Re: Rendered content vs source content.

Hans,
The CSS and StyleSheet modules in DOM level 2 allow people to access and
manipulate the style sheets associated with HTML (both linked and inline)
and XML (apparently only allows linked styles).  The actual attributes used
to render a particular node I believe are part of the attributes collection
available in DOM Core and HTML modules.  DOM core and HTML are level 1 so I
think this satisfies your concerns.  So I think putting the CSS and
Stylesheet module implementation at priority 3 is OK in relation to issue
of knowing what is actually being rendered.

Jon



At 02:04 PM 2/25/00 +0100, Hans Riesebos wrote:
>Rendered content vs source content.
>
>I have been doing some thinking and in in my humble opinion I find the 
>rendered content of real importance: Here are some reasons.
>
>I believe MSAA gives you rendered content.
>
>If the AT relies (sort of piggybags) on a UA one can assume the AT wants to 
>make this UA accessible. Therefore the AT wants to be aware of the 
>closed-loop interaction between User and UA of action and feedback. (What is 
>the current point of regard, what is selected). To this purpose the AT needs 
>to know about rendered content. 
>The AT might want to control some of the rendering in order to get the 
>information the UA-AT user wants. This could be done by controlling the UA 
>and also by controlling style sheets. 
>Without access to stylesheets I don't believe the AT can synchronise 
>different output modalities. (I'm not sure of all the possibilities).
>
>As said in the teleconference, the AT historically uses an Off Screen Model 
>(OSM). The making of an OSM is difficult because it involves reverse 
>engineering the rendering proces. The value of the DOM for the AT is that it 
>does not need to reverse engineer rendering. However, if the AT has to work 
>with the pure structured content without any rendering taken place, the AT 
>needs to be able to render itself in order to obtain information on 
>visibility, position, etc.. This seems redundant, because the UA it works 
>with does the same rendering. 
>
>Now what the UAGL currently says is that new/future AT is much helped with 
>access to the DOM. I agree. But is seems unnatural for an AT to use a 
>graphical desktop browser to provide an aural-only rendering of 
>internet-content. It would seem natural for  an AT that wants graphical 
>stuff to use a graphical desktop browser. In this last situation the UA does 
>more service by providing rendered info to this AT. 
>
>Concluding:
>- To me it seems that the rendered sturcture is of real interest to the AT. 
>- Access to stylesheets is priority one. 
>
>Sincerely
>Hans Riesebos
>ALVA, The Netherlands
>

Jon Gunderson, Ph.D., ATP
Coordinator of Assistive Communication and Information Technology
Chair, W3C WAI User Agent Working Group
Division of Rehabilitation - Education Services
College of Applied Life Studies
University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
1207 S. Oak Street, Champaign, IL  61820

Voice: (217) 244-5870
Fax: (217) 333-0248

E-mail: jongund@uiuc.edu

WWW: http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~jongund
WWW: http://www.w3.org/wai/ua

Received on Friday, 25 February 2000 11:05:57 UTC