- From: Jason White <jasonw@ariel.ucs.unimelb.EDU.AU>
- Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 20:09:00 +1000 (AEST)
- To: WAI Working Group <w3c-wai-wg@w3.org>
This evening I visited the Formats and Protocols Working Group page to review the list of items for the HTML review, and noticed that Daniel had been diligently at work, updating this information. There are a few comments that I wish to make at this stage: 1. Since my original message on the topic, I have revised my braille media type proposal. As stated in my Braille CSS requirements document, I have suggested that the following two media types be defined, parallel to the "print" and "screen" types, to distinguish between embossed and dynamic braille: media="braille embossed" media="braille displayed" 2. As Daniel has pointed out, the desire to refer to an image as the bullet which is to be displayed by graphical user agents when rendering an unordered list, can be adequately met by means of style sheets. I would like to add my vote to this approach. 3. I also support the proposal to reserve an "abbrevdic" link type; indeed, if memory serves correctly, I was responsible for originally raising that issue in this forum. Consideration should also be given, though perhaps not in the short term, to the relationship between abbrevdic and the phonetic markup action item: would it be appropriate to encode phonetic information in a dictionary that can be linked to a document, rather than embedding it within the document itself? One advantage of this strategy is that the same phonetic information can be re-used across a range of documents, and it can act as an exception list to regulate the pronunciation offered by speech synthesizers. 4. In my response to Greg Lowney's suggestion that HTML be enhanced to allow an alternative presentational ordering of a document to be defined, I suggested that it might be worthwhile to consider whether this need could be better satisfied by pursuing changes to CSS. HTML 4.0 already offers the DIV and SPAN elements, which would permit the relevant segments of a document to be identified. Media-specific styles could then be used to control their relative positioning in the output. There is already a CSS positioning draft, but I have not read it and thus can not comment on whether it would enable this requirement to be satisfied. 5. Returning to the media type issue, Al's suggestion to define style properties that would simulate a "text only" environment for the benefit of authors who are only able to view their documents with a graphical display, should be considered. If it is deemed necessary, then an appropriate media type should be reserved. There are already services available on the web which can return the document in the form in which it would be displayed by Lynx. Whether such services provide an sufficient solution or whether a style sheet along these lines is needed, remains an open question that Al can perhaps elaborate upon. 6. I would appreciate clarification of the "alternate SS semantics" issue. The messages referred to on Daniel's web page are all on the W3C member site, hence inaccessible to non-members. 7. I have recently commented at some length on the LONGDESC issue, and would still proclaim my indecision. Another relevant point which does not appear to have been mentioned, is the need to define how the LONGDESC attribute, if accepted, should be rendered by HTML user agents in different media. In particular, to what extent, if at all, would LONGDESC fit within the "generic attribute" selection mechanism proposed for CSS 2, and would LONGDESC necessitate amendments to the CSS proposals so that the rendering of the link to the long description in various media could be regulated by style sheets? Table accessibility is an important issue, consideration of which awaits publication of the new table proposals in the upcoming HTML 4.0 draft. Are there any items which I have forgotten to address?
Received on Monday, 15 September 1997 06:09:13 UTC