Re: A table navigation technique

Both Scott and Al have suggesteed that being able to navigate the 
document tree does not provide sufficient table navigation. I was 
proposing it as a bare minimum solution. I also asssumed that User Agents 
would allow some sensible context-sensitive methods of identifying the 
shape of the tree (rather than 'next element across or next element 
up/down' it would suggest 'next cell, or next row, or ...')

However I agree that it would not provide anything much better than bare
access - perhaps half a step above providing the view source option for
people to work out what is going on. So I would like to see a better
solution (like those outlined by Scott and Al) implemented in browsers
themselves. The question then becomes 'is your User Agent a
medium-specific tool, of no real value outside a small set of
hardware/software combinations, or is it a full browser engine which
supports medium-independent browsing (either natively or via plug-ins,
which is the consequent question)?'. The Real-Video player seems to fall
into the former category, although their SMIL player (G2?) could, for SMIL
content, be in the latter. Where do MSIE, pwWebSpeak, etc, see themselves? 

Charles McCathieNevile

Received on Sunday, 15 November 1998 05:55:33 UTC