- From: <thatch@us.ibm.com>
- Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 18:03:07 -0500
- To: Ian Jacobs <ij@w3.org>
- cc: w3c-wai-ua@w3.org
Ian, Point of information. Below you said: quote We have mostly been thinking about how speech and braille devices can switch dictionaries automatically when there's a marked up change in language. endquote. Which braille and speech devices do this? I continue to contend that this is not a priority 1 accessibility issue. For example, though I cannot understand Japanese, I can understand English when it is spoken by a Japanese tts engine - with difficulty. The same is true for a Japanese speaker; in fact it is probably easier fro them to understand the poorly pronounced English. Though I don't think anybody is doing it, I suspect a similar statement can be made for braille. Jim Thatcher IBM Special Needs Systems www.ibm.com/sns thatch@us.ibm.com (512)838-0432 Ian Jacobs <ij@w3.org> on 08/27/99 05:30:24 PM To: Jon Gunderson <jongund@staff.uiuc.edu> cc: Kitch Barnicle <kab42@columbia.edu>, w3c-wai-ua@w3.org Subject: Re: "For dependent user agents" Jon Gunderson wrote: > > Response in JRG: > > At 02:39 PM 8/20/99 -0500, Kitch Barnicle wrote: > >I have been reading the guidelines with the notion that those check points > >that say "For Dependent User Agents" in front of them, only apply to > >dependent user agents. However in several cases that didn't seem to make > >sense. For example why would checkpoints 7.3, "Render content according to > >natural language identification," or 9.3 "Allow the user to view a document > >outline constructed from its structural elements." only apply to dependent > >user agents.? > > JRG: Natural language means that if the user agent can identify the > langauge of > the element content (primarily markup of the element) that the user agent > should render through speech, visual or braille that appropriate language. It > seems to me that this should apply to all user agents, I am not sure why it is > just for dependent user agents. I think you're right and it should be for all user agents. BACKGROUND: We have mostly been thinking about how speech and braille devices can switch dictionaries automatically when there's a marked up change in language. However, the checkpoint applies to graphical desktop browsers that support HTML as well. From the HTML 4.0 spec, section 8.2 [1]: > If a document contains right-to-left characters, > and if the user agent displays these characters, > the user agent must use the bidirectional algorithm. [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/dirlang.html#h-8.2 In other words, user agents are supposed to handle bidi text correctly (although they may not have a font handy to display the text). Furthermore, HTML user agents are meant to support "lang", presumably on screen as well as on other devices. From HTML 4.0, section 8.1 [2]: > The intent of the lang attribute is to allow user agents > to render content more meaningfully based on accepted cultural > practice for a given language. This does not imply that > user agents should render characters that are atypical for a > particular language in less meaningful ways; user agents > must make a best attempt to render all characters, regardless > of the value specified by lang. > > For instance, if characters from the Greek alphabet > appear in the midst of English text: > > <P><Q lang="en">Her super-powers were the result of > γ-radiation,</Q> he explained.</P> > > a user agent (1) should try to render the English content > in an appropriate manner (e.g., in its handling the > quotation marks) and (2) must make a best attempt to > render γ even though it is not an English > character. Presumably, this would involve choosing a suitable glyph for rendering a gamma. [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/dirlang.html#h-8.1 - Ian -- Ian Jacobs (jacobs@w3.org) http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs Tel/Fax: +1 212 684-1814
Received on Friday, 27 August 1999 19:03:17 UTC