Re: User agent support of SUMMARY attribute in tables

My opinion is that it is better to keep this kind of information out of 
line. I sent an explanation of why to the DC-Accessibility mailing list 
yesterday, and will look for a URI or forward it here, but the basic 
idea is that there may be several people recording results and you want 
to know what the different evaluations say. (It's also cleaner).

Tools for implementing this way include Annotea 
http://www.w3.org/2001/Annotea - a protocol that has three-and-a-half 
server implementations and at least a handful of clients already.

cheers

Chaals

On Thursday, Jan 23, 2003, at 06:32 Australia/Melbourne, Phill Jenkins 
wrote:

>
>
> The problem I'm dealing with is how to tell if a layout table has been
> checked and verified that it is in fact a layout table and doesn't need
> headings (TH's) or a useful summary etc.?  If I never leave a mark on 
> the
> layout table, I'll never know that I have already checked and verified 
> it.
>
> One of the proposals on the table is (pun intended) using the summary
> attribute to place the keyword "layout" to distinguish it from a data
> table. Checking tools would then be able to use this keyword as a flag 
> that
> this particular table does not need to be checked for headings, etc.
> Assuming that a table is a layout table because it does NOT have a 
> summary
> or does not have heading (TH's) is problematic because most tables 
> today,
> including data tables, do not have the proper markup. SO without proper
> markup, I have to assume it has to be checked.
>
> Besides using the summary attribute to keep the keyword "layout", the 
> other
> option is the title attribute, but IE will display the title as a 
> visual
> tool tip.  Authors will never place it in the title attribute if the
> browsers keep showing it via the tool tip.  So in my opinion the best
> approach is to use the summary attribute.
>
> Opinions?
>
> Regards,
> Phill Jenkins,  IBM Research Division - Accessibility Center
> http://www.ibm.com/able
>
>
--
Charles McCathieNevile           charles@sidar.org
Fundación SIDAR                       http://www.sidar.org

Received on Wednesday, 22 January 2003 18:46:28 UTC