Re: [css3-lists] [css3-speech] Interaction between list-style-type and speak properties

On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 3:19 PM, Belov, Charles <Charles.Belov@sfmta.com> wrote:
> Tab Atkins Jr. [mailto:jackalmage@gmail.com] wrote on Monday, February 07, 2011 1:04 PM
>> On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 12:48 PM, Belov, Charles
>> <Charles.Belov@sfmta.com> wrote:
>> > There doesn't seem to be anything explicit in either the CSS3 lists
>> > draft (1) or the CSS3 Speech draft (2) as to whether setting
>> > list-style-type to other than normal affects the spoken
>> rendering of
>> > the list item marker.  I am requesting that this be made
>> explicit in
>> > one document or the other, probably in CSS3 Speech.
>>
>> Is this a generic issue surrounding generated content, or is
>> it specific just to list markers?
>>
>> If it's specific just to list markers, I recommend Speech
>> specifying that the list-style-type is ignored and list
>> markers read in some standard way.  The new Lists spec I'm
>> drafting will allow, for example, images to be used for list
>> counters, which can't be spoken anyway.
>
> My understanding of generated content is not comprehensive.
>  My understanding of :before and :after is that text
> content would be spoken as is and graphic content would
> not.  I think the difference is that content of list
> markers is well-defined in the specification, while
> :before and :after content is completely arbitrary
> with respect to the specification.   I realize
> improvements to list markers discussed on this list would
> allow arbitrary list markers, so that does muddy things.

Yeah, you'll be able to say something like:

@counter-style dice {
  type: alphabetic;
  range: 1 infinity;
  glyphs: url(die1), url(die2), url(die3), url(die4), url(die5), url(die6);
}
ol {
  list-style-type: dice;
}

...and get all your <ol>s displayed with dice-based graphics, so (7)
would be two dice showing a 6 and 1, etc.


>> > But in the case of a public meeting, where we have a
>> legally published
>> > agenda, and items are called by the chair by letter, it would be
>> > important to me that the rendered speech be:
>> >
>> > A. First item
>> > B. Second item
>> > C. Third item
>> >
>> > and I would definitely *not* want to leave this decision to
>> the user
>> > agent.
>>
>> This is an important case for more than just Speech.  In
>> general, sometimes the list marker is important content and
>> shouldn't be CSS-controlled.
>>
>> To solve this, I'm going to propose an 'inline' value for
>> list-style-type and a 'marker' value for display, which lets
>> you write the marker directly in the content, mark it as a
>> marker, then display it like a list item marker.  In this
>> case, Speech should indeed read the actual content of the marker.
>>
>> This proposal will show up in the draft sometime this week as
>> I finish out my first draft.
>
> Thank you.  Your solution is probably necessary.  I'm not sure
> whether it is, from a content maintainer's perspective, sufficient.
>
> There would be a maintenance issue that most staff copies content
> in from Word and won't want to spend time adding this markup
> manually (and if they are using Adobe Contribute or some other
> WYSIWYG-only program), they won't be able to add it).
>
> It is relatively simple to tell a user agent to number a list
> A, B, C, etc. -- there is the AA, BB, CC, issue I reported
> that you came up with a solution for, but that's a separate issue
> -- but then we would still need a way to tell CSS3 Speech to read it
> A, B, C, etc.  That is the kind of low-maintenance at the content
> maintainer's end which I was hoping for.

Copypasting from Word would be fine, as it would just put the list
markers directly into the content.  That's fine - it accomplishes the
same thing, and would be read out appropriately by a screenreader.

Using list-style-type:inline and display:marker is just for if you
want the full power of styling list markers *and* have the markers be
part of the content.  If your use isn't sophisticated, you don't have
to worry about it.

~TJ

Received on Monday, 7 February 2011 23:36:36 UTC