Re: persistent QA problems with the W3C Validator

oedipus@hicom.net wrote:

>GJR1: all i've ever wanted in this regard is the addition of a link in
>the "Jump to:" section, that would allow the user to jump right to the
>line "Below are the results of attempting to parse this document with an
>SGML parser"

The current state of things is that the first link in the navigation menu,
"Skip Navigation", will take you to a "Jump To" menu. This menu has links
to all the sub-sections of the results and the first link in it is
"Results", which will take you past the table of metadata and the form.

The "Skip Navigation" link has accesskey "s" and will have so on all pages
on the Validator.



>and, while it is true that LABELs have been added to the form located at:
>http://validator.w3.org/
>there are still no LABELs on the form that is included on the results
>page (that is, the page that appears after the validator has performed
>its analysis)

Ah, I seem to have developed scatterbrains in my old age. Sorry.

The version running on http://validator.w3.org/ is a fairly old one. The
current development code is running on http://validator.w3.org:8001/ ,
the development server. This version does have LABELs on the form.

All my earlier comments have been in the context of this new version of
Validator, but I failed to specify that.


>as for the markup used on http://validator.w3.org/, there is one
>correction -- the "Options" grouping of checkboxes comprise a FIELDSET,
>which means that you should use the FIELDSET, LEGEND, and LABEL elements
>in order to correctly reflect the relationship between the form controls
>and their labels, as well as the form controls and the meta-grouping
>indicated in the markup below as a FIELDSET:

Well, fieldset can not be applied to a table row, but I have rearranged the
results to accomodate it.


>i would also VERY strongly advocate for the addition of accesskeys to
>each form control -- the safest bet is to use numeric accesskeys,
>although mnemonic accesskeys are, at least in my opinion, easier to
>remember -- the suggested accesskeys reflect the tab-order of the form:

And these too have been added.


I have made the changes you suggested and updated the development server.
Please have a look and let me know how well it works. Please be aware that
this is very much a work in progress (not just the Accessibility aspects)
and that there are many bugs as well as unfinished pieces.

I have not yet added documentation for the accesskeys used, but I will add
a document datailing them. There will be a link in the navigation menu
pointing to "Accesskey Legend" which will itself always have the accesskey
"k".

I also did not find the time to update all pages with ACRONYM and
ABBREVIATION markup, or title attributes on links, but since this is a
trivial, if timeconsuming, task I did not consider it important in this
round. It will be quite some time before the new version is ready for
release so these changes can wait.



>GJR2: during the testing/implementation stage, you should solicit the
>opinion of the subscribers to wai-xtech@w3.org,

Thank you, I will.


>i personally would like to volunteer to oversee accessibility issues
>with the validator, but unfortunately health problems preclude me from
>making such a running commitment at the present time...

Perhaps you would be willing to take a look periodically if I sent you
notification when some relevant change was implemented? I understand you
both have access to and are familiar with screen-readers. Since I do not,
I'm having difficulty understanding the implications for such use. Any
feedback you could provide would be invaluable. Development and release of
new versions of the Validator have historically been fairly glacial, so
there would be no time pressure, and a simple indication of yes or no to
the question of whether there are any new problems would be sufficient to
let me know I need to look into the issue.

Received on Sunday, 9 June 2002 10:33:18 UTC