Re: Ideas for the ACSS module of CSS3

> > And aurally: "Now follows another stupid navigation bar that you've
heard a
> > million times before. To skip this bar, please holler 'aaargh!' now."
>
> How is this different from an XSLT stylesheet that introduces a link that
> points to the next element?
> [...]
> If there _is_ no difference, then the answer is "you can already do it".
The difference is that it is up to the user agent to define how an element
with this style is skipped. Aural and visual browsers will do it in a
different way. Also, it means they can simply skip to the next element, a
DOM independant thing.


> > Maybe better:
> > .navbar { play: optional; allow-skip: true; alt: uri(#intro); }
>
> This is getting confusing. Could you define what 'play', 'optional',
> 'allow-skip', 'true', 'alt' and 'alt''s value all mean?

Play: This was your idea! I suppose it attaches a style to elements in the
true aural fashion: in other words, it allow you to define whether parts of
the documents are played or not. Values: normal, optional, none. A bit like
display, but Aural UAs don't display things...
Allow-skip: This simply tells a UA that skipping a group of links, or
whatever class, is a good idea. "allow-skip", means the UA should allow you
to skip, but doesn't further illustrate *how* it should be skipped. Again,
this is an aural thing. Values: true=allow-skip, false=don't allow-skip (i.e
skipping this group of links is a bad idea, advise)!
alt: Alternative content. Takes the form of a URI, but that includes Frag
IDs. It may help on large sites where lots of pages are the same. You can
write one stylesheet for the whole lot then; one of the original purposes of
CSS!
Here is a recent extract from a document I was going to publish...

Proposal:

.navbar { play: optional; skip: true; }

With <map title="Navigation Bar" class="navbar"...>.
Or maybe:

.navbar { play: optional; allow-skip: true; alt: (#intro); }

or:

.navbar { play: optional; provide-skip: true; }

or you could just set the provide-skip as a token in play:

.navbar { play: optional provide-skip; }

I think any of the options discussed above would be suitable, but as a final
say, I would propose:

.navbar { play: optional; skip: provide, allow; alt: (#intro); }

Which would give any element with the navbar class, a style that
denotes the playing of which is optional, the skipping of which
should be provided by the UA, or at the very least, allowed by the
UA, and with an alternative ID frag reference of Intro, overriding
the default of the next element.

"Provide" means provide a skipping link, or alternative, or whatever, based
on the UA.
Hope that clarifies a bit. Is there an author for ACSS yet?

Kindest Regards,
Sean B. Palmer
WAP Tech Info - http://www.waptechinfo.com/

Received on Saturday, 14 October 2000 10:32:29 UTC