Re: Weather Report: Request for Appraisal

Hi Matthew!

I have found the following issues:

1. The XHTML 1.0 recommendation states that both "lang" and "xml:lang"
attributes should be used when specifying the language of an element. The
value of the "xml:lang" attribute takes precedence.

2. In XHTML documents, style and script content should not be in a comment
because it technically means that the browser will see it as a comment and
not as actual style or script content (though browsers are currently
forgiving about this). However, not using comments makes your document less
compatible with pre HTML 3.2 browsers (but most browsers in use now are HTML
3.2+ compatible). For maximum compatibility, I recommend putting the script
(especially longer scripts) in an external file and using the "src"
attribute to specify the external file. The next best option for XHTML
documents would be to not put the script content in a comment and to
disregard pre HTML 3.2 browsers.

3. The "style" attribute has been used but a default style sheet language
has not been defined (note that HTML Validator would not see this
declaration if it is sent as an HTTP header by a web server). HTML 4.01 and
XHTML require this for valid documents. For example, include this in the
"head" section of your document to specify "text/css" as the default style
sheet language: <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />.
See http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/present/styles.html#default-style If you are
using HTML Validator's integrated editor, then you can add this from the
Tags menu and/or from the Tag Inserter.

I hope I could help.

Kind regards,

John S. Britsios
Principal Web Accessibility Consultant,
Usability Specialist & Trainer


Webnauts Net
Thielenstr. 2
D-33602 Bielefeld
Germany

Tel.:     +49 - (0) 521 - 3051020
Mobile: +49 - (0) 163 - 2025561

Home: http://www.webnauts.net
Email: webmaster@webnauts.net
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Matthew Smith" <matt@kbc.net.au>
To: "WAI Interest Group" <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2004 6:32 AM
Subject: Weather Report: Request for Appraisal


>
> Hi All
>
> I have been working with some software that generates weather reports from
> various data held in a MySQL database.  The software produces a static
HTML page
> that may be uploaded to a web server.
>
> The HTML produced by the software was rather haphazard and messy, so I
have been
> re-writing the appropriate parts of the software to generate valid XHTML
1.0
> strict, formatted with valid CSS, that is as accessible as possible.
>
> Having run the code through the W3C HTML and CSS validators and then
through
> AccessValet and Bobby, I believe that I have something which has the
beginnings
> of being accessible.  I respectfully submit the following for your
consideration:
> <http://www.mss.cx/current_weather.html>
>
> One of the major stumbling points was the automatic refresh.  We've been
through
> that one on this list recently and I have found a reasonable solution, but
only
> for pages generated on-the-fly.  I have applied a very simple JavaScript
> solution to this static page.  If JavaScript is not there, you don't get
an
> auto-refresh facility.  If JavaScript is there, you have the means to turn
> auto-refresh on and off.
>
> Comments on this technique and the page in general would be appreciated.
As the
> original software is Open Source, I will re-release it as such when I've
> finished working on it.
>
> Cheers
>
> M
>
> -- 
> Matthew Smith
> Kadina Business Consultancy
> South Australia
>

Received on Wednesday, 15 September 2004 05:46:15 UTC