D-tags, etc.

                       Subject:                               Time:3:03 PM
  OFFICE MEMO          D-tags, etc.                           Date:5/20/97

Here is a view on the D-tag discussion from one of WGBH's web authors:

"The latest version of the HTTP standard (1.1) allows browsers to send an ordered lists of language preferences when they request a page from a server. If the server has content in the language at the top of the list, it will respond in that language. If not, it will try the next language in the list, and so on.

Currently, only the Apache server supports HTTP 1.1 and as far as I know, none of the browsers are using it yet either.

The solution(s) presented in the first message seem unnecessarily complex. It would be inefficient to send that much text data for every image on the page when all users (vision-impaired or not) are only interested in one version of the data. In addition, the REL attribute and the FIG tag have been around for quite a while, but no browsers have implemented them -- they may be a dead-end street.

It seems like the ideal solution would be to have additional languages defined, such as "vision-impaired-english" and "hearing-impaired-spanish," that would be set by the user in his or her browser. Servers would then respond in the most appropriate "language" without sending redundant information."


- Larry

Larry Goldberg, Director
Media Access
WGBH Educational Foundation
125 Western Ave.
Boston, MA  02134
617-492-9258 (voice/TTY)
fax 617-782-2155
Internet:  Larry_Goldberg@WGBH.org

Received on Tuesday, 20 May 1997 15:12:11 UTC