Re: [WSG] Hiding email address from spambots with CSS

2004-07-07 Thread Shane Helm
Summed up very well Justin.
And yes, Apple Mail is the best way to defend against spam (junk mail). 
 It has an awesome spam filter system.

Shane Helm
{ sonzeDesignStudio
On Jul 7, 2004, at 12:51 AM, Justin French wrote:
On 06/07/2004, at 10:50 PM, Neerav wrote:
I havent tried this, but it sounds interesting
http://www.phoenity.com/newtedge/hide_email_spambots/
As soon as a new technique for hiding email address' becomes widely 
publicised, then *everyone* knows about it.  Yes, that includes the 
makers of spambots.

All they'd need to do is crawl linked stylesheets looking for 
content: ...;, and then realise that \40 is an @ symbol, and hey 
presto, they've found another set of email address'.

Seriously, there is no way to avoid spam if you plan on making your 
email address public on a  webpage -- plain and simple.  if you have a 
way to encode it, they'll find a way to decode it.  To live in the 
myth that we, the humble web developers, are smarter than hundreds or 
thousands of super-geeks writing spambots to fuel their BILLION DOLLAR 
industry is ludicrous.

Yes, they could decode and read javascripts, yes they could read 
linked style sheets, yes they can attempt to detect text inside images 
and yes they can beat whatever else you can come up with.

The ONLY fail-safe method of hiding your address from spambots is to 
NOT PUBLISH IT, which means you need a contact form which only lists 
names or nicknames of staff members... matching that name to an email 
address is done server-side with PHP (or Perl/ASP/CFM/et al).

Even then, it's not much of a stretch to imagine a spambot parsing the 
form and guessing email address' based on the names in the form, 
combined with the domain name.

As said earlier in the thread, spam is best defended with filtering at 
the receiving end -- I get 50-100 spam messages a day (in addition to 
the ones caught by my host server-side), of which Apple Mail catches 
about 98%.


---
Justin French
http://indent.com.au
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[WSG] Drop Shadows

2004-07-07 Thread Mordechai Peller
Client wants drop shadow on the site name and some photos in the header.
For the photos I was planning on using one of the methods at ALA.
The bigger problem is the text. CSS has a text-shadow property, but it 
seems the even Firefox doesn't support it. It seems I'm left with 
following choices: Using an image, JavaScript, or CSS. Since I hate to 
using a text images, that leaves JavaScript and/or CSS. If I have a copy 
of the text, I could use CSS to position the copy to create the effect, 
But I'd rather not have the extra copy in my source. So I was thinking 
of using either JavaScript generated text, or the noscript? tag.

Any thought or alternative methods?
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[WSG] IES and Firefox issues

2004-07-07 Thread Brendan Smith
I apologize in advance for the HTML email - using a web based client without the 
option to change to plain - expect a new client soon!
 
Precursory info:

*   
Yup, it validates (HTML and CSS)
*   
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/ gave me a pat on the head!
*   
Sorry about the secure URL, it's the only place I'm allowed to play in public.

I'm having issues with the treemenu on the left in firefox, and with the positioning 
of the content area in IE.

Firefox will not display scroll bars when the tree expands beyond the dimensions of 
it's containing div. (Finger in mouth, Dr Evil style) IE does, why won't firefox? What 
am I doing wrong there? (Before you rush to its defence - yes Firefox is a gift from 
the HTML Goddess)

IE will play silly buggers with my main content area. When re-sizing your browser, it 
will let/make the content area jump below the tree menu. What-tha? (Before you rush to 
his defence, Rove is a Wally). Do I have a dimension error? Last time I checked 25% 
and 75% equalled 100%! Still I'm sure I've stuffed it - I just can't see where...

Supplemental Project info:

(If you're interested) This is a web app that will facilitate: 

*   image searching, annotation, display and indexing/archiving (of all 
document/mime types)
*   email subscription/management for the delivery of bulk information (invoice 
delivery, con-note retrieval etc, anything from the archive above)
*   bill payment of above said documents/archive contents
*   customer service facilities (for phone based assistance)
*   JSP and beans with side helping of Oracle 10.g served on jBoss in Windows and 
Linux flavours
*   blah blah blah - you get the picture...

All the above systems are alive and kicking - this is just a rewrite of several 
interfaces into one standards based layout.

winmail.dat

[WSG] IES and Firefox issues - Link included

2004-07-07 Thread Brendan Smith
Yes, it's that secure I forgot the link:
https://monitor.hpa.com.au/ies/
 
 
I apologize in advance for the HTML email - using a web based client without the 
option to change to plain - expect a new client soon!
 
Precursory info:

*   
Yup, it validates (HTML and CSS)
*   
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/ gave me a pat on the head!
*   
Sorry about the secure URL, it's the only place I'm allowed to play in public.

I'm having issues with the treemenu on the left in firefox, and with the positioning 
of the content area in IE.

Firefox will not display scroll bars when the tree expands beyond the dimensions of 
it's containing div. (Finger in mouth, Dr Evil style) IE does, why won't firefox? What 
am I doing wrong there? (Before you rush to its defence - yes Firefox is a gift from 
the HTML Goddess)

IE will play silly buggers with my main content area. When re-sizing your browser, it 
will let/make the content area jump below the tree menu. What-tha? (Before you rush to 
his defence, Rove is a Wally). Do I have a dimension error? Last time I checked 25% 
and 75% equalled 100%! Still I'm sure I've stuffed it - I just can't see where...

Supplemental Project info:

(If you're interested) This is a web app that will facilitate: 

*   image searching, annotation, display and indexing/archiving (of all 
document/mime types) 
*   email subscription/management for the delivery of bulk information (invoice 
delivery, con-note retrieval etc, anything from the archive above) 
*   bill payment of above said documents/archive contents 
*   customer service facilities (for phone based assistance) 
*   JSP and beans with side helping of Oracle 10.g served on jBoss in Windows and 
Linux flavours 
*   blah blah blah - you get the picture...

All the above systems are alive and kicking - this is just a rewrite of several 
interfaces into one standards based layout.

winmail.dat

Re: [WSG] IES and Firefox issues

2004-07-07 Thread Neerav
Hows about a link then ?
:-)
--
Neerav Bhatt
http://www.bhatt.id.au
Web Development  IT consultancy
Mobile: +61 (0)403 8000 27
http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/neerav
Brendan Smith wrote:
I apologize in advance for the HTML email - using a web based client without the option to change to plain - expect a new client soon!
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RE: [WSG]headers

2004-07-07 Thread Mike Foskett
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
 


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RE: [WSG]headers

2004-07-07 Thread Mike Pepper
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



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RE: [WSG] IES and Firefox issues - Link included

2004-07-07 Thread Bert Doorn
  Firefox will not display scroll bars when the tree expands beyond the
dimensions of it's containing div. 

My theory: the auto height on #tree_menu_container expands the container to
fit the content.  Therefore the browser sees no need to add scrollbars.

 IE will play silly buggers with my main content area.  

Probably a combination of the 100% width + 1px border on the table (which
presumably will have tabular data).  Try removing the table width, changing
it to 99% and/or removing the table border.

Incidentally, the javascript locked up MSIE for over a minute (after initial
loading) and it was loading something like 180 files (presumably images).
Ouch. 

Regards
--
Bert Doorn, Better Web Design
www.bwdzine.net
Fast-loading, user-friendly websites

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RE: [WSG]headers

2004-07-07 Thread Trusz, Andrew

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
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RE: [WSG]headers

2004-07-07 Thread Mike Pepper
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
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RE: [WSG]headers

2004-07-07 Thread Trusz, Andrew


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

***

Certainly one way to do it with a solid rationale for why. 

drew
 
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RE: [WSG]headers

2004-07-07 Thread Mike Foskett
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


 



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[WSG] font size question

2004-07-07 Thread Ted Drake
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

2004-07-07 Thread Mike Pepper
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






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RE: [WSG] font size question

2004-07-07 Thread Mike Pepper
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

2004-07-07 Thread Trusz, Andrew

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.


* 

Looks fine to me but I liked the other one as well. 

drew
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RE: [WSG]headers

2004-07-07 Thread Lee Roberts
Dang, we certainly don't want to go to sleep these days.  I wake up and am
caught in a mire.

Instead of writing several emails, I'm going to try and cover everyone's
issues here.  I hope I don't miss anything or get people confused.  Drew,
thank you for the kind words.

I will agree the commentary about some people should have remained out of
the standards.  You will notice a major difference with the forth coming
standards.  There should not be any more garbage editorials except in the
internal notes.  Internal notes as you are probably aware are open to the
public as well. 

Many people will use headings as a means to help elevate their pages in the
search engines.  Technically there is no problems with that.  The only time
problems will arise is when they say they are using headings to classify
sections of their page when, in fact, is it more obvious that the heading is
used as a font declaration.

Using the book analogy is the easiest way to explain how headings should be
used.  Sure there are books that include the book or chapter title on some
or all of the pages within a chapter.  However, that is extremely rare.  It
does appear to be a publishers choice - not an author's choice.  

With four books in my immediate reach, three have the book title on the left
page and the chapter title on the right page.  So, to take the position that
a web page should have the web site name on every page would be incorrect.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

As for heading font sizes, I couldn't read an H6 even if I tried.  I would
have to increase the font sizes using my browser.  So, for those that think
heading tag font sizes can't be changed you can safely ignore those
promptings.  

CSS was given to us for a reason.  That reason is easy to understand.  Make
your pages look and perform as you would like them to appear and act.

Search engines cannot penalize you for using the standards correctly.  In
fact, I've seen the opposite.  When using the standards correctly some
search engines give you points.  MSN specifically states you should follow
the standards.  The only bad thing is Microsoft has a way of creating their
own standards and expecting everyone to follow their lead.

Before I declare the codes below errant, I would like to see the
presentation.  Skip navigation is much better than depending upon everyone
in the world using JAWS.

Following the Standards:

Which standards should we follow?  Everyone seems to think we should follow
Strict.  Personally, strict causes too many problems in my opinion.  It
doesn't allow me to do my pages as I prefer and as I know work best.

Then we have ISO, RFC, IETF and other standards.  Each declares something
different.  Each requires doing things their way.  But, the one that that is
consistent is they all support W3C standards.

When I teach and someone asks how they should do something I ask them to
check all the sources.  The information will be there.  If it comes down to
an interpretation I let them 

Re: [WSG] font size question

2004-07-07 Thread Silenus
It's not a split font size, when you're using the shorthand (font) you 
can declare font-size and line-height together, e.g. 1em/1.5em.

Ted Drake wrote:
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

2004-07-07 Thread Mike Pepper
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


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RE: [WSG] IES and Firefox issues - Link included

2004-07-07 Thread Brendan Smith
My theory: the auto height on #tree_menu_container expands the container to
fit the content.  Therefore the browser sees no need to add scrollbars.

OK - I'll play with that and see how I go

Probably a combination of the 100% width + 1px border on the table (which
presumably will have tabular data).  Try removing the table width, changing
it to 99% and/or removing the table border.

The more I look at it, the more it seems to be the case. I'll have to think of a 
better way to add that border, maybe on an element inside that container?

Incidentally, the javascript locked up MSIE for over a minute (after initial
loading) and it was loading something like 180 files (presumably images).
Ouch.

Yep - I found that out too - that stuff is to support transparent pngs in IE. I use 
pngs in the tree menu - and in the background of the table cells. Looks like I'll have 
to throw it. It's a javascript trick from youngpup.net to apply that nasty 
transparency filter in IE.

Thanks for taking the time to look.



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Bert Doorn
Sent: Wed 07/07/04 8:23 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [WSG] IES and Firefox issues - Link included



  Firefox will not display scroll bars when the tree expands beyond the
dimensions of it's containing div.

My theory: the auto height on #tree_menu_container expands the container to
fit the content.  Therefore the browser sees no need to add scrollbars.

 IE will play silly buggers with my main content area. 

Probably a combination of the 100% width + 1px border on the table (which
presumably will have tabular data).  Try removing the table width, changing
it to 99% and/or removing the table border.

Incidentally, the javascript locked up MSIE for over a minute (after initial
loading) and it was loading something like 180 files (presumably images).
Ouch.

Regards
--
Bert Doorn, Better Web Design
www.bwdzine.net
Fast-loading, user-friendly websites

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winmail.dat

Re: [WSG] iFrames vs Scrolling Divs

2004-07-07 Thread Brian Cummiskey

I do recall reading somewhere that it's possible to link a div to an
external source (it used an attribute like data or src) but I think it
was a Netscape-ism.
you can take it a step further with a server side include:
div id=somescroller
   ?php include (somefile.php); ?
/div
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[WSG] Jobs and the list - where else?

2004-07-07 Thread Graeme Merrall
Hi all.
According to the list guidelines
(http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm),  job opportunities
should not be posted.  Is there an appropriate alternative for WSG
people?

Cheers,
 Graeme
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Re: [WSG] iFrames vs Scrolling Divs

2004-07-07 Thread Scott Barnes

iFrame is valid XHTML 1 Transitional (and Frameset) but it is not available
in the Strict DTD (and probably won't be available in future recommendations
of XHTML).  To embed a document in Strict,  use the object element.
Something like:  

object data=foo.html type=text/html width=500 height=300/object
 

Are you absolutly positive about iframes not being available in strict 
XHTML? because I've got one working as we speak?
!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC -//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN 
http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd;
??

Scott
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Re: [WSG] iFrames vs Scrolling Divs

2004-07-07 Thread Brian Cummiskey
Scott Barnes wrote:
Are you absolutly positive about iframes not being available in strict 
XHTML? because I've got one working as we speak?
!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC -//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN 
http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd;
??
working and being valid are two different things all together.
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Re: [WSG] Jobs and the list - where else?

2004-07-07 Thread Neerav
Graeme
Great minds obviously think alike! I sent this email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] a 
week ago and have recvd no. I guess it got lost in his inbox, so ill 
post it here instead where all the moderators and members can read it:


Russ
Id like to put an idea to you as one of the WSG head honchos ... what do you think of 
this train of thought...
1. Developers who are a member of the WSG are more likely to use web standards in 
their work than developers who are not
2. Therefore they are more likely to employ / contract out work to fellow WSG members, 
because WSG members are more likely than not to have skills they require
3. Currently there is nothing stopping people from privately asking other WSG members 
if they know of job/contract opportunities by email, at the bi-monthly meetings or 
networking like on Thursday night, but it would be easier if WSG members who wanted to 
be contacted by:
- prospective WSG member employees/contractors,
- other WSG member companies to whom they can partner with
Could add themselves to some kind of listing/directory available for viewing once logged into the WSG site. This could be beneficial for all members if done well. 
--
Neerav Bhatt
http://www.bhatt.id.au
Web Development  IT consultancy
Mobile: +61 (0)403 8000 27
http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/neerav
Graeme Merrall wrote:
Hi all.
According to the list guidelines
(http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm),  job opportunities
should not be posted.  Is there an appropriate alternative for WSG
people?
Cheers,
 Graeme
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Future.....(was: Re: [WSG] iFrames vs Scrolling Divs)

2004-07-07 Thread Scott Barnes
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 one working as we speak?
!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC -//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN 
http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd;
??

working and being valid are two different things all together.
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RE: [WSG] Jobs and the list - where else?

2004-07-07 Thread Peter Firminger
Hi,

Russ is in New Zealand at the moment and the end of the financial year was
not good for either of us.

For the moment I don't have time to build a new section for job ads, but
it's in the list of things to do.  I don't believe it's a good solution
though as it will still require people to actively go there to look for new
positions. It's not the role of WSG to be a listing agency so I only want
the occasional one on the list and this has strict guidelines on formatting
and wording. If you really need to post one, please write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
first and we'll give you the format and permission to post it.

As for other places, if it's in Australia then try listing on
www.webdesigners.net.au and I'm sure there are others as well.

Regards,

Peter

 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Neerav
 Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2004 2:12 PM
 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Subject: Re: [WSG] Jobs and the list - where else?

 Graeme

 Great minds obviously think alike! I sent this email to
 [EMAIL PROTECTED] a
 week ago and have recvd no. I guess it got lost in his inbox, so ill
 post it here instead where all the moderators and members can read it:

 

  Russ
 
  Id like to put an idea to you as one of the WSG head
 honchos ... what do you think of this train of thought...
 
  1. Developers who are a member of the WSG are more likely
 to use web standards in their work than developers who are not
 
  2. Therefore they are more likely to employ / contract out
 work to fellow WSG members, because WSG members are more
 likely than not to have skills they require
 
  3. Currently there is nothing stopping people from
 privately asking other WSG members if they know of
 job/contract opportunities by email, at the bi-monthly
 meetings or networking like on Thursday night, but it would
 be easier if WSG members who wanted to be contacted by:
  - prospective WSG member employees/contractors,
  - other WSG member companies to whom they can partner with
 
  Could add themselves to some kind of listing/directory
 available for viewing once logged into the WSG site. This
 could be beneficial for all members if done well.

 --
 Neerav Bhatt
 http://www.bhatt.id.au
 Web Development  IT consultancy
 Mobile: +61 (0)403 8000 27

 http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/neerav

 Graeme Merrall wrote:
  Hi all.
  According to the list guidelines
  (http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm),  job
 opportunities
  should not be posted.  Is there an appropriate alternative for WSG
  people?
 
  Cheers,
   Graeme
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 See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
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Re: [WSG] Jobs and the list - where else?

2004-07-07 Thread Neerav
Peter
Thats perfectly understandable, as list parents the choice is upto 
you. Wasnt aware of www.webdesigners.net.au, thanks for mentioning it.

--
Neerav Bhatt
http://www.bhatt.id.au
Web Development  IT consultancy
Mobile: +61 (0)403 8000 27
http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/neerav
Peter Firminger wrote:
Hi,
Russ is in New Zealand at the moment and the end of the financial year was
not good for either of us.
For the moment I don't have time to build a new section for job ads, but
it's in the list of things to do.  I don't believe it's a good solution
though as it will still require people to actively go there to look for new
positions. It's not the role of WSG to be a listing agency so I only want
the occasional one on the list and this has strict guidelines on formatting
and wording. If you really need to post one, please write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
first and we'll give you the format and permission to post it.
As for other places, if it's in Australia then try listing on
www.webdesigners.net.au and I'm sure there are others as well.
Regards,
Peter
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Re: Future.....(was: Re: [WSG] iFrames vs Scrolling Divs)

2004-07-07 Thread Hugh Todd
Scott, you said,
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).
Who would elect such a body? Web designers? Governments? Users? The UN?
As it is, we have the major browser manufacturers on board, the guy who 
invented the web heading it up, and some of the clearest-thinking, most 
far-sighted people in the web community making contributions that aim 
to free the web from proprietory chains and dead-end hacks, with as 
elegant solutions as can be devised. What more could you want?

Down with proprietory solutions, I say!
-Hugh Todd
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Re: Future.....(was: Re: [WSG] iFrames vs Scrolling Divs)

2004-07-07 Thread Scott Barnes
Thanks Brian,
I haven't really gotten into the Devices side of things as of late, and 
hand't considered that angle, but I can accept what you've outlined 
below. I was just curious as i see a constant you gotta go XHTML but 
we aren't following through with some sort of rewards? either technology 
wise or coool factors.

The sad part is, while i enjoy backward compatibility as it saves your 
butt more times then none, it can sadly sufficate good / new concepts to 
death as people keep ignoring the new and stick with the old. I will say 
that the user of Object tag was a new one for me.. is there any 
compatibility issues out there for using it that you know off?

Regards
Scott Barnes
Brian Cummiskey wrote:
Scott Barnes wrote:
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).

the most important to me, is search engine rankings.  css-driven 
compliant code are read much easier by the bots.  but more so, its for 
blind and other handicapped folks as well.  governnment related sites 
here in the states are REQUIRED by US law to meet 508 accesibility 
standards.  And even more so, the internet is changing.  more and more 
folks are using palms, cell phones, and other devices to hit the web.  
that is only gowing each and every day.  try throwing a table-based 
image layout to a text browser on a phone, and your site is 
worthless.  have a full xhtml, or even wap, and mobile devices can 
read the text.  it might not look pretty- but the fact remains that it 
can STILL be read.

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.

they aren't valid because, again, devices as above can't handel them.  
I hate i frames.  i see zero purpse to them.  In my opinion, an iframe 
serves as a hack-job approach to dynamic content.  its simply the 
wrong tool for the job.

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 shoudl have read ths hwole thing before replying :)  seems like 
we're on the same megahurtz :)

the problem with learnign xhtml 1.0 is that, theres next to nothing to 
leran from html 4.01.  all lowercase tags, and a couple properties 
missing

but really, XHTML 1.1 is where it becomes a learning process- its the 
modularization that the whole web is slowly moving to.
http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/

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

take a look here:
http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=BoxModelHack
http://css.maxdesign.com.au/listamatic/about-boxmodel.htm
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RE: Future.....(was: Re: [WSG] iFrames vs Scrolling Divs)

2004-07-07 Thread Lee Roberts
Scott wants to know who voted the W3C the ruling authority.

That was me!  20 years on the *net gave me that right.

Seriously, though, who voted the ISO or IETF to be authoritative enough to
establish rules for people using the Internet and World Wide Web, oh yes
there is a difference?  Who established the rules for the World Wide Web
which ethical designers and developers attempt to follow?

If web development is your job, don't you think you should be good enough to
follow the rules established?  If you were a construction builder wouldn't
you have to follow rules?

As for iframe, I don't like it either.  I've used it once, but the page it
was pulling in was a flash communications presentation for my radio show.
As for frames, they were the most ignorant thing ever created.  Personally,
they should be allowed to exist today, but for some reason we can't get rid
of them by some developers.

The real problem with frames is people don't know how to use them in the
first place.  Second, they lack any real features for accessibility.  For
SEO purposes they are really bad.

Frames were allowed in the beginning because browsers didn't have very good
caching abilities.  Now that they do, you don't need them.  They won't help.

Perhaps that will help some.

Scrolling DIVs at least put all the information on the same page, unless you
plan on pulling in another page.  In my opinion the latter is a mistake.
Search engines say all content must be visible, it never says you can't
scroll a DIV to see all the information.

Sincerely,
Lee Roberts
http://www.roserockdesign.com
http://www.applepiecart.com


-Original Message-
From: Hugh Todd [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2004 11:27 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Future.(was: Re: [WSG] iFrames vs Scrolling Divs)

Scott, you said,

 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).

Who would elect such a body? Web designers? Governments? Users? The UN?

As it is, we have the major browser manufacturers on board, the guy who
invented the web heading it up, and some of the clearest-thinking, most
far-sighted people in the web community making contributions that aim to
free the web from proprietory chains and dead-end hacks, with as elegant
solutions as can be devised. What more could you want?

Down with proprietory solutions, I say!

-Hugh Todd

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