that starts to demonstrate how this could work is Amaya, and that is missing a couple of vital functions (the ability to export a rule to the user CSS in particular). The basic idea is that a user selects something that they aren't able to use properly because of some presentation rules. Then they say "make things like this be presented like so". (This is how the Amaya CSS authoring interface works, although it only has a very limited range of things available - much less than the software itself supports). Then they can add this rule to their USER style sheet. Ideally, they can even make it on a per-site basis, or per page basis, so they end up with a collection of rules that they can choose to reapply by associating them with a new type of element on a different page, or with the same type of element on a different page... (MS Word more or less does this, at least when I used to use it, in the mid-90s). cheers Chaals On Fri, 15 Mar 2002, SHARPE, Ian wrote: Jim, that's fantastic but leaves me with a couple of other questions which I believe again support Kynn's point. Firstly, as I can read the text now, it seems that the same problem for the top positioning is now causing problems for the left positioning and I'm getting truncation of text. I had a guess at doing the same thing as you have done for the top position and added "left: 0px !important;" but no joy? How can I now sort this out? Secondly, *[class] in my stylesheet under IE5.5 doesn't seem to work as a match for all classes on a page. Is this a known feature of IE CSS support? Is there an alternative? I was hoping to add some generic styling which would apply to all (well most anyway) other web pages so I wouldn't have to keep asking these sorts of questions. I'm not that bother about this site in particular but want to create a stylesheet which can be used whenever I need to access a site which exhibits the same behaviour. Thirdly, did you just guess at the class name? Do you use a tool to identify which element produces a particular effect (like in Visual Studio when you click on the page and the HTML source is displayed) or are you using your obviously considerable experience? I tried searching for the text in one of the menus but because I could only see the first few letters under my settings when I performed the search on the source I got to many results to make this a feasible appraoch? Once I understand what's going on I was intending to publish my stylesheet so that others might be able to benefit from the work? I'm getting the distinct impression that current CSS suport (in IE at least but it appears Opera is much better) does not provide the functionality to do this generically? It's no good if every time one has a problem web page you have to search through the source, identify all problem classes and then add them to your own stylesheet!? Besides, different sites may use the same class name for different purposes? It would be nice to think that the latest version of CSS at least does provide the functionality to acheive this even if we have to wait a while for browsers to support the latest version? I would just add that I am fully aware that this would most definitely NOT be a universal solution for ALL. If I'm being completely honest my motivation is selfishness - I want to produce something that will help me do my job. As opposed to Kynn's more honorable FUSSY approach. However, if I can be of any use in this quest my services where possible are sincerely offered. Cheers Ian -----Original Message----- From: Kynn Bartlett [mailto:kynn-edapta@idyllmtn.com] Sent: 14 March 2002 17:43 To: Jim Ley; WAI (E-mail) Subject: Re: CSS positioning At 5:06 PM +0000 3/14/02, Jim Ley wrote: >If you really want to make the page accessible... >Adding this to your user stylesheet seems to do a reasonable job... >.itemBorder { top:0px !important;position:relative !important;height:2em >!important } >it changes the position to relative, removes the top position and forces >the height to 2em, itemBorder is perhaps a common classname though so it >may effect other pages. What Jim says is right -- but it just illustrates why there is a problem with CSS and user style sheets to begin with. Without knowing HTML and CSS in detail, and knowing how to set up a user style sheet, the end user can't take advantage of the features of the cascade meant to protect the user's interests. This is something I hope to address if I ever get FUSSY (Free User Style Sheet for You) off the groud, but geez, I need more time in the day! :) --Kynn -- Charles McCathieNevile http://www.w3.org/People/Charles phone: +61 409 134 136 W3C Web Accessibility Initiative http://www.w3.org/WAI fax: +33 4 92 38 78 22 Location: 21 Mitchell street FOOTSCRAY Vic 3011, Australia (or W3C INRIA, Route des Lucioles, BP 93, 06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France)
Received on Friday, 15 March 2002 05:36:37 UTC