Aural CSS

Right now (CSS2), if one wants to specify that a certain element be read a
certain way[1], the only way to do that is to include something like
   @media aural {
    acronym:after{content:attr(title)}
    acronym[title]{speak:none}
    abbr:after{content:attr(title)}
    abbr[title]{speak:none}
   }

This is very awkward. I recommend, instead, either of the following two
plans.

<<< PLAN A >>>

Allow the Speak property to take values similar to those taken by the
Content property (strings, URIs, attr(x)) besides those it already takes
(none, normal, spell-out).  The element will then be spoken as the
referred-to text (which would be in a natural language).

<<< PLAN B >>>

Allow the Speak property to take a string value which is in a phonetic
alphabet.  The element would then be spoken according to the rules of that
alphabet.  Which alphabet is used can be set by means of a Speak-type
property, which would takes MIME type values.  For example, if the
Kirschenbaum ASCII-IPA [3] is used, and if it is assigned MIME type text/ipa
(it now has no MIME type), one could use something like
   <span style="speak:'\'gEj@t';speak-type:text/ipa">get</span>

Comments to the list or to me, not both, please.

Michael Hamm
BA Math scl, PBK, NYU
mhamm@gc.cuny.edu
http://www.crosswinds.net/~msh210/

----------
Notes:

[1] E.g., that Abbr elements with attr Title set should have the attribute's
contents read instead of the element's contents (as in the example in the
text), or that any Strike element should be read as "The quick brown fox
jumped over the lazy dog").

[2] As is done at <URL:http://www.crosswinds.net/~msh210/html.html>, e.g.

[3] Specification at
<URL:http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Evan_Kirshenbaum/IPA/faq.html> with
meta-info at <URL:http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Evan_Kirshenbaum/IPA/>.

Received on Wednesday, 21 February 2001 13:44:45 UTC