Re: Comments on http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/WD-WAI-USERAGENT-19980618

Willie Walker wrote:
> 
> Section 3.3:  The "current user selection" and "current focus" are
>               mentioned in the Terms and Definitions section, but
>               I could not find a definition of them.

They are defined there, but not well. I will improve the clarify
of the definitions.

> 
> Section 3.4:  "D-links should be identified in the document source
>               by giving the 'rel' attribute the value 'dlink.'"
>               Will the the "dlink" link type eventually make it into
>               the HTML specification?  I couldn't find it in the
>               following URL:
> 
>                 http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/types.html#type-links


It is likely that if this usage is "standardized" by a W3C
Recommendation,
this usage will be recorded in some future version of HTML. However, 
even in HTML 4.0, the listed values for rel/rev are only informative,
i.e.,
we put the list in the specification to capture current practice.
 
> Section 3.5:  Thank you for mentioning that most of the guidelines
>               in the document apply to 'dependent' user agents.  This
>               helped clarify a lot of things, and it might be helpful
>               to mention this earlier (e.g., the abstract).

I'm glad this comment was useful. As this document evolves, I hope the
distinction will be clearer and that the guidelines will be organized
along this line.
 
> Section 4.1:  Bullet item 3.  What do you mean by "custom settings
>               in profiles that may be shared"?  An example here might
>               help clarify this.  For example, what will share these
>               settings?

Ok.
 
> Section 4.4:  I think it is good that you have a section on alternative
>               representations of multimedia, but one thing that seems
>               to be missing is how this is going to be done.  Given
>               that this type of data might be presented using a third
>               party plug-in, there should be some standard way for the
>               browser to tell the plug-in to do something.  Otherwise,
>               it seems as though these priorities will be very difficult
>               to meet.

I believe people will be able to achieve this with SMIL (see
the new W3C SMIL Recommendation).
 
> Section 4.1:  SUNSoft should be Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Ok.
 
> Section 4.6:  I understand the desire to provide better access to
>               tables so today's screen readers can do the right thing.
>               Does serialization help with this?  Has anyone done any
>               studies to determine that this works?  It surely won't
>               work for those pages where the authors use tables for
>               the sole purpose of doing tricky visual layouts.

I'll get more feedback from the Working Group.
 
> Section 6.1:  I think I understand the reason to be able to go from
>               link to link and form control to form control, but what
>               is the requirement for going from longdesc to longdesc
>               for?

I'll get clarification from the WG.
 
> Section 6.5:  Why is source order more important than rendered order?

I don't know that it's more important. However, it's more reliable. With
style sheets, you can position content anywhere on the screen. Choosing
source
order means that consistent numbering is more likely.

Of course, using the CSS style 'display:none' on a link means it won't
be rendered at all, so source order doesn't ensure 100% consistency
either.
 
> Section 7.1:  Bullet item 1.  This probably should just be something
>               like "provide the ability for the user to directly customize
>               the configuration of the accessibility features."  The idea
>               of a centralized dialog box makes me think of some humongous
>               dialog box that is difficult to use by anyone.

Good point. The guidelines attempt to be implementation-independent as
much
 as possible.

 
> Section 9.3:  Since the X Window System is available on more than just
>               Sun machines, the title should probably reflect this.
>               Maybe "AccessX/The X Window System" or something like
>               that would be more appropriate.

Ok.
 
> Section 10.2: Sun should be referred to as Sun Microsystems, Inc.  If
>               you want to include a URL, http://www.sun.com/access should
>               be fine.
> 
> Thanks again!

And thank you for your comments. I'll raise your points with the
Working Group.

 - Ian

-- 
Ian Jacobs (jacobs@w3.org) 
Tel/Fax: (212) 684-1814 
http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs

Received on Monday, 29 June 1998 16:54:56 UTC