Re: accessibility review and 4.0 release

On Sat, 13 Sep 1997, Al Gilman wrote:

> Does the HTML working group see IMG being obsoleted in favor of
> OBJECT for everyone (not just the politically correct) as part of
> planned future migration?  Does the HTML draft about to come out
> contain a LONGDESC provision, and does it say whether the content
> pointed to by the LONGDESC value (URI) is to be applied inline or
> encapsulated behind a link? 

I can't speak for the HTML working group as a whole, but I
believe that there is an intent to encourage authors to
switch to OBJECT as effective support for this is deployed,
starting perhaps later this year.

However, it will take a considerable time for this to happen.
Given where we are with browsers today and the slow rate at
which people upgrade to new browsers, we can expect content
providers to have to continue to use IMG for perhaps as long
as 2 years.

You should ask Dan Connolly as the chair of the HTML working
group on details, but I believe that the group has been
expecting formal input from WAI working group for quite some
time. At the last meeting of the HTML WG, I was one of a number
in the group who argued the case for restoring the OBJECT
shapes mechanisms for rich text descriptions for images.

In the CSS and FP working group meeting that immediately
followed, Murray Maloney eloquently put the need to exploit
the axis/axes attributes in tables for styling. The latest
draft of HTML 4.0 expands on accessibility features for tables,
and explains how user agents can exploit these features in
speech-based browsers. 

There will be an opportunity for the WAI working group to
review this before the proposed recommendation for HTML
is issued. WAI members will also be able to provide feedback
when the spec is at the proposed recommendation stage.

Regards,

-- Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org> http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett
phone: +44 122 578 2521 (office) +44 385 320 444 (gsm mobile)
World Wide Web Consortium (on assignment from HP Labs)

Received on Sunday, 14 September 1997 14:54:57 UTC