Re: [WSG] OL or UL? It´s rigth?
Hi Marky, My friend is asking me if i can use tags ul ol/ol /ul No, you can't. Unordered lists can only have list items as child elements. Cheers, Andrew Taumoefolau ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] technique of converting to tablefree layout
Hi Lea, What are people's preferred techniques for 'screen scraping' existing sites to get the text from a tag-soup table layout? $ lynx --dump url works wonders if you have easy access to lynx (and the site that you're scraping doesn't have too horrible a structure :). Cheers, Andrew * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
RE: [WSG] invalid xhtml
Hi Patrick, I beg to differ on this hair-splitting point: http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/NOTE-xhtml-media-types-20020801/#text-html [XHTML1] defines a profile of use of XHTML which is compatible with HTML 4.01 and which may also be labeled as text/html I'm not sure that we differ on this point. The W3C dictates that we MAY (1) serve XHTML1 as HTML. Good sense(2) argues that we SHOULD serve XHTML as application/xhtml+xml. Doing otherwise is disingenuous(3) and could introduce subtle bugs, and lord knows we have enough subtle bugs to work around as is. Cheers, Andrew Taumoefolau 1. Apologies for busting out the RFC language. 2. http://www.hixie.ch/advocacy/xhtml 3. We ought to be proud that we're serving xml! :) * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
RE: [WSG] invalid xhtml
Hi Patrick, or you could convert it to xhtml 1.0 strict, which *may* still be sent as text/html XHTML 1.0 strict is still XML, which means that you should not send it as text/html. Hey look! Angels, on the head of that pin! :) Cheers, Andrew * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] scrolling area
Is there any way you can convince your client that custom scrollbars are are bad idea? Because 1. oh boy, they are (they're less accessible, they're less functional, they act unpredictably, their implementation is invariably mind-bogglingly complicated), and 2. while it's probably possible to achieve what you're after, the effort that you're going to need to put in to do so is going to be incredibly disproportionate to the reward (unless you're being very well paid, and by the hour :) Cheers, Andrew Taumoefolau * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] when to place as a background in CSS
but other images which are basically decoration, I have placed within the CSS div tags as background images. Is this o.k to do as long as the images don't have any specific meaning to the content? I say yes! I do the same thing to prevent older browsers from showing images that are purely presentational. I think it's better to have a little meaningless semantic noise in your code than to expose useless visual noise to browsers that support images but don't support CSS. Cheers, Andrew Taumoefolau * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Forms, labels headers
On Wed, 2004-05-12 at 12:33 +1000, Jake Badger wrote: It's not as though if we hadn't had tables for layout we would have sat around doing nothing. If it hadn't been for table layout CSS would have been developed sooner and taken up a lot faster. Assuming that the web would have been popular enough to warrant our attention even if it hadn't been as visually interesting as tabular layouts allowed it to be, sure. I'm not sure that that's a safe assumption to make, however. Apologies to the list admins if this is moving off-topic. Andrew Taumoefolau * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Brisbane Meeting Report
On Thu, 2004-05-13 at 00:02 +1000, Lea de Groot wrote: A short report, as its bloody late and I really should go to bed. Tonight's first WSG meeting in Brisbane was a resounding success. Ditto that, and the rest. Thanks to all involved. What a wonderful thing it is to realise that there really are human beings that exist that are as attached to the web as I am :). Cheers, Andrew * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Forms, labels headers
On Tue, 2004-05-11 at 21:19 -0400, Michael Donnermeyer wrote: The worst thing that ever happened to the web was the idea of using tables for layout... That's a bold statement. Without designers using tables for layout, the web would have been a boring place visually for a very long time. We're now able to produce documents that are visually attractive, accessible and structurally meaningful, but this just wasn't possible in the past (without CSS, structurally meaningful documents look really plain!). If advanced formatting had not been possible using HTML, we would be looking at a very different web today, and it would not be an open, accessible, semantically-conscious one. It would be Flash and Java, Flash and Java as far as the eye can see. People want pretty. I was happy when I was able to remove presentational tables from my toolbox, but I was appreciative of them when they were all I had. Don't be hatin'! They got us where we are today! :) Cheers, Andrew Taumoefolau * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
RE: [WSG] target=_blank substitute
Hi Michael Navigating anywhere in Microsoft's site is a nightmare. You go down a maze of links until its almost impossible to work your way back where you came from. Is this an argument against the usefulness of the back button (or the navigation metaphor entirely)? If Microsoft chose to open links in new windows you'd end up with a mess of windows, rather than a messy history. This is not an improvement. Microsoft's site is poorly designed. How is this relevant to the argument? :) In my case, I get someone into my site, and I don't want to see them heading off again by just clicking on a tool my site gives them to leave. Not only are you working against the navigation metaphor, you're working against yourself when you force links to open in new windows. Example: 1. User finds your site, browses around it, finds external links. 2. User clicks link, fresh new window is opened. 3. User is done with your site, and closes your window. 4. User browses site opened in new window, realises there was something else they wanted to use your site for. 5. Uh oh. Is your site so great that they're going to do the work to get back to it (by Googling for it, or braving their history), or are they just going to go some place else? If a user really wants to open a new window for a link, she can: right-click, Open in New Window, or middle-click if it's available. If you're forcing new windows to open when links are clicked, there is no way for the user to choose to open the links in the original window and maintain the metaphor. You are taking a meaningful choice away from the user. Granted, there are pros for the behaviour that you're arguing for -- but there are so many cons! Cheers, -- Andrew Taumoefolau * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
[WSG] Re: CAPTCHA test and accessibility
Warning signs go off in my head whenever I encounted CAPTCHA tests on the web, and they scream: developer laziness! The user should only be explicitly involved in the anti-spam process when anti-flooding measures, spam-filters, Bayesian analysis, human editors (god forbid! :) and whatever other user-invisible measures have been proven to fail, and fail badly. I always get mad when I'm faced with a CAPTCHA test on the web, and I'm not at all vision impaired*. Why should I have to prove my humanity to you, you lazy web application? You should be able to figure it out without my help! I am often heard to mumble, crazily. Also! CAPTCHA tests are breakable: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~mori/gimpy/gimpy.html And! CAPTCHA tests do indeed break accessibility (among other things): http://www.bestkungfu.com/archive/?id=445 So, count one vote for: they're mostly a bad idea. -- Andrew Taumoefolau * okay, so I'm a little short-sighted in my left eye :). * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Preformatted text troubles
I was just wondering: is there was any way to instruct user agents to treat text as preformatted, but to also have that same text break lines to fill line boxes? I think this used to be achieved by using the wrap attribute of the pre tag (with wrap and nowrap as values, I think?), but I'm aiming for xhtml 1.0 conformance and if the pre tag ever officially had the wrap attribute, it doesn't any more :). I'm going to answer my own question here, for posterity's sake (and in case anyone here ever hits the same wall I did): the kind of behaviour I was after here is available in CSS2.1. The white-space text property can take five values (normal, pre, nowrap, pre-wrap, pre-line), and pre-wrap achieves the behaviour I was after. Further reading: http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/CR-CSS21-20040225/text.html#propdef-white-space -- Andrew Taumoefolau * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] This sounds really silly BUT
Hi Gary, I am doing this with Coldfusion on the server but that would be irrelative I would have thought? when you click the link it moves the page to the root of the folder rather than the URL I am currently on? You don't have a base href=http://blahblah/; / somewhere in your head, do you? If not, sorry, no idea :). Cheers, -- Andrew Taumoefolau * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] New User
I'm in Brisbane also (but am mostly a web-development dilettante). I don't suppose there'd be enough of us up here to start a local group? Cheers, -- Andrew Taumoefolau * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Coding Standard...
This is great flamewar material, dude :). I adhere pretty closely to the KR style (opening curly bracket on the same line as the selector [or function or class definition, or conditional, or whatever]), mostly because it conserves the most space (and because I don't think I've ever used curlies to see blocks -- that's what proper indentation is for!). It's all good as long as you keep it consistent, though. -- Andrew Taumoefolau http://www.midspark.net/shazbot/ * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ *
Re: [WSG] Programmer's Challenge
On Mon, 2004-02-02 at 17:13, Universal Head wrote: I was thinking today, what the world needs now (apart from love, sweetlove), is some genius programmer to come up with an app (must be OSXof course ...) that acts like a browser, but has a popup from whichyou can select a browser version and platform, which it thenaccurately emulates. You could then do all your previewing andchecking within one browser app. Imagine how much time and effort that would save!! Is it eventheoretically possible? zeldman.com featured a (non-free) site a while ago that took as input a page and spat back images of that same page rendered on a bunch of different browsers on a bunch of different platforms. Maybe the people responsible for that page could produce an app that ran locally and grabbed those renders on request? A local app that could do what you're asking would be mind-bogglingly difficult to write. -- Andrew Taumoefolau * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ *
