Re: StyleSheets and WebTV

> Subject:
> Date: Mon, 6 Dec 1999 15:43:01 -0500
> From: "The Dean's Office" <webtv-101@mediaone.net>
> To: <wai-wcag-editor@w3.org>
> CC: <webmaster@w3.org>
> 
> To whom it may concern.
> 
> I'm a WebTV User, & have encounted the following condition with some
> of your web pages many times recently.
> 
> Please see the JPG below to see what I'm talking about.
> 
> [Image]
> 
> This is a screen capture of just how "some" of your pages look to us
> on WebTV.
> 
> This was taken from the WebTV Viewer on my computer while viewing the
> following page of yours.
> 
> http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/
> 
> The WebTV Viewer can be downloaded from their web site at the folowing
> URL in their Developer section.
> 
> http://developer.webtv.net/design/tools/viewer/Default.htm
> 
> It allows webmasters to view their pages as they will look to WebTV
> Users.
> 
> If the W3c org doesn't have it, I would "strongly" recommend they get
> one, so that they may see how their pages will look, etc ?
> 
> As you can plainly see, the text is unreadable to us with that
> particular background.
> 
> It seems to be a random selection as to which pages have this
> background when I've gone throgh your web site looking for
> information.
> 
> On my computer "everything" looks fine, no problems with the
> background at all, with any page.
> 
> I do not think that this would be a good example of the W3c web site
> to set for WebTV Users looking for information as to "how things are
> done" in the world of the Internet & computers, etc ?
> 
> With the additional "Set-Top" boxes due to arrive next year, will they
> have the same problem viewing your pages as we now do ?
> 
> I hope I was able to help in informing you of an "unknown" problem to
> you ?
> 
> Please advise me as to the cause of this condition ?
> 
> Thank you.
> 
> Eddie Burke
> 
> eburkejr@webtv.net
> 
> webmaster@webtv-101.com
> 


Eddie, thanks for your mail.

At W3C, we take compliance to our own specifications seriously. Of
course, when we received your complaint, directed at us, we wanted to
make sure our documents and style sheets were valid.

In using both the HTML and CSS validation services, at:

http://validator.w3.org/
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

we found that both the html and the linked style sheet are valid. The
question remains as to how the WebTV software handles style sheets. Do
you know what the level of CSS compliance is for the WebTV user agent?
Or the HTML compliance?

Judging from the webtv developer site at:

http://developer.webtv.net/authoring/faq/Default.htm

and 

http://developer.webtv.net/authoring/css/

the support is somewhat limited.

You can learn about style sheets from the W3C from

http://www.w3.org/Style/Activity.html

Style sheets are critical to the development of the Web, because it
makes it possible for content and presentation to be cleanly separated,
thus making it easier for a variety of devices (computers, TVs, wireless
devices) to access information from the Web. Also, now that CSS2 is 1.5
years old, and test suites have been available for nearly a year, it
would be great to see more style sheet capabilities on WebTV. Perhaps
this is the perfect time to get WebTV CSS2 work really going! 

Given your concerns and commitment to creating Accessible Web content,
and what I can only guess is a clear commitment to making WebTV a full
participant in the Web, I've copied the Webmaster at the
developer.webtv.net with the hope that s/he will be able to forward the
exchange along to developers at WebTV.

Thank you very much for drawing our attention to this.

Regards,

Janet
 
=====================================

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

Janet Daly, Head of Public Relations
MIT/LCS NE43-344
545 Technology Square
Cambridge, MA 02139

voice: 617.253.5884
fax:   617.258.5999 
http://www.w3.org/
janet@w3.org

Received on Monday, 6 December 1999 18:21:50 UTC