- From: Jill Thomas <jill@ionsystems.com>
- Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2002 14:04:00 -0600
- To: "'w3c-wai-ua@w3.org'" <w3c-wai-ua@w3.org>
As discussed in the teleconference on March 28th I am enclosing a list of the functional requirements ION Systems has using the DOM: 1. A guarantee that the DOM, once obtained, is valid. Using certain user agents, a node may actually be the child of two parents. This is the result of invalid HTML, but from our perspective that makes no difference as it is impossible to work with the invalid DOM. If a DOM is invalid as a result of incorrect input, then we need a way to discover the errors so that the user can be presented a warning. If this were implemented, HTML authors might actually be informed that their sites were invalid and might have some incentive to fix them. 2. A consistent method for determining DOM completion. It is possible, using certain user agents, to obtain a pointer to a DOM that is not complete. It would be nice if we could reliably determine partial completion so that the entire DOM would not have to be constructed before our software started. 3. Access to the text of the document via a consistent interface. 4. Access to the attributes, in order, of each element via a consistent interface. 5. Access to the parent tags, in order, of each element via a consistent interface. 6. A C++ binding. Java and Javascript are great, but they don't make the cut for many performance critical or mass distributed applications. ION would be curious to know how many realistic projects are under construction in each language. As an aside here is what we don't need: A tree structure. The fact that DOM is a tree might be a significant limitation to its architecture. Users do not see the document as a tree, they see it as a list. Having the DOM as a tree makes creation of a valid object from invalid input more difficult and also makes it harder to render. This may be an off the wall suggestion, but included it anyway because our primary problem with DOM is getting one that is broken, and we don't see the world of HTML suddenly changing and presenting us with nothing but valid documents. A simpler design that was correct more often would be better. Pat Brannan and Jill Thomas ION Systems, Inc. jill@ionsystems.com 636-937-9094 Fax 636-937-1828 107 Mississippi Ave., Crystal City, MO 63019 ***** www.ionsystems.com Your Bridge To Usability www.galaxylibrary.com Where Electronic And Print Worlds Converge ***** eMonocle (tm) an XML viewer for simultaneous use by sighted, low vision and, in the near future, blind readers. Web Eyes (tm) a web plug-in facilitating compliance with Section 508 and accessibility to any web page for low-vision users.
Received on Wednesday, 3 April 2002 15:03:18 UTC