Re: Mailing list archives: feeback requested on proposedimprovements (2: view)

Steven Pemberton wrote:

>>>I don't get the idea of putting the navbar in a <map> (client side image
>>>map). What's the point? What do you gain?
>>>
> 
>>This is for accessibility reason. See:
>>http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-HTML-TECHS/#group-bypass
>>
> 
> Ooh I hadn't spotted this before. This is weird tag abuse. Can anyone
> explain to me what the accessibility advantages are of using a client-side
> image map not as a client-side image map, but as a container for links?
> 
> Why is it better than using a <p> or a <div>?


The idea was that large groups of links are hard to navigate
through for someone accessing a page serially (e.g., who is
using a keyboard to navigate serially through a set
of links). Rather than ask the author each time to provide an 
"unsightly"

   [jump over bunch of links]

link, we thought it would be useful for user agents to provide
this service. But, we needed markup that user agents can rely
on as being "markup that identifies a group of links".

The idea was that MAP is already used to identify a group
of links, that happen to have a graphical representation. The
WAI groups that proposed the change to HTML 4.01 said "Let's
use MAP for groups of links even when the representation is
non-graphical, as in a group of text links."

  - Ian
-- 
Ian Jacobs (ij@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel:                     +1 718 260-9447

Received on Thursday, 28 March 2002 08:39:08 UTC