RE: [WSG] display inline question
Ted Drake wrote
...
I was asked to create a nested definition list with the nested dl's looking
like simple lines of text.
...
Ted try the setup I have for my site map at
http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com/site_map.htm
The associated CSS is:
dl {
font-size: .9em;
padding: 0 0 .2em 0;
margin: 0;
}
dt {
float:left;
line-height: 210%;
width: 55%;
}
dd {
background: #F6F6F6;
border: #DDD 1px solid;
margin: -.2em 1em .8em 50%;
padding: .4em .6em .4em .6em;
text-align: justify;
height: 1%;
}
I believe it encompasses your needs: two columns, both compressible on page
contraction, DD associated with its TD.
HTH,
Mike Pepper
Accessible Web Developer
Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst
http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com
Administrator
Guild of Accessible Web Designers
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.gawds.org
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RE: [WSG] Site Check Win 2000
Dean | eCreate wrote If anybody out there has Win 2000 running IE6 could you check this URL: http://www.stthomasaquinasacademy.org/ I am getting one report that it is loading but then hanging up IE. Thanks, Dean Yes, there are problems. It's to do with the dynamic resizing of the site. I've had this before but I can't remember exactly what it was. This is a CSS problem since I recall rewriting one of the selectors and all was well. The reason you're getting mixed responses is many people open full window and won't think to resize or open under IE with the last evocation browser window size. You'll find it collapses (hangs) at a certain width, about 1124px, outside the chrome. I took the totally unscientific path of pulling element and resizing until the problem vanished then examined the offending element's selector CSS. Sorry I cant be more helpful. Cheers, Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org ** 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] search engine question
Ongoing dialogue ... On Mon, 16 May 2005 05:06:43 +0100, Kvnmcwebn [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Unless you think im making a HUGE mistake by using this dhtml menu from, im going to leave it. How huge mistake is having website seen by Google as Your browser does not support script message? I mean what are the percentages of users with scripting disabled-is it really going to come back and haunt me? 1-3% of users, 100% of search engines. There is no dropdown menu system which to my knowledge runs without JS DOM manipulation because of IE's lack of a CSS hover trigger. I obviate the JS dilemma by using noscript-tagged alternate menus, replicating the dropdown menu structures on http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com/. It's by no means a perfect menu system since it is not traversable via keyboard ... yet :o) I'm working on an accessible version as time permits but IE is proving challenging. Cheers, Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org ** 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] Displaying hidden content when JavaScript disabled
On 12 May 2005 22:38 Stevio wrote I have some content that is hidden and only displayed using JavaScript. However, when JavaScript is disabled, I want to display all of the content to start with. ... It doesn't like the style declaration within the noscript tags. In fact, am I right in saying that. Stephen, script src=jscript/blahblah.js type=text/javascript/script noscript div class=menualt id=menutop style=margin-left:25; margin-right:25; ul li ... /li li ... /li ... /ul /div /noscript This sort of thing is fine ... but I bet you're using CAPS, as in STYLE ... ;o) Cheers, Mike Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org ** 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] IE won't play
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Wayne Godfrey Sent: 13 May 2005 02:10 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] IE won't play Thanks Mike, but that didn't work. I tried reducing the width from 390px to 385px and also changing to width: 100%, neither worked. This is so frustrating. Make it 384px and it does. I think it's the IE margin bug. Cheers, Mike ** 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] Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability, and tableless CSS
Original Message From: Stevio Sent: 20 April 2005 14:49 Interesting thoughts from Vincent Flanders: http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/biggest-web-design-mistakes-in-2004.html Go to number 3: Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability, and tableless CSS What do you think? Stephen He's placing standards and accessibility in context of a business proposition and they're of negligible consequence to financial decision makers unless a clear monetary gain is demonstrated. In a cold-hearted business world, social responsibility doesn't exist ... which is why we have to do it ourselves and illustrate clear benefits in terms of revenue and hope our respective governments pop their dentures back in and start to bite through legislative sanctions. It's that simple. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org ** 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] Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability, and tableless CSS
Original Message by Bob McClelland There is a vital ingredient in web design which is never mentioned by guys like this : IMAGE. There are many web sites which sell nothing but image - no products, no marketing: just image. Such a site is: http://www.fosterandpartners.com/internetsite/Flash.html There are considerable shortcoming re accessibility but, yes, I'm inclined to agree, the site is visually arresting and the dynamics are brilliant. I came across this one a while back. It held my interest and was just plain fun to play with :o) Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org ** 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] Skip Navigation Visibility - Site Map Link
I've mentioned this before, but at an awards bash I attended the (blind) compere mentioned above and beyond all considerations of accessibility is the inclusion of a link to the site map page. Many AT (assistive technology) users have a devil of a job deciphering site content relevance, especially when arriving new to a site from a search engine. A (well designed) site map helps enormously. Cheers, Mike -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of russ - maxdesign Sent: 15 April 2005 00:55 To: Web Standards Group Subject: Re: [WSG] Skip Navigation Visibility Richard, these are all good questions. The best thing to do as actually observe real people (with disabilities) interacting with sites. I have watched blind users and users with severe vision impairment who become frustrated and leave sites very quickly. They are more likely to struggle on if the information is very important or only available at one particular site. When David Woodbridge's was demonstrating a poorly built site to the WSG last year he commented: I am doing this to demonstrate the problems. In real life I would never really go this far into a site this bad, I would have left on the fist page. Think of it in other terms. If there was a shop with major physical barriers (like being forced to climb a ladder just to get into the shop), and the shop keeper was never available, would you hang around long? Compare that to a shop nearby with easy access and friendly staff. Russ ** 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] Skip Navigation Visibility - Site Map Link
Hi Neerav, No, unfortunately not. My own feeling is to offer sensible page summaries against each link (page) reference. To be honest, I've not looked into this further (other than feeling a bloody idiot that I hadn't made the site map page the first link in the set of skip navs - but we live and, from the experiences of others, learn ;o) ). Even now your question prompts me wonder why on earth I haven't given a site summary at the head of the site map page :-/ -- which I shall now correct :o) Cheers, Mike -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Neerav Sent: 16 April 2005 14:10 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] Skip Navigation Visibility - Site Map Link Mike Did he make any suggestions asto the features a well designed site map should have? -- Neerav Bhatt http://www.bhatt.id.au Need a Sydney based web standards contractor? You need my services. Recent projects for Glassonion, Freshweb, Cogentis, Ceneka ... http://www.bhatt.id.au/blog/ - Ramblings Thoughts http://bookcrossing.com/referral/neerav Mike Pepper wrote: I've mentioned this before, but at an awards bash I attended the (blind) compere mentioned above and beyond all considerations of accessibility is the inclusion of a link to the site map page. Many AT (assistive technology) users have a devil of a job deciphering site content relevance, especially when arriving new to a site from a search engine. A (well designed) site map helps enormously. Cheers, Mike ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.9.11 - Release Date: 14/04/05 ** 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 layout problem
Would you care to negotiate a fee? I mean, come on ... ;o) Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Tatham Oddie Sent: 03 April 2005 13:22 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: [WSG] Scrolling layout problem Guys n girls, Having some small problems with a Ski website Im working on and some assistance would be great. The URL is: http://testdrive.fueladvance.com/Perisher/Default.aspx The problems are: Were missing the nice sexy rounded corners top-left and top-right The horizontal scroll bar shouldnt be there The text should go over the mountains bottom-left It is totally broken in IE6 So far Ive only tested in FF1.0.2 and IE6/Win. IE6/Win is tragic. Once I get the FF version working Ill hack it down for other browsers where required. Its getting quite frustrating. Thanks, Tatham Oddie Technical Director, Fuel Advance www.fueladvance.com ** 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] Hidden Content
Chris Kennon wrote: What is the repercussion, if any, of having a div set to display: none with content meant strictly for search engines. If you're lucky your page will simply be demoted in the SERPs when you're sussed; if you're unlucky your entire site will be blackballed from Google; if there's any justice, your client will sue you for clause 2. ;o) Cheers, Mike Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org ** 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] javascript problem with pop-up on hyperlink click (IE6 displays an error, FF, Opera work fine)
Patrick H. Lauke wrote: so what advantage does this bring? If javascript is enabled, but fails to open a window, the link still works? What are the situations in which javascript may fail to open a new window? Jan Brasna wrote: Do not return false. Return !window.open(...) instead. Directive override during biosphere external sensor discrepancy :o) Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org ** 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] horizontal list menus based on images rather text in css..WORKS NOW
Actually ... C) Click here for TLD akeyphrase/a and registration by our partner, e.g. - Click here for TLD *domain names* and registration by plibbleandco. This reinforces anchor text as it is not seen in isolation but with reference to surrounding copy. HTH, Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer () www.seowebsitepromotion.com GAWDS Admin [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Chris Botman Sent: 01 March 2005 21:47 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: RE: [WSG] horizontal list menus based on images rather text in css..WORKS NOW ... Consider the following: - A) To visit our partner Domain names partner aclick here/a B) Click here: aDomain Names/a to visit our partner. Which is the best? Assuming the pages are otherwise the same Page Rank wise? B) Is clearly better because the search engine now associates (http://www.discountdomainsuk.com) with the phrase domain names (the top phrase in the domain name market) with the site rather than the word here. ** 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] IE Image vertical height oddity
On first rendering http://www.beautyofbedford.com/beauty_gift_vouchers.htm
the two body images do not observe their height attributes in the markup
under IE6 (vertical image stretching) yet subsequent iterations
intermittently display images to size.
Running IE6 under Win2K Pro. FF and other contemporary Gecko browsers appear
to be fine.
Image markup (using paragraphs since I require an encapsulated element to
incorporate lower image title):
p class=subimglimg ... alt= width=385 height=137 /br /Salon
.../p
I naturally looked for overriding CSS styles but could find none:
(full CSS at http://www.beautyofbedford.com/css/bob.css)
#block .subimgl, #block .subimgr {
background: transparent;
color: #8C4646;
float: right;
margin: 2.3em 0 .4em 15px;
font-size: .8em;
line-height: normal;
}
#block .subimgl {
float: left;
margin: .4em 15px .4em 0;
}
#block .subimgl img, #block .subimgr img {
margin: 0 0 .5em 0;
height: 1%;
}
#block .subimgl img, #block .subimgr img {
background: #FFF;
padding: 3px;
border: #CCC 1px solid;
}
I'm obviously missing something but after a long day and 2 hours have become
myopic. List help is gratefully appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Mike
Mike Pepper
Accessible Web Developer (but confused and tired)
www.seowebsitepromotion.com
GAWDS Admin
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.gawds.org
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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] IE Image vertical height oddity
What happens if you remove that height setting? I buy you a beer when you're in town :o) IE percentage challenges, eh. Now need to investigate why it was there in the first place. Thanks and cheers, Mike -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Bert Doorn Sent: 02 March 2005 01:07 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] IE Image vertical height oddity ... What happens if you remove that height setting? ... Regards -- Bert Doorn, Better Web Design http://www.betterwebdesign.com.au/ Fast-loading, user-friendly websites ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 266.5.0 - Release Date: 25/02/05 ** 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] validation logos - kitemarks?
An old chestnut. Standards badging is largely irrelevant to the client as they have no knowledge of or likely interest in the delivery mechanisms and markup/coding involved in development of a web presence. Neither too has the general public. That's point 1: fair ignorance of development. Since CSS, DTD markup compliance or WAI accessibility level badges are simply markers to recommendations and not Kite marks (like Corgi for British gas fitters, a recognised accreditation) they have no bearing on accountability or fitness for purpose, and their adoption is, at best, an indication that developers and, possibly, clients recognise best practice in the industry. That's point 2: no accountability in law or to a peer group. Where badging does kick in and I believe justifiably so is with inter-industry peer pressure and as a prompt for unclued wannabe developers to investigate further. A couple of years ago I had no idea what web standards or accessibility were about; I now know better. Part of the trigger was the use of badges on certain sites I happened upon. To the initiated, badges are often looked upon with smug derision; we don't need 'em cuz we're cool. Ivory tower syndrome. Don't get smug. I badge because I want fledgling developers to ask questions of and be a party to standards development. These are the guys we need to have commit to standards-compliant accessible development, as we do their tutors in educational establishments. A top down approach to development, a commitment by governments to sanction businesses who do not take 'reasonable efforts' to ensure their sites are accessible is a welcome - though largely toothless - effort towards recognising a moral requirement toward the rights of impaired web users. But until these sanctions are imposed with a fervour, which they won't because of the legal minefield involved when challenging *recommendations* not development *standards* (and the woolliness of the legislation), it's necessary to adopt a bottom up, critical mass approach. Until we, as an industry, are accredited with an internationally recognised set of development standards, which will mean formal exams toward formal qualifications, the best we can expect is to have wannabe developers look to us for guidance. That can start with a couple of badges on a site. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.visidigm.com Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org ** 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] To display or not to display validation logos?
No, Stephen, a standards-compliant site does not mean an accessible site -- but it goes a long way towards it. Accessibility has it own set of recommendations which sit atop those of pure compliant build, although building to standards often illustrates the developer's mindset: doing the job right :o) Cheers, Mike -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Stevio Sent: 26 February 2005 14:00 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] To display or not to display validation logos? Has anyone written anything like this we could use? Also, excuse my slight ignorance here, but just because a page validates as XHTML and CSS compatible, does that make it accessible? Obviously it helps, but there is more to accessibility than that isn't there. I also use tables in my pages in a couple of places, for the main navigation links and for the 2 column layout of the main content area. Thanks, Stephen ** 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] accessible ways to avoid spam
Alan, I've looked at this for a while and there is no guaranteed way of throttling spambots; however, you can confuse the simpler efforts and certainly slow the more determined scrapers. I wrote a server side app to encode email and mailto: addresses in ISO, Hex or mixed obfuscation. It's at: http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com/obfuscate_email.asp Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.visidigm.com Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Alan Trick Sent: 22 February 2005 14:34 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: [WSG] accessible ways to avoid spam I'm wondering if any of you have any tips on creative ways to keep spambots from harvesting email addresses on you page, and still keep then accessable to diabled people and text-browsers. Here's my thoughts * You could do something like me[AT]foo[DOT]bar but the problem with this is that many none geeks are not familiar with this kind of anti-spam thing and may give up trying to contact you when the get a bounce back saying (surprise, surprise) me[AT]foo[DOT]bar does not exist. * You could do something like mespan style='display:none'nospamplease/div@foo.bar, but this wouldn't work for people without basic css support, and goes against some basic accessabilty rules. * You could use javascript, but then you block non-js users which is no better than the above solution * You could use an image, but then you have to decide what to put in the alt attribute. If you put the address there then you pretty much defeat the point of the image because i'm pretty sure most (or enough) spambots can't take addresses from alt attributes. If you don't, then you break accessability with text-browsers. Anyone else have any good solutions? Alan Trick ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 266.3.0 - Release Date: 21/02/05 ** 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] accessible ways to avoid spam
Alan, I'll mail you the ASP source off-list. PHP is almost a sibling to ASP
and most of the routines are array storage and iteration. You should be able
to translate it easily. I presume you're using the [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cheers,
Mike
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Behalf Of Alan Trick
Sent: 22 February 2005 16:40
To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org
Subject: Re: [WSG] accessible ways to avoid spam
Thanks for the replies. I've desided to just go with something like this:
mspan style='display:none'{remove this text for email address, it is
inserted to avoid spam}/span [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The number of people who will ever see the invisible text is pretty
small and I think it's pretty self explanitory how to get the address
out of there if their UA doesn't support 'display:none'.
Mike, I like that idea about strap.asp, but I use php, do you now any
places were I could find equivilant php code for the page?
-Alan Trick
Mike Pepper wrote:
Alan,
I've looked at this for a while and there is no guaranteed way
of throttling
spambots; however, you can confuse the simpler efforts and certainly slow
the more determined scrapers.
I wrote a server side app to encode email and mailto: addresses
in ISO, Hex
or mixed obfuscation. It's at:
http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com/obfuscate_email.asp
Mike Pepper
Accessible Web Developer
Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.visidigm.com
Administrator
Guild of Accessible Web Designers
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.gawds.org
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Behalf Of Alan Trick
Sent: 22 February 2005 14:34
To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org
Subject: [WSG] accessible ways to avoid spam
I'm wondering if any of you have any tips on creative ways to keep
spambots from harvesting email addresses on you page, and still keep
then accessable to diabled people and text-browsers. Here's my thoughts
* You could do something like me[AT]foo[DOT]bar but the problem with
this is that many none geeks are not familiar with this kind of
anti-spam thing and may give up trying to contact you when the get
a bounce back saying (surprise, surprise) me[AT]foo[DOT]bar does
not exist.
* You could do something like mespan
style='display:none'nospamplease/div@foo.bar, but this wouldn't
work for people without basic css support, and goes against some
basic accessabilty rules.
* You could use javascript, but then you block non-js users which is
no better than the above solution
* You could use an image, but then you have to decide what to put in
the alt attribute. If you put the address there then you pretty
much defeat the point of the image because i'm pretty sure most
(or enough) spambots can't take addresses from alt attributes. If
you don't, then you break accessability with text-browsers.
Anyone else have any good solutions?
Alan Trick
**
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See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
for some hints on posting to the list getting help
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RE: [WSG] Not and IE bug?...follow up difference why a difference between IDs and classes?
You can address elements from the DOM (Document Object Model) directly via JavaScript. Cheers, Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.visidigm.com Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Trusz, Andrew Sent: 10 February 2005 11:41 To: 'wsg@webstandardsgroup.org' Subject: RE: [WSG] Not and IE bug?...follow up difference why a difference between IDs and classes? newbie questions... What is the advantage of the fact that IDs must be unique on a page? I am aware of the circumstance that if you need to repeat an ID, set is as a class, but have still not figured out the advantage of an ID. ¤ devendra ¤ In addition to everything else, as id replaces name, id becomes a means to navigate to parts of a document using the anchor element: a id=main/a. drew ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.6 - Release Date: 07/02/05 ** 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] Browser Checks
Andrew Krespanis wrote: OOPS! I just swore on listSORRY :) --- LOL. First time a long while I've actually gotten a laugh from this list. Cheers, Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.visidigm.com Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org ** 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] Print Stylesheet Bug Using IE Conditional Expressions
A raised this query a few weeks ago, to no avail. However, chatting with another developer tonight who had experienced a similar challenge with print stylesheets, I was offered a resolution: the !important directive. Slapped it in the print stylesheet on the offending ID for the container and bingo!, all is well with the print world :o) IE doesn't handle the !important directive too well but in this instance use of it resolved the errant the stylesheet-specific override for the browser action. Today has been a good day to markup :o) Cheers all, Mike -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Mike Pepper Sent: 21 January 2005 16:24 To: WSG Subject: [WSG] Print Stylesheet Bug Using IE Conditional Expressions I'm using a print stylesheet on http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com/ which worked fine ... until I used an HTC conditional expression as max-width emulation in IE. Now the printed output is cropped on page right. Any width adjustment is ignored by IE (FF et al work just fine). It's the expression causing the problem. I tried moving the stylesheet load order in the markup to appear after the IE specific load but it makes no difference. Anybody come across this behaviour and have a resolution? Cheers, Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.visidigm.com Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org ** 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] cover me -- I'm gonna be naughty!
Ted wrote: For those covering your ears and eyes screaming N! I know it is a bad thing to spam your keywords. But if we need to do it to be competitive, would this at least protect those that are innocent, the people who need to use screenreaders? Are you willing to risk your client's site and your (possibly) good reputation by spamdexing? Google appears lax towards spamming at present but for how long ... ? Besides, it can be done legitimately: http://search.msn.co.uk/results.aspx?Hidden1=MSNHHidden1=1252q=website+dev elopment Couldn't resist :o) Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.visidigm.com Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org ** 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] Search Engines and CSS - Doesn't the HTML Matter More?
Chris, A few issues with CSS spamming: http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com/enigma_log0411.htm I've not touched on all the techniques but it a pointer in abuse of standards-based development. Cheers, Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.visidigm.com Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Chris Rizzo Sent: 31 January 2005 16:04 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: RE: [WSG] Search Engines and CSS - Doesn't the HTML Matter More? Hi, I guess I want to interject here a bit. Maybe steer the conversation in a different direction because I'm very interested in this topic being a person who believes in the benefits of CSS, and who does quite a lot of SEO. From Lea's previous post: I've been searching around for an answer to this and many people are saying 'maybe' Google does read your css. Does anyone know this for a fact? If the log files dont show them loading it then they dont have the data to analyse it. Guys, can we take the focus off of the CSS file? I don't think Google or any engine cares what's in that file because it doesn't contain data relevant to site content. However, what I am wondering is this ... 1) What kind of SEO impact does using CSS to *remove* all of the styling junk from an HTML page have? Meaning we have a leaner cleaner page, a smaller page, and a page with more focused content. Does this provide an SEO benefit? 2) And how does using good semantic code in your HTML help SEO, if at all? Do the engines prefer to read semantic code, and if so why? Does that translate to an SEO benefit? I think these questions are relevant because if we could answer them in the positive with some certainty we'd have another legitimate benefit to using CSS, and we could use the knowledge as a basis for possibly deriving strategy to use CSS to provide a stronger SEO benefit. Currently my belief is that CSS doesn't have an impact on SEO significant enough to warrant redesigning a site in CSS for that reason alone. But, I'd really love to be proven wrong. Chris Rizzo ** 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] SEO - price
List moderators: I know this subject has been deemed OT but statements like 'SEO doesn't really exist' need refuting. SEO does exist as an internet profession. It has nothing to do with spamdexing but is a process of best practice to promote web pages and sites to the search engines, directories and internet media. SEO is now subsumed in SEM - search engine marketing - and encompasses a range of skills designed to legitimately elevate and drive traffic to sites. I know, I am an SEM. Stating SEO doesn't exist is akin to saying standards-based development doesn't exist. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.visidigm.com Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org David R wrote: SEO doesn't really exist ...As far as any real gains go, the most you can do to an existing template is add appropriate title=, alt=, and meta / elements SEO companies that claim massive increases in search results actually create link-farms to your site that give you plenty of googlejuice, fortunately Google's cottoned on to this plan and linkfarms no-longer have the desired effect they used to. The only way to create true SEO is to have a site built from scratch with accessibility, standards compliance, and best practice compliance. Okay... there is a way you can cheat, using any given server-side technology to show/hide a region to the Googlebot that contains more relevant information ...However, Googlebot is known to trawl the web with the IE6 UI string and they compare returned results (supposedly), so I don't really recommend said action. ** 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] Drop down menu, JavaScript accessibility
Nope, nothing at all. Just bung it in an IE conditional clause calling a
stylesheet containing an HTC behaviour call.
Like : !--[if IE]link rel=stylesheet href=css/cw_ie.css
type=text/css media=all /![endif]--
with cs_ie.css containing whatever:
#menubar li {
behavior: url(css/iehover.htc);
}
and the HTC file:
attach event=onmouseover handler=mouseover /
attach event=onmouseout handler=mouseout /
script type=text/javascript
function mouseover() {
for( var x = 0; element.childNodes[x]; x++ ){
if(element.childNodes[x].tagName == 'UL') {
element.childNodes[x].style.display = 'block';
}
}
}
function mouseout() {
for( var x = 0; element.childNodes[x]; x++ ){
if(element.childNodes[x].tagName == 'UL') {
element.childNodes[x].style.display = 'none';
}
}
}
/script
HTH,
Mike Pepper
Accessible Web Developer
Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.visidigm.com
Administrator
Guild of Accessible Web Designers
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.gawds.org
Jixor wrote:
Is there anything wrong with using css and adding a js to 'enable'
:hover for everything in ie?
**
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] Search Engines and CSS
Andy, I have sent literally hundreds of mails to Google illustrating exactly what the miscreants are doing and how. I take SEO seriously and know most if not all the techniques. They have never responded in any way other than their automated responders. I eventually gave up in the knowledge that I was wasting my time and energy. Whenever I tackle a new market arena demanding fresh keyphrase analysis I always vet the competition to see what I'm up against. The volume of spam is extraordinary. Yahoo! and MSN are better. They at least make an effort to respond and deal with alerts. I have zero tolerance for spammers in any shape or form but as far as Google goes, they're a waste of space when it comes to fighting spam. It's not unfair; it's my experience over the past 3 years. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.visidigm.com Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Andy Budd Sent: 28 January 2005 09:53 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] Search Engines and CSS On 28 Jan 2005, at 01:28, Mike Pepper wrote: Take a look at some fought over keyphrases like 'website development' in Google UK. You'll find many sites spamming with irrelevant noscript, off-screen absolute positioned text, minute text, hidden layers, even some cretins with WOW (white-on-white) text. And you know what? Google doesn't do a damn thing about it. I think that's a bit unfair. It's a bit like complaining that the police do nothing about crime in your area when none of the residents can be bothered to report it. If you see a site which use dubious methods to gain a ranking advantage, contact Google and complain. I've a friend who's a professional SEO and one of the main things he and many of his colleagues do is report dubious sites. If after a month or so nothing has been done about it, then complain about it. Andy Budd http://www.message.uk.com/ ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.1 - Release Date: 27/01/05 ** 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] Search Engines and CSS
Take a look at some fought over keyphrases like 'website development' in Google UK. You'll find many sites spamming with irrelevant noscript, off-screen absolute positioned text, minute text, hidden layers, even some cretins with WOW (white-on-white) text. And you know what? Google doesn't do a damn thing about it. They're far too concerned with AdWords and AdSense. Hot markets are awash with spammed keyphrases and whole swathes of junk keyword-littered text. Which suggests either they don't or can't factor CSS into the spam algos or they simply aren't bothered. Draw your own conclusions. Cheers all, Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.visidigm.com Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org ** 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] Nav Before or After Main Content
One thing highlighted at an accessibility site design awards ceremony I recently attended was the wish for developers to include a site map link at the head jump links on all pages so non-sighted users could immediately jump to the page and get a feel for site relevance to search topic, especially when hitting a site - often for the first time - when Googling. This was requested as a key development feature by the head of the British National Blind Library. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.visidigm.com Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.7.2 - Release Date: 21/01/05 ** 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] Table v Container Development
I deal with smaller clients, too, David and while I agree with your comments, I run reseller hosting and when on a limited budget in a cut-throat hosting business, those extra few Gigs often trip the switch to a higher bandwidth package, especially if clients are using eBay or similar commercial portal where mass interest can make a heck of a difference on a specific product. Believe me, it does make a substantial difference. Companies or sole traders on limited budget already have an acute eye on spending and it's as well to do whatever you can to retain them by keeping costs as low as possible. Hosting is extremely competitive and by reducing code size by a potential 60 or 70% you can make a considerable relative saving. Cheers, Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.visidigm.com Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Whilst its always nice to include such information in our propaganda we hand out to clients, we do have to maintain a realist stance sometimes... most of our clients are small businesses and otherwise non-enterprise grade companies, their websites are not going to be 1000 hits a minute e-business solutions, most hosting companies have bandwidth limits of around 25-50GB a month, and its very hard to reach that limit through XHTML alone, you'll be lucky to serve even 4GB of XHTML, CSS, and images a month, imho. -- -David R -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.7.2 - Release Date: 21/01/05 ** 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] CSS Footers
Hi David, You could apply clear: both; to the footer element. Presuming the code is as the pseudo code you illustrate. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.visidigm.com Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of David R Sent: 23 January 2005 20:28 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: [WSG] CSS Footers Hey guys I'm in a muddle here... I'm using CSS to absolutely position my columns, because if I floated them I'd have to re-order my XHTML structure: Presently its like this: (uber-simplification) body !-- Wrappers used for column backgrounds-- div id=wrapper1 div id=wrapper2 div id=nav ul liLoads of these/li /ul /div div id=content pLorem Ipsum/p /div div id=sidebar dl dtLoads of these too/dt ddEtc.../dd /dl /div div id=footer pFooter info/p /div /div /div !-- End wrappers -- /body With CSS specifying that #nav and #sidebar have definite width and positioned absolutely to left: 0; and right: 0; respectivly. Thing is, when the content of div#content is shorter than the height of either div#navbar or div#sidebar then the footer overlaps either sidebar. I've tried setting both div#wrapper to min-height: 100% but no change is observed. Does anyone have any suggestions for getting elements to clear floating boxes? Regards -- -David R ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.7.2 - Release Date: 21/01/05 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.7.2 - Release Date: 21/01/05 ** 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] Table v Container Development
Last night I redeveloped the index page for a commercial site in as an exercise to illustrate the benefits of standards-compliant tableless design. Some interesting figures: Before After HTML weight:22Kb12Kb CSS weight: 9Kb 3Kb* *About 1Kb redundant and stripped as it supported other pages. Take a look at the original complex markup for http://www.thameslink.co.uk/ and the simplicity of a well-structured container document: http://www.visidigm.com/dev/thameslink/ Much easier to understand and, as necessary, modify from a developer perspective. This is where we can help one another as developers by writing markup whose legacy is much easier to hand on. (I realise some of the unordered lists could be converted to definition lists but I really couldn't be bothered. It's the principle of sound standards-based design I'm trying to illustrate.) Incidentally, I was IT manager for these guys in the early '90s. Got to play with trackside transponders and identify the Wrong Type of Snow and Wet Leaves and manipulate and regurgitate daily 1.5M locomotion data sets. Ah, those were the days :o) Cheers, Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.visidigm.com Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or body to whom they are addressed. This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by Norton AntiVirus for the presence of computer viruses. If this message is received in error, please accept our apologies. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.7.2 - Release Date: 21/01/05 ** 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] Print Stylesheet Bug Using IE Conditional Expressions
I'm using a print stylesheet on http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com/ which worked fine ... until I used an HTC conditional expression as max-width emulation in IE. Now the printed output is cropped on page right. Any width adjustment is ignored by IE (FF et al work just fine). It's the expression causing the problem. I tried moving the stylesheet load order in the markup to appear after the IE specific load but it makes no difference. Anybody come across this behaviour and have a resolution? Cheers, Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.visidigm.com Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or body to whom they are addressed. This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by Norton AntiVirus for the presence of computer viruses. If this message is received in error, please accept our apologies. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.7.0 - Release Date: 17/01/05 ** 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] xHTML style guide/ coding guidelines
Rob, Let's rework your example: divpabc/p/div You really ought forget about nesting tables, in fact you might want to read up on using containers - divs - to create elements in the markup and CSS to control their display. Not what you want to hear, I know but take a long, determined look at tableless design and you'll never look back. Trust me on this. Cheers, Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.visidigm.com Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org Rob wrote: . Anyone know of a nice style guide (or guidelines)for writing xHTML/HTML. . What I mean is, how code should be specifically formatted, indents, wraps, placement of comments, treatment of long lines, suggestion for nesting tables etc. Example: tabletr tdabc/td /tr /table is far LESS readable than: !-- START main table -- table tr td abc /td /tr /table !-- END main table -- Thanks PS- I sure get a lot out of this list serve Rob -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.7.0 - Release Date: 17/01/05 ** 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] window.onunload Event Not Firing in IE
I've been battling with this for the best part of 4 hours and it's doing my head in. I'm using a cookie to store various accessibility user preferences such as (alternate) stylesheet, font size and font alignment in http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com/ I want to record the user's preferences in the cookie when they close a browser session (or make changes within a session and navigate elsewhere - which functions correctly). This works fine in Firefox but Win2K Pro IE6 (untested in other flavours) refuses to acknowledge the onunload event when closing the browser window. It does, however, recognise page to page movement and fires the unload event (as it should) just before the next page is loaded (and perhaps herein lies a clue, though I'm damned if I can find it). What this means is users cannot make a preference change, immediately exit IE and have it stored in the cookie. They must first navigate to another page (or site) for the event to be fired and the cookie written. Anybody have any resolutions to this (stupid) behaviour? I've Googled for a while and can find no pertinent reference. Cheers in advance. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.visidigm.com Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or body to whom they are addressed. This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by Norton AntiVirus for the presence of computer viruses. If this message is received in error, please accept our apologies. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.7.0 - Release Date: 17/01/05 ** 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] window.onunload Event Not Firing in IE
Solved! It was the bloody Google toolbar blocking the event as it decided it was attempting to load a popup. How cretinous! Sorry for the false request. Mike -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Mike Pepper Sent: 20 January 2005 20:00 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: [WSG] window.onunload Event Not Firing in IE I've been battling with this for the best part of 4 hours and it's doing my head in. I'm using a cookie to store various accessibility user preferences such as (alternate) stylesheet, font size and font alignment in http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com/ I want to record the user's preferences in the cookie when they close a browser session (or make changes within a session and navigate elsewhere - which functions correctly). This works fine in Firefox but Win2K Pro IE6 (untested in other flavours) refuses to acknowledge the onunload event when closing the browser window. It does, however, recognise page to page movement and fires the unload event (as it should) just before the next page is loaded (and perhaps herein lies a clue, though I'm damned if I can find it). What this means is users cannot make a preference change, immediately exit IE and have it stored in the cookie. They must first navigate to another page (or site) for the event to be fired and the cookie written. Anybody have any resolutions to this (stupid) behaviour? I've Googled for a while and can find no pertinent reference. Cheers in advance. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.visidigm.com Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or body to whom they are addressed. This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by Norton AntiVirus for the presence of computer viruses. If this message is received in error, please accept our apologies. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.7.0 - Release Date: 17/01/05 ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.7.0 - Release Date: 17/01/05 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.7.0 - Release Date: 17/01/05 ** 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] background-image:
Helen wrote: What I was talking about and I think some other were too was being able to have a href link attached to an image that is a background image, particularly for banner images, so that they can link back to the home page for instance. Normally you can put a link right onto an image, but the question was, how do you put it onto a background image. Helen, I use a transparent gif image technique. Simply place a solid colour transparent gif the size of the required hotspot of the background image in the link. http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com/enigma_log0403.htm illustrates the principle and thinking behind the initiative. Cheers, Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.visidigm.com (in progress) Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.7.0 - Release Date: 17/01/05 ** 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] Slightly OT... Interview with IE Dev team
Agreed, Ryan, it will be a strategic decision. As much as we may wish to influence the outcome, MS will take the better course for their business. It's a question of a thousand words or none. Influence will be market dominated, as simple as that. They're a brilliant company when it comes to offering perceived solutions to client requirements. Provided the (corporate and private) public remain naive to solutions, MS will dictate resolutions. It's a case of percolation. Standards and accessibility will coalesce upon advent of clear market threat to those outside the envelope. It's balancing an equation with many factors culminating in projected customer expectation. These are simple business economics. But that does not mean to say we cannot shape the future. Education. Teach by fiscal example. Illustrate by factual example: Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer () www.seowebsitepromotion.com www.gawds.org GAWDS Admin [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Ryan Nichols Sent: 06 January 2005 19:59 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: RE: [WSG] Slightly OT... Interview with IE Dev team I think you have to also understand there are many 'Microsoft's' depending on which department / product you are referring to. The global company name might be the same, but departments are segmented and don't necessarily talk to each other. I've been to a Microsoft presentation where the VB.NET product manager (one of them) was discussing the design decisions they made and the design decisions that the C# group made. Point being even groups as similar as a programming language were not at all on the same page. In fact he discussed battling with the office group about supporting certain .NET features in their API. Each group is responsible for what makes THEM money and is best for THEM, and it doesn't necessarily matter what another group is trying to promote. Hence one 'Microsoft' supported WC3 standards... Another 'Microsoft' doesn't even consider web standards when writing what .NET will put out. When it comes to the next IE7, the process will be the same. That group will make thousands of design decisions from the same basis, time and money. It will probably be very standard compliant because the market is very different right now from what it was then, but it will not be what we may want it to be. Ryan Nichols Graphic Design / Web Development Matrixwebs.com 1.800.711.2829 18330 Sutter Blvd. Morgan Hill, CA 95037 -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kornel Lesinski Sent: Thursday, January 06, 2005 10:59 AM To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] Slightly OT... Interview with IE Dev team Microsoft has been hyping about web-applications more than you'd imagine, the MSDN Library is full of articles on the subject. 3 of the included posters in the 2003 edition are about web-applications. They don't think about W3C-standards based applications. They are just using a buzzrword to push .NET apps. But I'm convinced Microsoft will make IE7 support standards... why? Because VS 2005 supports the entire XHTML1.1 and CSS2.1 spec They have to support some HTML, XML and CSS anyway, so that's not a problem to add few extra tags. Page you mentioned promotes layout table creator and shows some non-standard code... Microsoft knows that there are web standards. They used W3C to get help on creating technologies they needed, but Microsoft doesn't *gain* anything from supporting other W3C standards. They will support standards when they see cash coming from it, or when someone forces them to do it. How *Microsoft* would benefit from supporting XHTML and CSS2? ... it just doesn't sell. -- regards, Kornel Lesiski ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.6.8 - Release Date: 03/01/05 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.6.8 - Release Date: 03/01/05 ** 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] background loading issue
You can drop the image to 23K with a decent JPEG converter. The fact that it's a background means just that: it's subordinate to content. I have http://www.xat.com/ in my graphics manipulation armoury. Still the best after 3 years. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org CK wrote: Hi, At the following url: http://working.ckimedia.com/index.php The delay when loading the background is giving me pause. Is this delay a huge usability issue, or has my quest become retentive? -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.296 / Virus Database: 265.5.4 - Release Date: 15/12/04 ** 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] font too small??
John, Have you thought about running a JavaScript font resizer and storing preferences in a cookie. It won't work for whatever percentage (9-13?) of users who disable JavaScript but at least it will permit the majority of your audience to set and return. Something a long the lines of http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com/site_map.htm at the top of the screen. The code's pretty simple and I can sort it off-list if you wish. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of john Sent: 26 November 2004 17:26 To: web standards group Subject: [WSG] font too small?? For the most part, the debute of my standards-friendly redesign has been met with great fanfare, but I've been receiving a few emails from people saying that the text is way too small. This, I do not understand, as I've used em to specify font sizes, and they all look good to most. Of course, I'm not striving for MOST...I want ALL. So, what would be affecting these users who are saying the text is too small? Default computer font size? What do I tell them, or is there anything more I can do on my site? http://cslewis.drzeus.net Thanks again. -- ~john _ Dr. Zeus Web Development http://www.DrZeus.net content without clutter ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.289 / Virus Database: 265.4.2 - Release Date: 24/11/04 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.289 / Virus Database: 265.4.2 - Release Date: 24/11/04 ** 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] IE's New JavaScript Blocking Feature
Think of onclick as a 2-action process: mouse down selects the object, mouse up - if still on-focus - activates the link, in this instance. Same for keyboard action: tab to object selects it, enter/return activates it. They do the same job, across all browsers. Tell you what, why not run a sequence of tests? Proof of pudding ... Mike -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Mark Harwood Sent: 26 November 2004 22:28 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [WSG] IE's New JavaScript Blocking Feature On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 16:05 , Derek Featherstone [EMAIL PROTECTED] sent: My vote: let the automated checkers moan about this all day. Ignore them. Don't add onkeypress in the name of accessibility and device independence... Try telling that to SOCTiM who check all local council sites, they take the guidlines as if there written in stone! ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.289 / Virus Database: 265.4.2 - Release Date: 24/11/04 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.289 / Virus Database: 265.4.2 - Release Date: 24/11/04 ** 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] IE's New JavaScript Blocking Feature
Patrick wrote: Oh, something just occurred to me: best make it explicit that we're talking about onclick behaviours on elements that receive focus via the keyboard (links, form elements). obviously, if you have applied onclick to something else (like a plain vanilla image, or a paragraph, etc), it won't be triggered by the keyboard because the user will not be able to even get to it. but that then becomes a more fundamental accessibility issue. Good point ... which is why it's always good to have an image caption wrappered within the link to handle the onfocus/active event :o) I can knock something together this saturday and test in most recent-ish (from IE 4 onwards) browsers, if you like. Anybody who can test on Mac (ideally both OS 9 and OS X) and *nix (konqueror)? Send me a reply off list...I'll collate the results and re-post them here. Well done, mate. Mike Mike Pepper wrote: Think of onclick as a 2-action process: mouse down selects the object, mouse up - if still on-focus - activates the link, in this instance. Same for keyboard action: tab to object selects it, enter/return activates it. Oh, something just occurred to me: best make it explicit that we're talking about onclick behaviours on elements that receive focus via the keyboard (links, form elements). obviously, if you have applied onclick to something else (like a plain vanilla image, or a paragraph, etc), it won't be triggered by the keyboard because the user will not be able to even get to it. but that then becomes a more fundamental accessibility issue. Tell you what, why not run a sequence of tests? Proof of pudding ... I can knock something together this saturday and test in most recent-ish (from IE 4 onwards) browsers, if you like. Anybody who can test on Mac (ideally both OS 9 and OS X) and *nix (konqueror)? Send me a reply off list...I'll collate the results and re-post them here. Patrick -- _ re·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively [latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.] www.splintered.co.uk | www.photographia.co.uk http://redux.deviantart.com ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.289 / Virus Database: 265.4.2 - Release Date: 24/11/04 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.289 / Virus Database: 265.4.2 - Release Date: 24/11/04 ** 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] Circle menu
Jad, Check out file:///H:/Inetpub/wwwroot/premiumsofas/bellagio_sofas.htm As Patrick suggests, it's a simple case of absolute positioning. Set a relative start then work from there. (The site is temporarily disabled so don't hit the index page.) Good luck, Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com Administrator Guild of Accessible Web Designers [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jad Madi Sent: 25 October 2004 00:18 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [WSG] Circle menu sorry for delay check the idea out http://www.w3planet.info/circle-menu/menu.jpg sure without the circle border and little larger to fit the screen I dont want to use any image maping, or images, only markup any idea? On Mon, 25 Oct 2004 07:08:33 +1000, Lea de Groot [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 20:13:22 +0300, Jad Madi wrote: ah ok I'll draw on and attach it Actually, can you draw one, upload it to some webspace and post the url? Avoid posting attachments to the list - see http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm , point 1: no attachments. Thanks Lea -- Lea de Groot WSG Core Group ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** -- http://www.W3planet.info/ http://www.EasyHTTP.com/jad/ ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** ** 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] w3c badges
Pleased you like them, Michael ;o) Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer () www.seowebsitepromotion.com GAWDS Admin [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Michael Dale Sent: 18 October 2004 04:58 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [WSG] w3c badges Here are two nicer looking ones http://blog.dalegroup.net/images/validx.gif (xhtml 1.1) http://blog.dalegroup.net/images/validc.gif (css) Michael Dale [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Original Message - From: Rick Faaberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 12:50:25 +1000 Subject: [WSG] w3c badges Hi all, Who can I send a suggestion to at W3C that they make their web badges a lot more subtle (and smaller) so that I would actually use them on my sites? Or do I just put up text that says W3C Valid? Is that what you do? Or just forget it entirely, 'cause who beside developers care in the first place? Best, Rick Faaberg ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** ** 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] should you refuse to support IE?
I just wanna know your view on ditching IE on purpose? Commercial suicide :o) Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer () www.seowebsitepromotion.com GAWDS Admin [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Mark Harwood Sent: 18 October 2004 12:10 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [WSG] should you refuse to support IE? Not commercialy, but personaly on your own blog sites are other little community sites? I've just redesigned my blog (www.phunky.co.uk) and in doing so i decided i was not going to touch some of the minor issuse that IE has with my site, although it would only take me a little bit of time to get it 100% in IE aswell why should i? Ive placed a small disclaimer on my site stateing why im NON-IE but my only worry is that new clients or outsourcing companies may see this and think The guy hates IE, he could be a git to work with (which i am :D) I just wanna know your view on ditching IE on purpose? Cheers Mark Harwood Phunky.co.uk / Xhtmlandcss.co.uk / Zinkmedia.co.uk ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** ** 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] w3c badges
Nah, they're different :o) Not as good ;o) Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer () www.seowebsitepromotion.com GAWDS Admin [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Michael Dale Sent: 18 October 2004 12:28 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [WSG] w3c badges Thank google ;) http://images.google.com.au/images?q=validate+w3chl=enlr=start=20sa=N Michael Dale [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Original Message - From: Mike Pepper [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 21:04:11 +1000 Subject: RE: [WSG] w3c badges Pleased you like them, Michael ;o) Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer () www.seowebsitepromotion.com GAWDS Admin [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Michael Dale Sent: 18 October 2004 04:58 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [WSG] w3c badges Here are two nicer looking ones http://blog.dalegroup.net/images/validx.gif (xhtml 1.1) http://blog.dalegroup.net/images/validc.gif (css) Michael Dale [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Original Message - From: Rick Faaberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 12:50:25 +1000 Subject: [WSG] w3c badges Hi all, Who can I send a suggestion to at W3C that they make their web badges a lot more subtle (and smaller) so that I would actually use them on my sites? Or do I just put up text that says W3C Valid? Is that what you do? Or just forget it entirely, 'cause who beside developers care in the first place? Best, Rick Faaberg ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** ** 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] thoughts of external links in new window?
John, Imagine using a screen reader when you are suddenly catapulted into a new browser window. Your navigation is shot to pieces. It is best practice to always open external links within the same browser session. At worst, it is permissible when, for instance, you deem a pop-up associated with the current site to be the optimum solution for displaying additional information or when expanding a thumbnail but you should offer a courtesy warning such as This will open in a new window, or similar. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer www.seowebsitepromotion.com www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of john Sent: 05 October 2004 17:30 To: web standards group Subject: [WSG] thoughts of external links in new window? Some of my usability team are telling me that they prefer to have external links going into a new browser window. I can see why some would like that, but I can also see why others would frown on it. Is there a standard answer for Web standards, or what are your points of view on this? If you were to do it, what's your preferred method? Thanks. -- ~john _ Dr. Zeus Web Development http://www.DrZeus.net content without clutter ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** ** 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] thoughts of external links in new window?
Also, checkout WAI Priority 2 Checkpoint 10.1 Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer www.seowebsitepromotion.com www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of john Sent: 05 October 2004 17:30 To: web standards group Subject: [WSG] thoughts of external links in new window? Some of my usability team are telling me that they prefer to have external links going into a new browser window. I can see why some would like that, but I can also see why others would frown on it. Is there a standard answer for Web standards, or what are your points of view on this? If you were to do it, what's your preferred method? Thanks. -- ~john _ Dr. Zeus Web Development http://www.DrZeus.net content without clutter ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** ** 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] After CSS?
Accessibility. Extend your skillsets with an understanding of the challenges faced by impaired users, whether physically or cerebrally impaired. The practical upshot of such consideration for fellow users is the market expansion afforded yourself and clients as you penetrate and take hold of these markets. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer www.seowebsitepromotion.com GAWDS Administrator [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of 7 sinz Sent: 23 July 2004 11:45 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [WSG] After CSS? Hi all, Im an 19 yer old desinger, with a particular interest in web design. For the last 8 motnhs i've been huddled up in my workspace practising my art learning the ins and out of CSS and pretty much learning the language to a T. Anything i used to do with nested tables I now write with CSS, layouts dependant on the viewport are atill time consuming to make, and depending on browser support/target audience scale of the project they can be time consuming, still i managae to pull through. Fixed width layouts are no brainers to use, i feel once you've comfortably mastered positioning in CSS you pretty much can design any layout you cut outta of Photoshop/other image editor. Not to say that thats all you need to know when developing with CSS, but it is a main part of structual design, once you can write it fluently theres no stopping or holing back with what kind of structure your static design may be. Now, it took me a while to get here, but we all got to start somewhere. But what now? How can you prepare for the next specification, new attributes and selectors, is there a test suite for CSS3?. Im a graphic designer, who's passion for web development introduced me to one of the strongest client side languages available to any developer, now that im at a point of speaking fluent CSS what do i tackle next, what new CSS3 flavours can i focus on for the next wave of innovation? Kind Regards _ Searching for that dream home? Try http://ninemsn.realestate.com.au for all your property needs. * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * 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: Future.....(was: Re: [WSG] iFrames vs Scrolling Divs)
Scott, from an accessibility perspective, I put http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com/enigma_log.htm together the other day. It advocates the move to accessibility and standards from a humanist perspective. Now a more pragmatic approach - Sound like you're looking for an ROI reward-based argument. Well ... in the UK alone, silver surfers are a 14 ?billion market. Many will take advantage of text resizing in their browsers to make surfing a little more tolerable. Accessibility is build upon W3C standards. Get those sorted and the rest is easy. The point being, the more standardised your markup, the more traffic, from search engines whose spiders can more easily index the copy, to users who can more easily navigate, view and, if ecommerce, buy products ... and who will more readily bookmark the site simply because it is usable. Now throw in people with various impairments and the equation becomes more than just viable, it is vital to capture and retain their spending power by building sites to which they will gladly return and exercise their right to vote accessible. Now ... look to the future and we have a whole bunch of PDAs, WAP-enabled cellphones, tablet PCs and emergent technology whose screen sizes will vary but whose OS's (albeit proprietary in many instances) will accept X(HT)ML feeds. This is the present and the future. We're talking big, accessible, standards-compliant bucks. Without standards (irrespective of the who, why and wherefore of the originating bodies) web development would ramble on in the wilderness with numerous competing technologies vying for position and developers writing disparate browser-specific markup with a total disregard for the issues faced by either impaired users or those who elect to use non mainstream browsers like the Geckos, Opera or whatever. In my view, it's a falsehood to suggest that standards-compliant markup is a challenge to embrace. In comparison to using FrontPage or similar WYSIWYG editors then, yes, having to develop W3C compliant code and get your hands dirty is more time consuming and requires a greater knowledge base and effort on the part of the developer. But Web development, professional development, is not an easy task. Like any skill, their is a period of apprenticeship ... and some body - our peers and dare I say betters - must set the entrance and exit exams - the standards - to which we aspire. I take an active part in a few of these bodies because 1., I believe in what is happening within the industry, the move towards Time Berners-Lee's vision of a fully accessible communications medium available to all nations and individuals on the planet and 2., I like being paid to offer my clients a greater return on investment than they would otherwise expect from non-compliant development. It's good common business sense and a courtesy to develop for as great an audience as reasonably practicable. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer (after a good night's sleep, and a weird dream) www.seowebsitepromotion.com Administrator www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Scott Barnes Sent: 08 July 2004 05:27 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Future.(was: Re: [WSG] iFrames vs Scrolling Divs) Q. I've been on the List for a while now, and while i love the webstandards concept, i'm finding it hard to believe that the web will adjust itself to suite extensions like XHTML? The reason i say this is if we were to make a concious decision to move forward, it would be years 5+ before we would even see a shift in its coding standards alone, not to mention implementing STRICT. If this IS the case, what benefits are we getting as developers for taking on extra headaches in making it W3C compliant (who by the way aren't an international elected body - more of a group that have taken liberty to makeup standards). To me, tags like iframe are being used and quite a lot and do do away with them, is in many ways the kiss of death for movements like this, as you will be faught all the way. Even though the tag is a wrapper (defined in DTD) in many ways for the HTML Object it still leaves me wondering why tags like iframe aren't valid? to me they seemed harmless along with tags like B to STRONG so forth. Not to mention the web is looking to shift away from browsers, and move more to native XML packets to run its presentation layer on applications (ie MXML, AXML, XFORMS etc). It just seems lately to be a futile battle, and extensive one and yet no real gains? why would a developer go out of his/her way to learn XHTML? I personally use strict XHTML as its the only real DTD that fixes the Box Model bug in both IE Mozilla (consistencey). Its got added pain, but i'm used to it now.. but others well they'd go too hard pile Regards Scott Barnes http://www.mossyblog.com Brian Cummiskey wrote: Scott Barnes wrote: Are you absolutly positive about iframes not being available in strict XHTML? because I've got
RE: [WSG]headers
Blimey, Mike, very smart :o) Will look forward to the finished result. Looking good :o) -Original Message- From: Mike Foskett [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Mike Foskett Sent: 08 July 2004 12:09 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [WSG]headers Thanks Mike, Drew, Lee, I think you'll appreciate the result. It contains most of your suggestions. Still working on the content though, with a long way to go. graphic design, copy writing, peer testing, user testing, etc. http://homepage.mac.com/backtoslack/websemantics/ once again thanks for clearing up these issues guys. mike foskett ** This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager. This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by MIMEsweeper for the presence of computer viruses. www.mimesweeper.com ** attachment: winmail.dat
Re: Future.....(was: Re: [WSG] iFrames vs Scrolling Divs)
Lee: - If we examine the two statements as a computer would, we find a difference. Your statement clearly indicates that the book and chapter titles are on EACH page, meaning both elements. My statement clearly says the book title is on the left page and the chapter title is on the right page; both are not on each page. With boolean algebra your statement requires both to be true; mine requires only one to be true. Lee, did you see Bicentennial Man? :o) Mike Pepper (cheerful) Accessible Web Developer www.seowebsitepromotion.com Administrator www.gawds.org * 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]headers
That's am extremely salient perspective. Data of itself is a nonsense without reference frameworks. Data - information - knowledge. It's transition interfaces which are vital to the user such that the interface mechanisms are transparent. I see the W3C as an aggregate experience born of necessity. I have neither the mental agility, focus luxury or - importantly - financial comfort cushion with which to pursue pure vision to a goal. Which is why I will trust my more fortunate and adept peers to guide and set global standards -- which I will adopt in good faith. The need to rationalise a coherent, global information interchange mechanism has, I believe, been largely addressed by W3C and X(HT)ML (SOAP excluded). Boy do I wish such standards were more than merely emergent in 1996. I had to drive and develop a 1/4 billion forecasting system, viable and proved across mainframe/pc/cellphone and laptop environments. My solution: CSV, comma separated variable files. For all of our discussion on standards and the interpretation of the letter of the compliant law, we still must deliver cross-spectrum applications to disparate hardware and software. The minutia is very interesting; but my clients' eyes glaze. Mike Pepper (knackered) Accessible Web Developer www.seowebsitepromotion.com Administrator www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Trusz, Andrew Sent: 08 July 2004 19:25 To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: [WSG]headers -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Lee Roberts Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2004 12:10 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [WSG]headers Let's look at the Introduction to the Semantic Web. [quote] Facilities to put machine-understandable data on the Web are becoming a high priority for many communities. The Web can reach its full potential only if it becomes a place where data can be shared and processed by automated tools as well as by people. For the Web to scale, tomorrow's programs must be able to share and process data even when these programs have been designed totally independently. The Semantic Web is a vision: the idea of having data on the web defined and linked in a way that it can be used by machines not just for display purposes, but for automation, integration and reuse of data across various applications.[/quote] Now, let us examine the last sentence of that quote. [quote]The Semantic Web is a vision: the idea of having data on the web defined and linked in a way that it can be used by machines not just for display purposes, but for automation, integration and reuse of data across various applications.[/quote] === How about we look at the second sentence of the first paragraph The Web can reach its full potential only if it becomes a place where data can be shared and processed by automated tools as well as by people. You insist on making this about machines when even the w3c which is primarily concerned with how to make the machine end of it works keeps inserting people. Yes the machines and applications will process data, writ large, but it will be done as a result of the value-chains and proofs requested by the humans. More Lee: Prior to RDF, XML and the like it was virtually impossible to share information across platforms and applications. Well, it was not exactly impossible; it was more a security risk. So, now we have the Semantic web that allows a shopping cart owner to send an XML feed to Froogle. Or, we have RSS which allows us to share news feeds between news sources. Even weblogs allow RSS feeds to occur now. All that joined together allows computers to use the same information for various applications. Even business data can be shared without the concern that the database would be hacked and confidential information released. = We'll have a semantic web which allows the shopping cart user to check the bona fides of the merchant and to check the reliability of the product using rdf and xml perhaps rendered in xml, html, or xhtml. And we can check other proofs from self selected trusted sources to evaluate the content of the RSS news feed. It isn't about just shuffling data it's about evaluating the data, giving it human related meaning. It is about humans using an effective, efficient tool which employs common taxonomies and inference rules to make an effective ontology. Data has no meaning with interpretation. Make a pile of data. It does nothing. It says nothing. It's inert until it's interpreted. The semantic web both gets the data based on shared rules and then possibly applies additional human chosen interpretive filters. It is, to use an overworked and usually misapplied word, a synergistic process. But then many things involving people have unanticipated results. drew
RE: [WSG] (Understandable) Myths about the W3C WAI
Geoff, Thanks for the contribution and clarification. Actually, I suspect most all of us embrace the efforts of W3C. I have no gripes and I will follow the recommendations because I can have little to offer of value. I contribute elsewhere towards standards; I also know my limitations. Thanks, Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer () www.seowebsitepromotion.com Administrator www.gawds.org * 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]headers
Mike, Just use one h1 heading to describe the page. Thereafter, in ascending numerical sequence, h2 groups - 1 or many as necessary - then h3, etc. Navigation should not use headings. Navigation is just that, links to other sections on the page or external to other pages or external resources. Use unordered lists for your links (just me preference) as they are lists or internal or external resources -- ul lia href .../li lia href .../li ... /ul and format their appearance in CSS. You may also wish to include jump (skip) to menu and/or (as appropriate) skip to content off-screen links (don't use display: none as this can cause probs but set them as negative absolute offsets so they disappear from the visible page but are immediately available in screen readers and other AT) Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer www.seowebsitepromotion.com Administrator www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Mike Foskett Sent: 07 July 2004 10:27 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [WSG]headers Peeps, I thought I knew what I was doing with headers, now I'm getting confused. My XHTML docs are structured like this: titlePage name - Site name/title h1Site name/h1 [not visible 2nd part of the title - Placed behind an image of the same] h1Content (Page name) heading/h1[visible 1st part of the title] [optional text] h2/h2 [all sub headings in the correct order] h1Navigation/h1 [not visible] [list of links] h2External links/h2 [not visible] h3link heading/h3 [text link] h3link heading/h3 [text link] h3footer links/h3 [not visible] [list of links] Note: [not visible] means you cannot see it but neither visibility:hidden nor display:none are used. I liked the idea that h1 marked the top of page, content, and nav. It made sense when viewed and navigated at 500% font-size. It also made sense with screen readers jumping from heading to heading. Is this approach considered incorrect? Should there be only one h1? Is starting the navigation at a h1 considered poor structure? Should I rethink the heading structure from a multiple page, or site, view? Please clarify cheers mike 2k:)2 ** This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager. This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by MIMEsweeper for the presence of computer viruses. www.mimesweeper.com ** * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * 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]headers
Drew, I endorse the single h1 per page particularly because each page is judged on its own when sought for relevancy in the search engines. That's from where the majority of fresh users hit a site, based on search criteria. Though others may argue that we shouldn't construct with a view to SEO, I might suggest they're the retrieval mechanisms of the Web therefore they must be given due consideration when discussing page constructs. Headings are enormously important (as you are aware) not simply for structure but archival and retrieval purposes. Mike Pepper -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Trusz, Andrew Sent: 07 July 2004 12:48 To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: [WSG]headers Lee wrote: There are more than W3C standards. While the W3C standards are great, they leave too much to interpretation. Hence the problem that arises here. Please explain why you might think a couple of sentences qualifies to be under it's own sectional heading. I'd really be interested in learning the thought process there. Two sentences do not qualify for a sectional heading in a book; why would they in a web page?[/quote] Lee, please forgive my bundling a few responses and loading them all into a reply to your response. I couldn't agree more. The standards leave a great deal of room for interpretation as we see here. And I believe we agree substantially on the interpretations as well. But there are differences which I believe show the breadth of the standards. We come at this, I believe, from different perspectives. You are in effect an insider. Your work on the WCAG standards (and thank you for doing it) gives you a perspective I don't have. I'm just trying to figure out what the html 4.01, xhtml 1.0, and css 2.1 standards mean based on what I see in the documents (with a valuable assist from an older WestCiv document on css). So when I see some people it means just that and when the specs are vague I take it to mean there is latitude in their application. I don't have insider knowledge so I have to go with what the document says. Hence while to me, hierarchical ordering makes sense, I can see no reason to say it must be followed, other than starting with h1, in order to be technically correct. Put another way, if the standards body means go sequentially from 1 to 6 then they say it. And if they mean a separate h1 for each page they had better say that too because that isn't what is written in the spec documents. So if you all meant something else, clarify in the document or live with what you did say. Hence I think Mike Foskett has his headers technically correct. To him the site is the main point of it all and is an h1 on every page because (and here I admit to putting words in his mouth) each page is a section of the site. He follows that with a page level h1, again something that is the focus of that page. And further with a navigation heading and subheadings. All seem technically to meet the standard set by the w3c. Could you do it hierarchically? Yes. Make the page content h1, navigation having it's own h2 and h3 etc substructure, use h2 and more in the content as appropriate. So Mike Pepper is technically correct as well. Personally I don't like the one h1 per page technique but I do like the idea of actually getting to use an h6 (with font size styled much larger) legitimately. And both ways would make sense if you extracted the headings. Mike Foskett's table of contents would have a lot of references to the site name. But then if you open many books you'll see the book title and either the author's name or the chapter at the top of each page. Mike Pepper's version would be tidier lacking all the site references. But it might also been seen as less cohesive since there would be no obvious connection between content sections. But then book comparisons while useful are not exact when it comes to web sites. What we have then is variety. Which of course is the sine qua non of the web. TIMTOWTDI within standards. And for the intellectual fun of it, try this: h1 Fire? P Hot? Interrogative and exclamatory sentences. Each one word in length. drew * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * 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]headers
That looks ok, Mike. Remember to ensure markup logical blocks with div tags to separate out the sections else you'll run into trouble with nested headers. I'd be inclined not to overdo the h4 (external) link headings unless you've got good reason to emphasise them. I use blocks of links on my resources pages categorised by h3 (although it could be any sequentially relevant) heading levels then non-headed outbound links as unordered lists. You may also want to consider incorporate 2 additional hidden links: jump to main menu and jump to content. These can be off-page (utilising negative margins) and should appear immediately after the opening body tag. My preferred method is to make them pop-up in CSS should users tab into them; they get a visual clue that they've entered tab navigation and are given the immediate option to get to what they want. Handy for vision impaired or motor-impaired keyboard-only users. It's also important to use tabbed highlights. This can help enormously when navigating complex, copy-intense pages. You'll make use of the a:focus event for Gecko browsers and the a:active event for Explorer. Keep the Explorer event in a separate CSS include which can be called up using the proprietary IE conditional clause like -- !--[if IE]link rel=stylesheet href=css/domain_ie.css type=text/css media=all /![endif]-- You can see the effect of the above suggestion on http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com/resources.htm. Mike -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Mike Foskett Sent: 07 July 2004 15:55 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [WSG]headers Drew, Mike, So, if I get this right then technically speaking: titlePage name - Site name/title divSite name/div [not visible 2nd part of the title - Placed behind an image of the same] h1Content (Page name) heading/h1 [visible 1st part of the title] h2/h2 [repeat as required keeping all sub headings in the correct order] h3/h3 h2/h2 h3/h3 h4/h4 h3/h3 h2/h2 div spanNavigation/span [not visible, span is of no use to no-vision, but okay for lo-vision, users] [list of links] /div div spanExternal links/span[not visible] h2link heading/h2 [this heading has to be a h2 because you cannot guarantee a h2 in the content] [text link] h2link heading/h2 [text link] /div div spanFooter links/span[not visible] [list of links] /div Note: [not visible] means you cannot see it but neither visibility:hidden nor display:none are used. Hmm. I have observed vision-impaired users skipping through h? tags as the preferred method of navigating a page. The tendency is not to use the access keys even though they happily know they are there. This is due I believe to inconsistencies in the declarations, and availability, on pages world-wide. My concern is now that by removing the h? tags from the navigation sections, I'm actually making the page a lot less accessible. For the best compromise while keeping it all accessible, I'm now considering: titlePage name - Site name/title divSite name/div [not visible 2nd part of the title - Placed behind an image of the same] h1Content (Page name) heading/h1 [visible 1st part of the title] h2/h2 [repeat as required, keeping all sub headings in the correct order] h3/h3 h2/h2 h3/h3 h4/h4 h3/h3 h2/h2 h2Navigation/h2[not visible, h2 is good for both no-vision and lo-vision users] [list of links] h3External links/h3[not visible] h4link heading/h4 [text link] h4link heading/h4 [text link] h3Footer links/h3 [not visible] [list of links] Would that be in my best interest and a good balance? mike 2k:)2 ** This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager. This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by MIMEsweeper for the presence of computer viruses. www.mimesweeper.com ** * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See
RE: [WSG] font size question
Font and line-height :o)
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Behalf Of Ted Drake
Sent: 07 July 2004 19:04
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [WSG] font size question
I've been looking at some sites to see how they determine their font size.
em, keyword, px, ...
So, I looked at the following sites and noticed a new tag (for me) in the
body
Zeldman
font: small/1.4
Eric Meyers
body {font: 0.84em/1.3
Mezzoblue
font: 12px/19px
How is the split font size being used.
Thanks
Ted
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RE: [WSG]headers
I wake up and am caught in a mire. That's your own fault for not being a die-hard 2-hour a day man. I dunno, the youth of today , no stamina ... ;o) From a search engine standpoint any form of hidden text is considered spamming. That includes, but not limited to, negative positioning, placing text behind images or even setting visibility or display to one of the many methods of hiding. I would qualify that with the phrase 'intention to spam'. You won't be penalised for using sensible options specifically intended for accessibility like off-screen jump links. The engines aren't stupid. However, collapsed, display: none, noscript WOW (white-on-white) text specifically designed to deliver content to non-sighted users ... er ... like spiders will likely get you blitzed. Check out 'website development' under Google UK; 60% spam results on the first 2 pages. But that's OT (over the top off-topic). From a usability, accessibility and SEO point of view never put your site name in your page title. You have other places you can use that. For instance, you can use your first ALT attribute, typically your logo, to identify your site or company name. That uses the screen reader to it's advantage and identifies to the non-visual or low vision visitor what site they are on. The visual users never need it because they can obviously see your logo. So, using an H1 in that location would be incorrect. Yup, there's too much clever? (pointless) stuff going on when it's entirely unnecessary -- and semantically wrong. The first H1 should mimic or mirror the page title ... maybe not entirely. That reinforces the page title for the search engines. And, best of all it gives the screen reader user an understanding of the overall page topic. There have been times where I changed the H1 from the page title to a more descriptive heading. Agreed entirely Yes, some screen readers have the capability of grouping all links together regardless of position on the page. And, yes, some do allow navigation based upon headings. Unfortunately, they don't all do that. Therefore, taking the position that you should design your page based upon those capabilities is errant. This is as much a user issue as it is developer ignorance of the capability of contemporary AT. Education is required both ends. Skip navigation can be hidden from view or can be placed in view near at the top of the page. Unfortunately, that would then be the first thing the search engines see. Nothing really wrong with that at all. The H1 essentially identifies the beginning of the content. So, some and I won't say which ones, search engines ignore everything prior to that. Ouch! This does not lead to your pages being ignored if you do not include heading tags. But, the proper use of heading tags will help your site perform much better. And, for the screen readers that do use headings to navigate that can get visitors to the main content much faster. Yup. ... Good to get this out in the open. And I feel it unnecessary to comment on the remainder of your text, save to say sensible reading. I hope this helps. My apologies for being so long. I always use the book analogy to describe a Web page and it's great to have my personal views endorsed by somebody who's obviously given great consideration to the topic. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer www.seowebsitepromotion.com Administrator www.gawds.org * 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]headers
Didn't want to get sucked into this issue but thought ... bugger :o) Headings go from h1 ~ 6 with no gaps; neither should they run anything other than h1 down to h6, meaning h1, h3, h2 is not permissible ordering. Headings assist with scanning whether or not using AT or dealing with impaired as opposed to mainstream users. Additionally, it's worthwhile for this very purpose to supplement primary headings (h2, h2 or h3 for argument's sake) with a subsequent summary sentence or short paragraph to further assist with scanning. You're endeavouring to make the content easily summarised so users can speedily recognise on-topic pages amongst the flotsam of search results. Multiple h1 heading are, in my view, barely permissible only when dealing with verbose or volumous copy, where sections of equal weight and significance to the page topic cause challenges with the scrolled page length. Having said that the page summary should be an h1 followed by summary then the sections should be headed up with h2s, and so on. Because many ATs don't read the browser title, h1 headings should be readily synonymous with the title. Where I think developers get confused or lazy is once they've constructed a number of CSS-styled pages and suddenly find the h2 they want is visually incorrect and breaks the aesthetics of a page ... never mind, the next size fits :o( ... when in fact a bit of specificity tweaking would speedily fix it. Headings represent the hierarchy of summary importance, with subtopics of not dissimilar weight (importance) carrying the same level of heading until the theme of the page is played out to conclusion. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer www.seowebsitepromotion.com Administrator www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Lee Roberts Sent: 06 July 2004 18:47 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [WSG]headers Let's discuss some issues for a moment and perhaps some light will shine upon some comments. Drew [qoute]The vague discussion of some people not approving of skipped levels does not say that a hierarchy of headings is required.[/quote] The vague discussion of some people refers to the International Standards Organization. In their specifications they specifically state that headings must follow a logical order and not skip any heading tags. http://www.cs.tcd.ie/15445/15445.HTML [quote] The H1 element shall not be followed by an H3, H4, H5 or H6 element without an intervening H2 element. The H2 element shall not be followed by an H4, H5 or H6 element without an intervening H3 element. The H3 element shall not be followed by an H5 or H6 element without an intervening H4 element. The H4 element shall not be followed by an H6 element without an intervening H5 element. An H2 element shall be preceded by an H1 element. An H3 element shall be preceded by an H2 element. An H4 element shall be preceded by an H3 element. An H5 element shall be preceded by an H4 element. An H6 element shall be preceded by an H5 element. [/quote] Drew [quote]So if your h1 is a multiple page grouping with h2 identifying the separate pages, that seems proper. If your h3 is used for font sizing and appearance, that is improper. But if the h3 is used to introduce the new shorts, that seems proper.[/quote] First, you can have pages without headings - that I'll agree with. However, once you start approaching any attempt to comply with WCAG you need to follow the standards correctly. If, for example, the SSA.gov site has a group of related links they can be grouped under a heading tag because those links fit into a sectional heading. Part of using headings properly is to aid accessibility and helping people scan the web page. Based upon those two requirements the use of heading tags as they are in Kim's site do not qualify - therefore, they are only font declarations and strong or CSS:font-weight:bold should be used to make those elements bold. Please explain why you might think a couple of sentences qualifies to be under it's own sectional heading. I'd really be interested in learning the thought process there. Two sentences do not qualify for a sectional heading in a book; why would they in a web page? Thanks, Lee Roberts http://www.roserockdesign.com http://www.applepiecart.com From: Trusz, Andrew [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2004 9:08 AM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: [WSG]headers On the H1 issue, there are many people that think using an H1 around the logo or hidden text. Unfortunately, that is improper. Your H1 should be visible and should support the title of the page. Yes it does... but I'm also quite confused. I thought the way I set up the page would better if you can't see the pageand have to use a screenreader. Is it better to use the H1, H2 and H3 tags the way you described or is the way I use them also OK
RE: [WSG] Accessibililty and the positioning of navigation
Hi Pete, And welcome to the group :o) I would suggest the reason for comparison to a book is with regard to how one might arrive at a sight: invariably via a search engine. Unless one knows or can anticipate the domain name - often through branding, like IBM, where you stick a simple dot com on the end and you're there - you'll perform a generic search for, let's say, 'teething rings for babies' ... and what you get is a well PR'd site elevated by a commercially astute webmaster/SEO who will float a page with headlines along the lines of 'Teething problems ... no longer babies ...' and you've hooked a boot. Gross oversimplification but the premise stands. This is where smart accessibility comes into play. Summarise the page content with a title and summary paragraph and have your nav links up front but preceded by a skip to content jump. This way first-timers will get a shot at evaluating the relevance of the site as a whole and the specific page content but the old hands will simply bookmark and jump to content. As to SEO: the engines are smart enough to realise link are links and will skip these to get to the meat. You'll be neither penalised or rewarded for the placement of your navigational block. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer (without a red gun on his CRT and looking for a new monitor) www.seowebsitepromotion.com www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Peter Costello Sent: 19 June 2004 03:56 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [WSG] Accessibililty and the positioning of navigation Also... and maybe off topic. I'm not sure I understand the comparison to books. From my personal experience, when I go to a site the last thing I want is a cover page. I want current content quickly and the ability to find what I want quickly. Most books by nature are linear in flow. A more apt comparison may be a newspaper or magazine. This said, I'm often frustrated when reading the paper at the lack of navigation as most of the time the paper is strewn across the lounge room floor and finding the contents page often under the couch is a nightmare. Thank god for websites and consistent navigation. Now we can get to any piece of content from any other piece of content. Just thinking out loud. Cheers Pete -- ciao bella * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * 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] ALPHA Testers Needed
Count me in, Chris. I use TSP3.1, and it's good. But I'm open to ideas. Mail me details and schedules off list. Mike PepperAccessible Web Developerwww.seowebsitepromotion.comwww.gawds.org
RE: [WSG] Quick accessibility question
Hey, that looks interesting, Richard. You got me thinking. Nice one :o) Mike Pepper (thoughtful) Accessible Web Developer www.seowebsitepromotion.com www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Richard Rutter Sent: 15 June 2004 22:15 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [WSG] Quick accessibility question On 15 Jun 2004, at 17:55, Richard Rutter wrote: Anyone fancy a bit of fun making that work? Would it actually be useful? If you want something doing... A script which uses the DOM to automatically underline the letter of a link text which matches its accesskey: http://clagnut.com/sandbox/dynamic-accesskeys/ Any use? In some ways this could be using JavaScript to increase accessibility, or least stop mark-up getting in the way. Rich. * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * 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] Fwd: links dont work in ie6
Because you're applying a negative left margin to compensate for the 50%
declared body margin.
Replace the first 2 id's with --
body {
background-color: #fff;
padding: 0px;
margin: 20px auto;
text-align: center;
}
#container {
width: 398px;
height: 101px;
text-align: left;
}
and bring a little sunshine into your life :o)
Mike Pepper
Accessible Web Developer
www.seowebsitepromotion.com
www.gawds.org
hello everybody,
ok. this seems to be the right time for my first posting on this great
list which im enjoying very much.
does anyone know what kinda weird trick this is? ie6 (on a w2k
machine) does not display the background graphic of the head div and
the links are NOT WORKING at all. any other browser i know does.
i've never experienced such a behaviour but maybe one of you have an idea.
http://www.die-besten.net/die-besten/monkey/
code and css are valid of course.
regards,
_alex
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RE: Re[2]: [WSG] Fwd: links dont work in ie6
Alex, forgot about the question ... and by the way, why does ie behave like this??? _alex Negative margin can cause overlap of content. Why this should be the case, I've no idea. IE6 exhibits some curious behaviour at times. You have to be careful with negative margin since different browser and their respective versions handle them differently. Some developers use them for artificial layering -- which is not good practice as there are other tools for the job and besides, not all browsers render elements sequentially which can lead to some weird results. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer () www.seowebsitepromotion.com www.gawds.org * 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] First table-free site
Mary,
Firstly, welcome and well done for getting on with table-less design. Like
the nutty electric zebras :o)
You challenge is to do with padding on the image container. Simply set that
to 0 --
#banner {
padding: 0;
margin-bottom: 5px;
}
(Incidentally, you don't need to specify what is zero. zero is zero, so you
won't need 0px, just 0.)
you can also kill the bottom margin if you want a flush fit with the body.
and then adjust your overall width down by 10px to compensate --
#container {
width: 700px;
\width: 720px;
w\idth: 700px;
...
}
Since the masthead contributes nothing to the accessibility of the page, you
may want to make it a background image to the banner div by sticking the
image reference in the CSS using --
#banner {
background: transparent url(../media/webheader.jpg) no-repeat top right;
padding: 0;
margin-bottom: 5px;
}
Have a good one,
Mike Pepper
Accessible Web Developer
www.seowebsitepromotion.com
www.gawds.org
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Behalf Of Mary Wright
Sent: 11 June 2004 16:08
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [WSG] First table-free site
I'm new to this list and this is my first post. I'm trying to produce
my first table-free website - tables have been my very dear friends in
the past!
I used the CSS from
http://www.inknoise.com/experimental/layoutomatic.php and it's going
quite well except for one thing - there seems to be an extra 5px
padding above and to the left of the image in the banner div - see
www.zebragraphics.co.uk/newzebra/index.html. CSS is at
www.zebragraphics.co.uk/styles/main.css. This is very much a work in
progress so the links don't work yet, but can anyone tell me where I'm
going wrong? Have checked in FF, Safari and IE5 for Mac, and FF and IE5
for windows - all have same result.
I tried validating the page before I posted this message, but was very
confused by the results - there were 32 instances of: end tag for
meta ommited, but OMITTAG NO was specified??? The end tags are
certainly there. I don't know what OMITTAG NO means.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Mary Wright
www.zebragraphics.co.uk
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RE: [WSG] First table-free site
Please remember, David, you knew nothing of CSS a few years ago. That should have been a PM to Russ or Peter. I find this list stimulating in its diversity of content and skills range; this is a standards group, not MENSA. Mike Pepper Accessible (and still learning) Web Developer www.seowebsitepromotion.com www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of David Jones Sent: 11 June 2004 17:54 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [WSG] First table-free site Mary Wright wrote: You know, I wondered if it was something to do with the box model hack thingy - I'm just not nearly confident enough yet in my CSS skills (or lack of them) to know what I can safely leave out. Thanks, Mary How do I unsubscribe from this list? I'm getting swathes of uninteresting nonsense. I want out. Ta. * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * 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] KHTML ??
http://developer.kde.org/documentation/library/kdeqt/kde3arch/khtml/ -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jad Madi Sent: 10 June 2004 14:11 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [WSG] KHTML ?? guys what is KHTML ? -- http://www.jadmadi.net/ * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * 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] getting ride of table layout
Well said, mate. There's no need to convert to divs because you're using a table as it should be used. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer www.seowebsitepromotion.com www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Russ Weakley - Maxdesign Sent: 07 June 2004 11:08 To: Web Standards Group Subject: Re: [WSG] getting ride of table layout This is a perfect example of tabular data - it is semantically correct inside a table. Instead of thinking of ways to convert it into divs, you should be working on implementing accessibility features: id, headers for, summary, caption, etc. A rough example if id's and headers in action is here: http://www.maxdesign.com.au/jobs/css/accessible/ Russ Greetings I'm trying to replace this table http://www.easyhttp.com/temp/plans.html with a table-less layout using only CSS divs no tables any idea how to do it ? * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * 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] OT: time delay for messages to appear on the list
I'd wondered at that, Pat. At first joining I was double posting. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer () www.seowebsitepromotion.com www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Patrick Lauke Sent: 07 June 2004 11:39 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [WSG] OT: time delay for messages to appear on the list Is it just me, or does it take a good quarter of an hour for emails to appear on the list? Patrick Patrick H. Lauke Webmaster / University of Salford http://www.salford.ac.uk * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * 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: [Spam] Re: [WSG] Centering a liquid grid of image thumbs and captions
7 sinz, If you noticed, I wasn't using tables http://www.english-sofas.co.uk/els_new/value_leather_sofas_0.htm. The challenge was to incorporate fluid and centred linear lists. The presented solution doesn't actually satisfy the requirement but does so for the client (who loved the site then mentioned centred product ranges). Good enough for me at the moment. What I was missing was the fudge to give a 25%-ish value to the image block -- thus causing it to stretch and centre, but effectively limiting the display to 4 images per row. Good fudge, though. But let me state again:- I am looking for a standard structure, a list (ul, li ...) which holds images and associated captions centred in a fluid container. e.g. - -- [img] [img] [img] [img] [img] ... - -- [img] [img] [img] [img] [img] ... - -- [img] [img] [img] - Any takers? Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer www.seowebsitepromotion.com www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of 7 sinz Sent: 05 June 2004 23:50 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [Spam] Re: [WSG] Centering a liquid grid of image thumbs and captions doesnt look like he wants to use tables anymore From: Mike Pepper [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [Spam] Re: [WSG] Centering a liquid grid of image thumbs and captions Date: Sat, 5 Jun 2004 19:35:24 +0100 Far out! Kristof, well done, mate :o) Big smiley for you. Now just to implement it ... Many thanks, Mike Pepper (grateful) Accessible Web Developer www.seowebsitepromotion.com www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Kristof Neirynck Sent: 05 June 2004 19:03 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Spam] Re: [WSG] Centering a liquid grid of image thumbs and captions Nick Gleitzman wrote: I've been trying to emulate, with CSS alone, what I've been doing for years with tables: create a grid of thumbnails, each with a caption below, both image and caption linked to an enlargement. We all know how easy that is; center the table, center the cell content vertically, add some cell padding. Bingo. Any takers? [snip] Do you mean something like this? http://kristof.f2o.org/test/image_thumbs_and_captions/ -- Kristof * 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] Centering a liquid grid of image thumbs and captions
Been there, Nick --
I am looking for a standard structure, a list (ul, li ...) which holds
images and associated captions centred in a fluid container.
e.g. -
-- [img] [img] [img] [img] [img] ... -
-- [img] [img] [img] [img] [img] ... -
-- [img] [img] [img] -
That's what we need, eh :o)
Mike
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Behalf Of Nick Gleitzman
Sent: 06 June 2004 04:33
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [WSG] Centering a liquid grid of image thumbs and captions
I'm with Mike - that's brilliant. It'll certainly fix my immediate
needs. Thanks, Kristof!
One question: what's this hack for?
* html #images a {
height: 100px;
he\ight: 95px;
}
OK, I lied. Second question: your solution is very usable; I class this
as 'elegant' because all the img/caption pairs are contained in one
(open-ended) list. Just what I was after. But just out of interest, do
you think it's possible to go one step further, and style the list so
that the number of images in a row varies as window is resized - still
keeping the 'grid' centred - for a truly liquid layout?
Nick
___
Omnivision. Websight.
http://www.omnivision.com.au/
On Sunday, June 6, 2004, at 04:02 AM, Kristof Neirynck wrote:
Nick Gleitzman wrote:
I've been trying to emulate, with CSS alone, what I've been doing for
years with tables: create a grid of thumbnails, each with a caption
below, both image and caption linked to an enlargement. We all know
how easy that is; center the table, center the cell content
vertically, add some cell padding. Bingo.
Any takers?
[snip]
Do you mean something like this?
http://kristof.f2o.org/test/image_thumbs_and_captions/
--
Kristof
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RE: [WSG] What Editors do you guys use?
John, Without a doubt, TopStyle Pro 3.1 is the best around http://www.bradsoft.com/topstyle/index.asp. A bold statement but I've used a few and have settled on Nick's Delphi-written combined editor for about 15 months. It's a delight to use and extremely flexible, configuration-wise. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer (without shares in TopStyle) www.seowebsitepromotion.com www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of John McDougald Sent: 06 June 2004 05:20 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [WSG] What Editors do you guys use? What CSS/XHTML/HTML editors do you guys use for hand coding and testing? Notepad :) * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * 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] What to do?
Title: [WSG] What to do? Dante, Best by example: rebuild without tables and say, Hey, this is how easy it is, would you like me to do the rest for you? As it's a non-profit org, they will likely be concerned about bandwidth and if, as you say, the site proves popular, the bandwidth will go through the roof. Give the guy a practical, monetised reason for change. Then, once it's all converted, ask him for the beers he owes you :o) Mike PepperAccessible Web Developer (near the end of a 15-hour day)www.seowebsitepromotion.comwww.gawds.org -Original Message-From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]On Behalf Of Sean M. Hall AKA DanteSent: 07 June 2004 00:09To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Subject: [WSG] What to do?I recently asked the webmaster of The Western Neighborhoods Project ( http://www.outsidelands.org/ ), a small non-profit orginazation for history of West San Francisco, about redesigning his site without tables. I told him that tables can sometimes increase download time and that if he ever wanted to redesign the site all he would have to do is edit one file. He stated that the tables the site uses are pretty light, and that he likes to keep it simple. The fact of the matter is that people will be reluctant to use Web Standards since they feel it is too complicated, even though nested tables are far more complicated than CSS-Based Layout. I can see his point - the Project (of which I am a member) is fully dedicated to researching the wonderful history of west San Francisco, and as long as people can read the important event postings and articles (one of which I have written, btw). So what would you guys do: keep trying to convince the webmaster (who also happens to be the founder of the project) that nested tables = evil, or just leave the subject alone as long as everyone can access the site. Dante R. Evans: The Bo$$ Also known by his pen name, "Sean M. Hall" San Francisco and Atomic Bomb History Standards-based Design and Development 7 years of Piano Expertise .5 years of self-taught guitar experience Opera 7 Afficiando [sp?] "Wir Müssen die Verordnungswidrige Browser Aüsrotten"
Re: [WSG] Centering a liquid grid of image thumbs and captions
At to whether a list of thumbs is truly tabular ... I think not. It will visually appear such but it's not a grid -- for which tables should be used, as a matrix. Tables have rows and columns at which cells intersect as combined related values; a contiguous list of thumbs and associated captions have no common properties other than being a picture and text and *will make sense in isolation*. But you're not going to like what I've discovered as a result of experimenting with tables ... The bloody things don't inherit relative (em- and percentage-based) font and line-size attributes in IE 5/5.1, which means more bloody CSS and/or markup to compensate for that cock-up. Don't you just love being a standards-compliant developer :o( So as I see it, it's a question of the lesser of two evils: wrap each image and associated caption in another container and bulk the markup or use semantically incorrect cells and bulk up the CSS to cope with IE's shortcomings. Funnily enough, the client previewed the near-finished site update yesterday and was delighted ... then asked if I could centre the thumbs ... I shall endeavour to persevere :o) There is always a resolution Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer (with attitude) http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com http://www.gawds.org This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or body to whom they are addressed. This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by Norton AntiVirus for the presence of computer viruses. If this message is received in error, please accept our apologies. * 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] Standards Compliance -vs- User Enjoyment
Chris, look at it this way: they're all going to be tripping, anyway, so you're just doubling up on the psychedelic experience :o) Don't do it. Go standards. My stepson's heading a D B/Jungle unit so I've got to dip more than a toe into that environment very shortly. I didn't even consider using anything but standards-compliant accessiblemarkup when the build request arose. Yes, it is challenging to go standards when the glamour of Flash beckons but consider this: if you want to send SMS alerts to cell phones you're gonna use text. And when they hit the site they're gonna want quick access and not huge cell phone bills. Consider the practical commercial aspects of what you're looking to achieve. Give them what they really want: a list of what's on and where in the clubber scene in Sydney. Make it useful; make it functional. Then you can consider all the 'Wow, that's cool' bits with CSS rollovers, etc. (Incidentally, well written Flash does not mean inaccessible; it's just another tool.) Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer (on a roll) www.seowebsitepromotion.com www.gawds.org
RE: [WSG] Centering a liquid grid of image thumbs and captions
It's not tabular data, it's a linear stream of images with captions. One way of looking at it is to take the thumbs and associated text and jumble the sequence; do that with a proper table grid and you'll have a mess since the row and columnar formats will be meaningless. For instance -- Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Cost 10 20 20 10 20 20 20 Unit 3 5 2 6 4 1 7 Cost/Sat = 20. It's position must remain fixed to make sense, although it may possibly remain true in another location. Incorporate the Unit value of the matrix and moving anything invalidates the results. This is a table; rows and columns point to specific cells; rows and columns have meaning. Move the cell values within the grid and the results are nonsense. Not so with a sequence of images (unless, of course, you're ordering them alphabetically but that's not the issue). Make sense? Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer (after a great night's sleep) www.seowebsitepromotion.com www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Rick Faaberg Sent: 05 June 2004 05:30 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [WSG] Centering a liquid grid of image thumbs and captions On 6/4/04 9:10 PM Nick Gleitzman [EMAIL PROTECTED] sent this out: A parting thought: does a series of thumbnail/caption pairs actually qualify as tabular data - thus leaving me feeling better about giving up and using a table to lay the bloody thing out anyway? That was my first thought when I began to read about your angst. It's tabular data - deal with that way. Get it over with. I'm no authority. Rick Faaberg * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * 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] Centering a liquid grid of image thumbs and captions
My hovercraft is full of eels ;o) -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of 7 sinz Sent: 05 June 2004 12:07 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [WSG] Centering a liquid grid of image thumbs and captions i wasnt talking to you ;) From: Mike Pepper [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WSG [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [WSG] Centering a liquid grid of image thumbs and captions Date: Sat, 5 Jun 2004 11:47:12 +0100 It's not tabular data, it's a linear stream of images with captions. One way of looking at it is to take the thumbs and associated text and jumble the sequence; do that with a proper table grid and you'll have a mess since the row and columnar formats will be meaningless. For instance -- Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Cost 10 20 20 10 20 20 20 Unit 3 5 2 6 4 1 7 Cost/Sat = 20. It's position must remain fixed to make sense, although it may possibly remain true in another location. Incorporate the Unit value of the matrix and moving anything invalidates the results. This is a table; rows and columns point to specific cells; rows and columns have meaning. Move the cell values within the grid and the results are nonsense. Not so with a sequence of images (unless, of course, you're ordering them alphabetically but that's not the issue). Make sense? Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer (after a great night's sleep) www.seowebsitepromotion.com www.gawds.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Rick Faaberg Sent: 05 June 2004 05:30 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [WSG] Centering a liquid grid of image thumbs and captions On 6/4/04 9:10 PM Nick Gleitzman [EMAIL PROTECTED] sent this out: A parting thought: does a series of thumbnail/caption pairs actually qualify as tabular data - thus leaving me feeling better about giving up and using a table to lay the bloody thing out anyway? That was my first thought when I began to read about your angst. It's tabular data - deal with that way. Get it over with. I'm no authority. Rick Faaberg * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * _ Smart Saving with ING Direct earn 5.25% p.a. variable rate: http://ad.au.doubleclick.net/clk;7249209;8842331;n?http://www.ingdirect.com. au/burst6offer.asp?id=8 * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * 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] Anti-spam mailto encoders using Character Entity Evasion
Mark is quite correct when he says that complex e-mail harvesters will probably work around these methods, but it appears that most of the harvesting is done by very basic programs that are looking only for e-mail addresses stored in conventional format. Indeed, Alan, as I mentioned: However, any programmer worth his salt will simply run a recursive loop and trap for either ... There is no 'secure' format because if a browser can display it, a programmer can read it. But it'll keep the kids at bay :o) There is no doubting professional harvesters will easily circumvent the obfuscation. This is a damage limitation exercise. In this war of attrition, any counter-measure is better than none. A 'What's the point attitude' is defeatist. --- Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer (with shares in Anadin) www.seowebsitepromotion.com --- -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Alan Harrison Sent: 04 June 2004 08:42 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [WSG] Anti-spam mailto encoders using Character Entity Evasion I have been using the obfuscation method for some time now, and while it may not totally eliminate spam harvesting, IMHO it certainly does slow the harvesting down. I have used the javascript method also, with the addition of a gif displaying the e-mail address for folks that have javascript disabled. I have found this to be effective also. Mark is quite correct when he says that complex e-mail harvesters will probably work around these methods, but it appears that most of the harvesting is done by very basic programs that are looking only for e-mail addresses stored in conventional format. Guys hate to rain on your parade but if your browser can understand that obfuscation what makes you think that a email address harvester is not going to be able to? These guys are writing complex viruses that harvest email addresses directly from people's Outlook contact lists, surely they can understand a little javascript and work with character entities. * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * 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] Anti-spam mailto encoders using Character Entity Evasion
Jaime, Just use http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com/obfuscate_email.asp. Might prove useful and does it all for you, including complete mail-to strings. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer (with a headache because he's been on the system way too long) http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jaime W Sent: 03 June 2004 19:35 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [WSG] Anti-spam mailto encoders using Character Entity Evasion Ermm another question List fellows. Hope you guys don't mind...4th question for the past 2 weeks. I am trying to use Character Entity Evasion for mailto encoding instead of JavaScript. At times it validates and at times it doesn't. Why? I have no idea. Example of Character Entity encoded email: Decode: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Encode: #116;#101;#115;#116;#64;#116;#101;#115;#116;#105;#110;#103;#46; #99;#111;#109; Those characters is making my xhtml 1.0 strict validation unhappy. May I know what alternatives do the rest of you use besides using JavaScript for encoding your e-mail? Contact Forms and '@ image method' or replacing '@' with 'at' method aside please. Thank you! Best Wishes, Jaime ... * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * 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] Anti-spam mailto encoders using Character Entity Evasion
Jamie, Glad to be of some use. I'm an ardent anti-spammer and it was an initiative to thwart harvesters. I use mixed in an effort to confuse parsing aglos employed by poorly coded harvesters. However, any programmer worth his salt will simply run a recursive loop and trap for either ... Be warned, though: this can play merry hell with screen readers and other accessible text software unless they're properly setup to interpret these coded feeds. There is no real difference between the two formats; both are happily interpreted and rendered by contemporary browsers (even Lynx -- which is a bonus), although one is an internationally recognised standards format (ISO). There is no 'secure' format because if a browser can display it, a programmer can read it. But it'll keep the kids at bay :o) Cheers, Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer (with shares in Anadin) www.seowebsitepromotion.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jaime W Sent: 03 June 2004 22:04 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [WSG] Anti-spam mailto encoders using Character Entity Evasion Mike you are a gem! This tool generates codes that validates in XHTML 1.0 DTD Strict! Is helpful and great for lazy people like me lol. Tested it and it works great. Thank you thank you very much! By the way what is the differences between ISO and Hex Conversion? Which is more secure? I choose the default which is ISO Conversion. Best Wishes, Jaime ... -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mike Pepper Sent: Friday, 4 June 2004 3:17 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [WSG] Anti-spam mailto encoders using Character Entity Evasion Jaime, Just use http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com/obfuscate_email.asp. Might prove useful and does it all for you, including complete mail-to strings. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer (with a headache because he's been on the system way too long) http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jaime W Sent: 03 June 2004 19:35 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [WSG] Anti-spam mailto encoders using Character Entity Evasion Ermm another question List fellows. Hope you guys don't mind...4th question for the past 2 weeks. I am trying to use Character Entity Evasion for mailto encoding instead of JavaScript. At times it validates and at times it doesn't. Why? I have no idea. Example of Character Entity encoded email: Decode: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Encode: #116;#101;#115;#116;#64;#116;#101;#115;#116;#105;#110;#103;#46; #99;#111;#109; Those characters is making my xhtml 1.0 strict validation unhappy. May I know what alternatives do the rest of you use besides using JavaScript for encoding your e-mail? Contact Forms and '@ image method' or replacing '@' with 'at' method aside please. Thank you! Best Wishes, Jaime ... * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * 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] Make em' pay for IE
Nothing like a bit of commercial suicide to thin the web development ranks :o) Mike Pepper (Nearly exhausted) Accessible Web Developer www.seowebsitepromotion.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Mordechai Peller Sent: 04 June 2004 00:24 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; webdesign-l Subject: [WSG] Make em' pay for IE If you try to complain about IE to a client, they'll most likely say that that's our problem. The truth is, since they are paying the bill, it's their problem. It seems that the only way to get truth through to them is to include in the invoice: Corrections To Make IE Compatible. If they say that we should therefor forget about the other browsers, just tell them even if we did that, there would be no time savings because we would still need to compensate for IE's bugginess. Top it off by offering to throw in for free some bell and whistles which IE doesn't support. This should do two things: 1) Make people aware that 100% IE support will cost them money. (But don't compromise on one bit of functionality, just some polish.) 2) By creating a difference between IE and compliant browsers, people will begin to realize that there is a difference. Will this mean the end of IE dominance? I doubt it. It may however lead to the end of IE's super-dominance, which should be good enough. * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * 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] Should web standards cost more?
To follow up on Jackie and Mark's comments, I adopt the What the market will bear rule. And, similarly, I spend nearly all my 'leisure' hours learning better, more efficient, more eloquent methods of both standards compliance and accessible site development. And I don't consider charging more. I simply make my pitch and explain that as a result of my skillsets, client sites are more accessible to a greater Internet audience. Period. All the verbiage over standards and accessibility compliance is a polite curio across the business table. Provided both my and my clients' principle agendas are met - how much does it cost and what will be the likely (increase in, if an upgrade) conversion rate, and we both leave the bargaining table satisfied, I can get on with the job of delivering. Most clients don't give a damn about what goes on under the hood. They want the site to reflect their company in a professional light, meet the business model and deliver as great a return on investment as possible. What will actually determine your costings base is the volume of work - the number of active clients you have in your portfolio - and the number of working hours you are willing to pull each week, assuming you adopt a minimum income model. These are the inputs to the How much to charge equation. Alter either of these and your rate will vary, irrespective of whether you offer standards-compliant, accessible sites. But. By adopting standards-compliant development you will naturally become more proficient and skilled, i.e. faster and better equipped to deliver capable sites whose performance metrics reflect your (professional) rates. The perceived value you bring to the bargaining table will increase; you can cut a better deal. In other words, you will be judged by your work and be rewarded accordingly. You can then reduce your working hours and maintain a similar income because what you deliver works well and you charge accordingly. It's the old Return on Investment (ROI) model. Intrinsic to all but vanity sites is the need to generate traffic. This becomes fundamentally more efficient with standards-compliant accessible sites because the inherently light and slick markup makes your site more easily ingested by the search engines whose SERPs algorithms will favour well-featured semantically tight copy and reward you and your clients with better visibility on the Web. That's the primary input to the conversion game: visibility. Once a visitor hits your site accessibility kicks in. A standards-compliant, accessible site will be far 'stickier' because fewer surfers are likely to turn away in disgust or frustration; your site will work equally well in archaic browsers and on a variety of devices as it does on the latest P4 Explorer 6-based mega-depth monitor platform. And no, I'm not confusing accessibility with usability. They are different fields of expertise but both are underpinned and enhanced by standards-compliance. So, visibility brings the traffic; accessibility maintains the traffic. Visitors with physical and/or cerebral impairments (a huge market when you consider many pensioners fall into this audience) will more likely bookmark and return because the site is usable. These are the basic commonsense arguments for promoting standards-compliant and accessible development. But to return to the point: should you charge more? Yes. Because your development practices will ensure your clients earn a better ROI. In the business world that's all that matters. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer www.seowebsitepromotion.com * 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] IE Max-width Emulation and Auto Centre
Hi guys, New layout for http://www.english-sofas.co.uk/els_new/index.htm. however, I am facing a challenge: max-width. I've built the site to sit in 640 and 800 elastic windows and have constrained the width -- fine in Gecko but Bodge City in IE. I've used conditional expressions in CSS to emulate max-width but, of course, as I am encapsulating a div, IE will not resize fluidly once past Zero Barrier (set at 730px), doggedly maintaining max-with. Now, I can use the onload reSize + refresh call but that flunks in XHTML 1.1 (and is just plain nasty). So, what am I to do? 'Go to hell in a handcart' is not an acceptable answer; neither is 'Make the entire site bloody Flash and to hell with it.' ;o) One other issue: I'd like to maintain these product icons and associated text http://www.english-sofas.co.uk/els_new/contemporary_leather_sofas_1.htm as auto-centre but I'm holding each model as a constrained image and text within a single href. There are ways to achieve this by folding each href in a div but I'm looking for an elegant solution. Would appreciate some guru feedback. Cheers all, Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com * 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] Site Critique
Sure that wasn't a Bacardi Coke there Bob ;o) Mike Pepper -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Rev. Bob 'Bob' Crispen Sent: 29 May 2004 14:48 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [WSG] Site Critique The voices are telling me that LC 55 said on 5/29/2004 2:29 AM: Russ wrote, Would be good for the group to add/edit this list so that we could have a solid checklist - WSG's things to check during development. Excellent checkpoints Russ and it certainly got me thinking of additions but I fear more coffee is needed at this end. Just had a Coke, so I've got a caffeine buzz and a sugar buzz, so I may wade in (or perhaps step into it). I've been thinking about this one to figure out how to say it. I think a developer should at least visit Bobby/CLiFsays/whatever. This may not be the proper group on which to say that I think our developer should also do what's necessary to pass Bobby, etc., including the unmeasurable suggestions, but I do think that. And I think it's sensible for someone evaluating a site to run it through Bobby (etc.) and see if the evaluation shows any sillies. Yes, I definitely think my brain was stretched thin trying to get around that one. Let's try again. While I don't personally agree that you can ignore Bobby's advice, I can see how some people could agree, and I don't want to have that fight here. Indeed, I respect their opinions. However, a developer who doesn't at least *look* at what Bobby says hasn't done the job, imho. -- Rev. Bob Bob Crispen bob at crispen dot org Ex Cathedra Weblog: http://blog.crispen.org/ Some people just don't know how to drive... I call these people Everybody But Me * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * 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]
Couldn't agree more, Kym. Be practical with the constraints of our standards. Of course it is *possible* to build a perfect 3 column layout in CSS exactly as you want it -- but at what cost in terms of time and complexity. You end up catering for all browsers by incorporating kludges and fixes which may do the job legitimately but I reiterate: what's the point? We're all aware the ideal situation is the proper estrangement of form and content and correct semantic markup. But until we have the tools to perform these tasks in CSS and, importantly, the browsers developers incorporate them, we should serve the best development we can to our clients and our audience, and if this means a hybrid design which renders with stability then we are doing a good job. Mike Pepper Table-less Developer (When Appropriate) http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Kym Kovan Sent: 28 May 2004 10:59 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [WSG] Hi all, I've seen words to this affect quoted several times recently: Tables are for tabular data only, and I agree with that philosophically but what is tabular data? To me the third option from Chris: I would like to see a third version that uses a combination of the two, the best of each method merged.. The Hybrid Approach. is very legitimate. There was a discussion recently where making a 3 column page using a bare table to create the 3 columns was suggested as 3 column layouts that are truly functional across all browsers is very hard to do, and that suggestion was decried by some as not fitting the webstandards morality. I feel that 3 columns of content _is_ tabular and as such is ethically tolerable. Widening the scope of the topic a bit I also ponder the complex use of CSS to create workable layouts across all browsers, divs inside container divs and kludges everywhere, etc., as you often end up with a mess of divs that are just as hard to work through as tables and the accessibility, from, say, a screen-reader's perspective, is often no better than a table-based design. Using the 3 column example I mentioned earlier a single 3 column table holding the column content exactly as you want it (if I remember correctly the earlier discussion was about a layout with a fixed width RH column for news and proportional for the left and centre columns) is a lot less messy than the equivalent in pure CSS. Shouldn't that be the way to go? I'm for accessible hybrids :-) -- Yours, Kym * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * 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]
Ok, Rimantas, replicate http://seowebsitepromotion.com without tables and without hacks. I'd sooner wait for some decent columnar formatting options then, when the time comes, do a search and replace on the tabular structure. Mike Pepper -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Rimantas Liubertas Sent: 28 May 2004 13:19 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [WSG] -- Original Message - From: Mike Pepper [EMAIL PROTECTED] Be practical with the constraints of our standards. Of course it is *possible* to build a perfect 3 column layout in CSS exactly as you want it -- but at what cost in terms of time and complexity. You end up catering for all browsers by incorporating kludges and fixes which may do the job legitimately but I reiterate: what's the point? Afert doing table layouts for 8 years and knowing ins and outs of it I can clearly see the point doing that in CSS. It is simply FASTER and more efficient in any possible meaning. We're all aware the ideal situation is the proper estrangement of form and content and correct semantic markup. But until we have the tools to perform these tasks in CSS We have. and, importantly, the browsers developers incorporate them, They did. we should serve the best development we can to our clients and our audience, and if this means a hybrid design which renders with stability then we are doing a good job. Does it render with stability ond PDAs and mobiles? In my opinion all this talk is just caused by old habits die hard and oh, CSS is sooo hard to learn. I see dozens of sites every day with absolutely primitive layout (2 columns) built using numbers and high numbers of nested tables. People who built them do not know how to use tables for layout, they use CSS for some formating, but they don't know how to do that properly. And many of them will never learn. Cause everyone can do the web, right? That enormous level of forgiveness browsers show for the bad code helped to rise the web, but killed internal quality. Is it not the right time to bring it back (or actualy to implement it)? And all those sometimes minimal tables are good for layout talks - I am sick of them, cause people tend to skip wirst two words. Same goes for almost valid code. Either it is valid or not. One cannot be almost pregnant. You cannot compile progam, if source code contains syntax errors. But you can run a website. Too bad. Yes, I know about real world and practical approach. I am not going to have an objective look on this. We had it for too long already. And practical approach can turn out as very unpractical in the long run. End of the rant. Rimantas * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * 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] CSS vs tables - the untitled posts
Title: RE: [WSG] CSS vs tables - the untitled posts No, Jamie, not a joke. As I said in an earlier post, it's possible to achieve almost anything with CSS but at what cost in time and nested divs to achieve the same result. And it's not a 'standard' 3 column layout; the right is fixed to maximise the text area available to the other two columns. Also, once you switch to either of the other two stylesheets you have to deal with breaking and intermittent rendering or borders. If I make all columns fluid and eliminate borders it's a piece of cake to develop for all browsers with minimal hacks. Another work-around is to use relative layered placement. That does the job. Sure, I can run a 3 column layout if I compromise on the visual aspect, in other words, if I change the design. But I'm then admitting the shortcomings of CSS have forced development within constraints of what CSS can achieve rather than accepting these limitations and digging outthe trusty old table spanner from the toolbox. Jamie, I know you mean no offence but that was a decent courtesy we all sometimes forget to add which assures clean, forthright and polite dialogue. Thanks, mate. Mike -Original Message-From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]On Behalf Of Jamie MasonSent: 28 May 2004 15:28To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'Subject: RE: [WSG] CSS vs tables - the untitled posts "Ok, Rimantas, replicate http://seowebsitepromotion.com without tables and without hacks." - Mike Pepper Hi, I don't want to lower the tone, but was that comment a joke or were you serious? Your site is a standard 3 column layout, it's perfectly possible to build that in CSS-P. No offence meant, Jamie Mason: Design
RE: [WSG]
For free? ;) Thanks Rimantas :o) I can hear what you're saying and agree that it is poor practice to advocate blind use of tables. Wherever possible, I will look to pure CSS - http://www.dataperception.com - when the design permits. As you say, don't promote tables when better and more appropriate tools are available to do the job; however, when they don't exist or their quality is questionable ... But here's a thought: isn't basic table formatting just the same as div layout. You're using a container framework in which to display content? Cheers, Rimantas, Mike -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Rimantas Liubertas Sent: 28 May 2004 15:35 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [WSG] From: Mike Pepper [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ok, Rimantas, replicate http://seowebsitepromotion.com without tables and without hacks. For free? ;) And hacks issue is pretty gray area. Using tables involves hacks too, only they are in the blood of experienced web developer, so s/he hardly notices using them. I'd sooner wait for some decent columnar formatting options then, when the time comes, do a search and replace on the tabular structure. That's ok. I've already mentioned earlier that this particular site is a very good if not example of hybrid layout method. And I'd be happy if web developers would built sites this way, cause it is much much better than current situation. But believe me others would implement this design using tens of tables. I don't object building sites this way. My point is - there is no need for advocating table layouts, use it if needed, but do not promote them. Roger put it better than I can: http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200405/tables_for_layout/ Regards, Rimantas * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * 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] CSS vs tables - the untitled posts
Title: Message And then the bloody this collapses erratically! I nearly went bald trying to find a resolution to this. I spend a couple of solid days examining options. Had a few CSS techies up for the challenge and we couldn't get it to render properly. I've been with the negative flanking columns but it seemed that one resolution clobbered another aspect. In truth, I should have documented the working procedure but it got to the stage where you have literally dozens of backups (and way to much espresso). I may revisit it again but I've had 3 shots at it with various guys examining it. It's quite possible to achieve the 'cool' style but implementing the other two proved a pig. If I dropped them, I could do it. But that's again surrendering to limitations of pure CSS. However, I am open to options. I'm not a sparkling CSS developer and have been in the game for only8 months or so. There are far more knowledgeable guys around. I'm just loath to go down the road of nested divs and fudges to get something to work which can be achieved more practicably with a simple framing table. Mike -Original Message-From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]On Behalf Of Jamie MasonSent: 28 May 2004 16:21To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'Subject: RE: [WSG] CSS vs tables - the untitled posts Hi, You could absolutely position the right hand column, put a right margin on the centre column of the width of the right column and have that and the left column fluid. That would work, right? Apologies again for my previous posts tone. Jamie Mason: Design -Original Message-From: Mike Pepper [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 28 May 2004 16:07To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Subject: RE: [WSG] CSS vs tables - the untitled posts No, Jamie, not a joke. As I said in an earlier post, it's possible to achieve almost anything with CSS but at what cost in time and nested divs to achieve the same result. And it's not a 'standard' 3 column layout; the right is fixed to maximise the text area available to the other two columns. Also, once you switch to either of the other two stylesheets you have to deal with breaking and intermittent rendering or borders. If I make all columns fluid and eliminate borders it's a piece of cake to develop for all browsers with minimal hacks. Another work-around is to use relative layered placement. That does the job. Sure, I can run a 3 column layout if I compromise on the visual aspect, in other words, if I change the design. But I'm then admitting the shortcomings of CSS have forced development within constraints of what CSS can achieve rather than accepting these limitations and digging outthe trusty old table spanner from the toolbox. Jamie, I know you mean no offence but that was a decent courtesy we all sometimes forget to add which assures clean, forthright and polite dialogue. Thanks, mate. Mike -Original Message-From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]On Behalf Of Jamie MasonSent: 28 May 2004 15:28To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'Subject: RE: [WSG] CSS vs tables - the untitled posts "Ok, Rimantas, replicate http://seowebsitepromotion.com without tables and without hacks." - Mike Pepper Hi, I don't want to lower the tone, but was that comment a joke or were you serious? Your site is a standard 3 column layout, it's perfectly possible to build that in CSS-P. No offence meant, Jamie Mason: Design
RE: [WSG] CSS vs tables - the untitled posts
Ok, Pat, as an exercise, would you like to illustrate how? I'd appreciate it if you could help me out here since I've done my best, along with others, to effort a tidy resolution. Remember, it must work with the other styles, 'dark' and 'light', so the borders don't vanish at sporadic browser widths. Cheers, Mike -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Patrick Griffiths Sent: 28 May 2004 17:29 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [WSG] CSS vs tables - the untitled posts I like the design of the site. And it's particularly impressive from someone who's only been at it for 8 months! It can be done in CSS though, and without the need for lots of nested divs or hacks. You basically need to float the two main areas and use the footer to produce the bottom border of the main content area. Patrick Griffiths (PTG) http://www.htmldog.com/ptg/ http://www.htmldog.com - Original Message - From: Mike Pepper [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, May 28, 2004 5:01 PM Subject: RE: [WSG] CSS vs tables - the untitled posts MessageAnd then the bloody this collapses erratically! I nearly went bald trying to find a resolution to this. I spend a couple of solid days examining options. Had a few CSS techies up for the challenge and we couldn't get it to render properly. I've been with the negative flanking columns but it seemed that one resolution clobbered another aspect. In truth, I should have documented the working procedure but it got to the stage where you have literally dozens of backups (and way to much espresso). I may revisit it again but I've had 3 shots at it with various guys examining it. It's quite possible to achieve the 'cool' style but implementing the other two proved a pig. If I dropped them, I could do it. But that's again surrendering to limitations of pure CSS. However, I am open to options. I'm not a sparkling CSS developer and have been in the game for only 8 months or so. There are far more knowledgeable guys around. I'm just loath to go down the road of nested divs and fudges to get something to work which can be achieved more practicably with a simple framing table. Mike * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * 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
Bruce, that's perfectly acceptable, provided the image adds nothing but aesthetic content to the site. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com/ -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 28 May 2004 21:33 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [WSG] when to place as a background in CSS Hello Group, I am creating a web site, that I want to make as accessible as possible. Some important images such as logos and the mast header I have placed in img tags within the (x) html so I can give them alt tags, 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? Bruce Gilbert Webmaster Durham Public Schools Durham, North Carolina (919) 560-9118 -Office Phone http://www.dpsnc.net * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * 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] legal requirements for accessibility
There's a simple business argument in favour of accessibility: more hits and, for those with physical or cerebral impairments (and by that we are not simply talking blind or otherwise disabled users but those in their autumn years who represent a considerable and growing online audience), a reason to bookmark the site. Simple economics. A standards-compliant site is, by its very nature, well on the way to accessibility. Check out http://www.maccaws.org for a brief on the business case for standards compliance. Incidentally, the Guild of Accessible Wed Designers - www.gawds.org - officially opens its doors to membership today, and we're offering the opportunity to ... yes, you guessed it, do a site redesign. We've even got those wonderful things call prizes to give away at http://www.gawds.org/about/competition.php :o) Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer www.seowebsitepromotion.com * 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] Problem with IE
Hi Kim, Drop in a clipped backgroundgif of the same colourfor the nav container on the CSS to the same width - 170px - but a few hundred px deep without overflow and all be well. I see you're using non break spaces to pad the depth but that will always be a fudge because once the window is resized (narrowed) your copy block will force the footer down and you're back to square one. It's a pig to make divs expand to the footer. This is just one, simple and effective and lightweight (a few bytes), solution. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer www.seowebsitepromotion.com -Original Message-From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]On Behalf Of Kim KruseSent: 19 May 2004 09:22To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Subject: [WSG] Problem with IE Hi, I don't know if this question is appropriate to post here... but now I've done it. On this page http://www.pagemakers.dk/divtest/test.htmI have a problem viewing in IE 6. On the left side there is about 10-15 px space between #navcontainer and #footer and I can't figure out why. (CSS here http://www.pagemakers.dk/divtest/mouseriders.css) Could someone please have a look and maybewhat the solution might be... if there is one. I would really appreciate it. Thank you Kim
RE: [WSG] Extending full height (was Problem with IE)
Nice one, mate. Cross browser compliant to boot. Mike -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jason Turnbull Sent: 19 May 2004 13:01 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [WSG] Extending full height (was Problem with IE) Kim wrote: I'm not sure I follow your suggestion. The problem is if I remove the pnbsp;/p the #navcontainer will be shorter that the content/sidebar meaning there will be a space between #navcontainer and #footer I uploaded the corrected version here Would it be possible to force the #navcontainer to stretch down to the #footer without the pnbsp;/p ? If so how? Kim, This another solution that doesn't require an image, I've put up the changes I made (without your images) in case I don't explain it too well. http://digiscape.net.au/test/mouseriders.htm I added the same background color you used on your left column to your container div, and made the content area and top menu have a white background The content div now has the black left side border (originally a right side border on navcontainer) and reduced the margins. I also added a clearing class to a br / at the bottom of the content. This allows your content to extend, and have the left hand column look like it extends all the way Regards Jason * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * 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] Tables are dead?
It's the height aspect that's the bugger. One way to achieve this may be to use a CSS background image to force a minimum height. Make if a few bytes 2-colour (transparent) gif. Then explain to the client that Tolstoy is a great read if you've got the time and impose a maximum character limit which will likely not exceed box height. This way you can retain control of a max box height. If you can do that, you're home and dry. Alternatively, it may be possible to use a bit of back-end sniffing before the page proper is served if, as you say, you're going for a database driven site. I use ASP (simply because I've got years of VBA under my belt) but you can use PHP (or another) to deliver the pages. The idea being you parse the associated product description string character length then base the size on a look-up table that describes a minimum height (and width if you're going fully elastic -- which I'd advise against, unless it be to permit variable product columns whilst maintaining strict box width) requirement. It'll still be a best guess because there's no accounting for word length or wrap. I was trying to figure a dynamic solution which displayed a dummy or hidden page that would permit interrogation of the DOM tree, find the max height of the various product boxes then go back and serve up the page proper to that height, knowing each product box will be of identical height. Then I re-entered normal space and though How? The trouble, I believe, is there are too many unknowns which creep in when you let those horrible client-type-things free to muck up the design ;o). There has to be a simple solution and I'm convinced it's along the lines of determining the max box height then serving all to suit by adjusting the vertical image height of a bg gif. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer www.seowebsitepromotion.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Bert Doorn Sent: 18 May 2004 15:07 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [WSG] Tables are dead? Thanks for all the help, people. Unfortunately none of the examples given solve the basic problem, which is that with anything other than tables, I cannot get multiple boxes across the screen that have the same height on every row, without specifying a fixed height. Mike's example (http://www.english-sofas.co.uk/contemporary_leather_sofas_0.htm) is nice and clean but it won't work in my case - the boxes do not have a predictable amount of text (can be one, two or many lines). Patrick's example that basically turns the table on its side (http://www.splintered.co.uk/experiments/details?id=36) is clever, but has the same problem (and will only work for a small portion of visitors). (But thanks for the tip - when viewed this way, it's quite obvious that I am in fact dealing with tabular data) I'll stick with a table but will try to cut out the empty spacer cells. Hmmm -- Bert Doorn, Better Web Design www.betterwebdesign.com.au Fast-loading, user-friendly websites * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * 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] back to basics
Naughty, Bob, you just stuck it into quirks mode. I presume you mean the xml prelude? Mike Pepper Accessible (but happy cuz the Mrs let him off the leash tonight) Web Developer www.seowebsitepromotion.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Rev. Bob 'Bob' Crispen Sent: 18 May 2004 23:13 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [WSG] back to basics The voices are telling me that James Ellis said on 5/18/2004 6:06 AM: I have a feeling apos; won't work in IE for Windows. I've used #039; everywhere with success. Right you are. You can tell how often I fire MSIE up on this box. Slap an XML header on it, rename it foo.xml, and MSIE renders it like a charm. Boy, Microsoft sure pays attention to them DTDs, don't they? :-( -- Rev. Bob Bob Crispen bob at crispen dot org Ex Cathedra Weblog: http://blog.crispen.org/ Some people just don't know how to drive... I call these people Everybody But Me * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * 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] 'It Works in Gecko Browsers ...'
So what, If it doesn't work in IE and its many flavours you are doing zilch for your client and your usability, let alone accessibility. Explorer is used by 94% of the Internet browsing world. I run my own stats; in fact I write my own log analysis software because I need to monitor trends and swings ... and basically deliver to as wide an audience as possible for my clientele. Thunder[Fire]bird is an extemporary browser whose execution of W3C compliance is second only to Opera's ... but we have a duty to our client, not to our ego-preened selves. Get it right in business and we will then apply a gentle lobby to standards compliance and accessibility. I'm a pragmatist. I have to be, else my clients will go elsewhere. Far too many developers wage a war of blog attrition against the standards-illiterate development world. I design for accessibility; I design to W3C standards. But first and foremost I design for the businesses who are realists in a market-driven economy. Would that I might write for a Gecko world ... but I can't. This is not an argument, it is a consideration that we must spread standards without disregard for the real world. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or body to whom they are addressed. This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by Norton AntiVirus for the presence of computer viruses. If this message is received in error, please accept our apologies. * 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] 'It Works in Gecko Browsers ...'
This has been discussed ad-nauseum - it is fairly well documented that one of the easiest and most efficient ways to build a website is to _start_ in a standards compliant browsers, then once you're almost done, test in IE. I may suggest you tip that on it's head. Dead serious. I build in IE then ensure I adjust accordingly. I know ahat will happen in the Geckos. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Craig Stump Sent: 19 May 2004 01:08 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [WSG] 'It Works in Gecko Browsers ...' This has been discussed ad-nauseum - it is fairly well documented that one of the easiest and most efficient ways to build a website is to _start_ in a standards compliant browsers, then once you're almost done, test in IE. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mike Pepper Sent: Wednesday, 19 May 2004 9:39 AM To: WSG Subject: [WSG] 'It Works in Gecko Browsers ...' So what, If it doesn't work in IE and its many flavours you are doing zilch for your client and your usability, let alone accessibility. Explorer is used by 94% of the Internet browsing world. I run my own stats; in fact I write my own log analysis software because I need to monitor trends and swings ... and basically deliver to as wide an audience as possible for my clientele. Thunder[Fire]bird is an extemporary browser whose execution of W3C compliance is second only to Opera's ... but we have a duty to our client, not to our ego-preened selves. Get it right in business and we will then apply a gentle lobby to standards compliance and accessibility. I'm a pragmatist. I have to be, else my clients will go elsewhere. Far too many developers wage a war of blog attrition against the standards-illiterate development world. I design for accessibility; I design to W3C standards. But first and foremost I design for the businesses who are realists in a market-driven economy. Would that I might write for a Gecko world ... but I can't. This is not an argument, it is a consideration that we must spread standards without disregard for the real world. Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer Internet SEO and Marketing Analyst http://www.seowebsitepromotion.com This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or body to whom they are addressed. This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by Norton AntiVirus for the presence of computer viruses. If this message is received in error, please accept our apologies. * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * 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] Tables are dead?
Hi Bert, Take a look at http://www.english-sofas.co.uk/contemporary_leather_sofas_0.htm. It's a list block, like you need, the contents of which can be constrained by a width statement. It may help. As to the rights and wrongs ... make it an accessible list and you're fine. If you get really stuck, mail me and I'll work on it with you. Cheers cobber (always wanted to say that) :o) Mike Pepper Accessible Web Developer www.seowebsitepromotion.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Bert Doorn Sent: 17 May 2004 17:08 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [WSG] Tables are dead? G'day I've read the comments regarding table-less design and have looked at the resources given. I agree that it would be ideal to consign tables for layout to the trash can and have built some sites that way already. I have experimented for days, but have come to a grinding halt on a project that's (surprise, surprise) easily done with a table and seemingly impossible without. Can anybody give me guidance on how to convert a layout like www.bwdzine.com/table.html (the boxes on the light background) to pure CSS? Or is this one of those cases where tables are sementically the right choice anyway? (It is a catalogue of products) The look was first set up on www.onepassionplace.com (I know it's tag-soup). We're setting up a new site (database driven, which gets us away from FP) and I want to do it right. Is abandoning tables here mission impossible? I have experimented with floating divs, but can't re-create the look. Doesn't need to be pixel-perfect, but has to look tidy. With floats of different height, the neat rows are thrown into chaos (www.bwdzine.com/divs.html). With divs of fixed height and overflow:auto we could end up with lots of ugly scrollbars (or shortened descriptions with overflow:hidden). See www.bwdzine.com/divs2.html - increase font size to see the mess. Any ideas / clean, working examples? FWIW, I have no control over how much text would go in each box. -- Bert Doorn, Better Web Design www.betterwebdesign.com.au Fast-loading, user-friendly websites * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help * * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
