RE: error tolerance within amaya

Correct - validating to the DTD can be a necessary step, but is usually
insufficient (and the rest is often difficult to test automagically.) In fact
conformance to the specification implies more than simple syntax validity -
for example, HTML 4.0 says that the use of tables for layout is deprecated,
but it can be done in a way which is syntactically correct.

And also correct that pre 2.1 Amaya allowed AREAs without alt text. They are
now mandatory (another example of Amaya demonstrating accessibility in
authoring tools ;-)

Charles McCN

On Wed, 8 Sep 1999, Charles E Taylor IV wrote:

  
  On 08-Sep-99 Charles McCathieNevile wrote:
  > For a lot of users, missing ALT is the single most critical problem in being
  > able to use a website. That is why it is required by the DTD, and is one
  > example of why validating to the DTD is as important as working with
  > browsers.
  
  I don't think I entirely agree on this.  I've seen a fair portion of sites that
  *do* use ALT and still make no sense using Lynx.  It doesn't help when the
  image's ALT tag says "image".  I don't think there's really a way to validate
  making sure the tags are actually useful for navigation without having a human
  do it.
  
  (That's why I like Amaya's text view option.  I don't even have to whip out
  Lynx to check and see if my page makes sense in a text-based broswer.)
  
  > Another is accessibility to people with disabilities - in many countries this
  > is a legal requirement for large content providers (in the US for government
  > and government funded providers. In Australia for people who offer services,
  > including but not limited to sales, recreation, education, ...) and often
  > people are usng things other than NS/IE for access. (Hence the work that is
  > being done to make Amaya itself more accessible, and do things like require
  > ALTs in images/image map areas...
  
  I'm guessing that Amaya pre-2.1 (or possibly even 2.1 - I've edited some of my
  pages with it, though most were originally created in 2.0) *doesn't* require
  ALT tags in image maps?  That's the only part my Amaya-created pages fail on
  the validator.
  
  ---
  Charles E. "Rick" Taylor, IV <charlet@clemson.edu>
  http://orangesherbert.ces.clemson.edu
  "We got the MRxL, and you got none!"
  

--Charles McCathieNevile            mailto:charles@w3.org
phone: +1 617 258 0992   http://www.w3.org/People/Charles
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative    http://www.w3.org/WAI
MIT/LCS  -  545 Technology sq., Cambridge MA, 02139,  USA

Received on Wednesday, 8 September 1999 16:59:17 UTC