Re: [WSG] Tag clouds

[jacinta]

This message has been returned to you because I will be on leave from Wed 
15/3/2006 to Friday 17/3/2006. During my absence, please contact Judy Hageman 
on 72224
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Re: [WSG] Tag clouds

[Ben Buchanan]

[snip- tag clouds]
> Thoughts? Mild agreement? Sly refutations?

For a simple tag cloud I'm not sure how a table would work - the cloud
isn't really tabular, in the way I would describe "tabular". If a
second rating was applied; eg. popularity + freshness (ie. how many
times does the tag appear, and how recently) then you could use a
table to create a matrix. But for your garden variety tag cloud, this
probably isn't applicable.

Technorati's multiple-emphasis method is interesting, but I'm not sure
if the semantics are entirely sound (can you really just keep adding
more emphasis?). Given that current user agents don't really do
anything with the tag combinations you are ultimately left with a
visual-only cue to importance.

I'm with Christian on this one - I'd go with an ordered list with the
most popular tags first. You could use a nested list to group together
"bands" or popularity levels; or use an ordered list for the bands
with an unordered list for all the equal weight items in that band.

cheers,

Ben

--
--- 
--- The future has arrived; it's just not
--- evenly distributed. - William Gibson
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Re: [WSG] Section specific introductory pages and usability

[jacinta]

This message has been returned to you because I will be on leave from Wed 
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Re: [WSG] Section specific introductory pages and usability

[Terrence Wood]

Paul Hempsall:

What's the general concensus of the direction Introduction pages should
take. I've always been concerned that reiterating the section 
navigation

via a barrage of links would be a confusing and disorienting method.


quite the opposite: a barrage of links with a supporting explanation is 
better than a barrage of links with none. Providing expanded scent for 
navigation labels typically found in the main navigation device is 
quicker and easier to use than clicking a bunch of links in the the 
hope the resulting page is the one the user wants. I recently test the 
main navigation system of a large content rich site and most 
participants requested more descriptive information (either through 
tool tips or instructional text) to aid in their understanding of how 
the site was put together.


Start with Henrik Olsens site: http://www.guuui.com/browse.php?cid=137 
See #4 & #5 (both point to Jared Spool's work, but there may be 
something else there of interest =) )


kind regards
Terrence Wood.

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[WSG] Section specific introductory pages and usability

[Paul Hempsall]

I'm well into the development of my Council's new website (replacing the
current inaccessible, tag soup version). A discussion point has been
raised with our Content Editors regarding Introduction pages for each
main section of the site.

What's the general concensus of the direction Introduction pages should
take. I've always been concerned that reiterating the section navigation
via a barrage of links would be a confusing and disorienting method.

Brisbane City Council (as an example) takes this approach on some of
their pages - I'm just wondering what other's views are regarding this
and if this is, in fact, a preferrable method to take.
http://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/BCC:BASE:2119007498:pc=DOBUSINESS

Best Regards,
 
Paul Hempsall
Web Developer
 
Lake Macquarie City Council
Phone: (02) 4921-0713
Fax: (02) 4921-0566
Web: http://www.lakemac.com.au


This information is intended for the addressee only. The use, copying or 
distribution of this message or any information it contains, by anyone other 
than the addressee is prohibited by the sender.

Any views expressed in this communication are those of the individual sender, 
except where the sender specifically states them to be the views of Council.

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Re: [WSG] Usability issue with form help

[Richard Czeiger]

This may sound silly but what about the tabindex attribute?
AFAIK it's still part of the standard and should do what you're after...

R  :o)

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[WSG] z-index conflict in IE6 with positioned elements

[Ted Drake]

Hi everyone.

 

I’ve been struggling with some z-indexed, positioned
elements that are getting obscured by content further down the page in IE6. 
After doing a bit of research, I came across these two sites: 

 

http://www.aplus.co.yu/css/z-pos/index.php

http://www.quirksmode.org/bugreports/archives/2006/01/Explorer_z_index_bug.html


 

Aleksandar has a suggested fix that works for simple pages.
I’ve got too many positioned elements on my pages and it’s a virtual
pile-up of ungodly proportions.

 

Has anyone found a solution to this problem?

 

Thanks

 

Ted Drake

Front-end
Engineer

Yahoo! Tech

 

Re: [WSG] Absolute Positioning-A Naive Question (Maybe)

[Al Sparber]

Paula Petrik wrote:

When I read the W3C specs (not the most riveting exercise on the
planet), it seems that the developers emphasize absolute 
positioning.

For example, they describe using floats to float small bits of text
or images. It seems, however, that floats have become the order of
the day. Rather than small bits, whole parts of designs are floated
about. Was this the W3C's intent? Or, have floats become the modern
equivalent of tables?


In a manner of speaking, yes.

Here is a whimsical page using floats in a way I believe they were 
actually intended to be used:

http://www.projectseven.com/tutorials/css/holy-gruel/ifloats.htm



Is there some reason why absolute positioning
has fallen by the wayside? CSS-Discuss's wiki describes absolute
positioning as capable of "simple designs"; yet, a significant
proportion of csszengarden designs are absolutely positioned, and I
wouldn't term them simple. Just wondering what the current wisdom is
on this issue.


It's one tool in the box - though I believe it is much more useful 
than a lot of other CSS authors.


This page uses a "classic" float, as well as an absolutely positioned 
sidebar:

http://www.projectseven.com/products/templates/pagepacks/tbm/keylime/p7keylime_03.htm


--
Al Sparber
PVII
http://www.projectseven.com

"Designing with CSS is sometimes like barreling down a crumbling
mountain road at 90 miles per hour secure in the knowledge that 
repairs

are scheduled for next Tuesday".




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Re: [WSG] Tag clouds

[Christian Montoya]

On 3/13/06, Jude Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Leaving aside arguments about whether or not tag clouds are the new
> mullets (http://www.zeldman.com/daily/0405d.shtml), I've been
> pondering how to make one that is accessible, given the questionable
> accessibility of most of the ones out there.
...
> Wah wah wah. Check out this (very) basic demo (content borrowed from
> http://www.connotea.org/): http://www.dotcode.com/accessible_tag_cloud.html
>
> Presenting it in a table is as far as I'm aware the only accessible way
> to do it, as using the title attribute or enclosing the information in
> the link text itself (then hiding it using CSS) both have serious drawbacks.
...
> Thoughts? Mild agreement? Sly refutations?

I think this still suffers from some of the other problems with tag
clouds. For one thing, there's still too many links, many of which
lead to duplicate content (people usually tag the same entry with
multiple tags). Also, it would make more sense in regards to
accessibility  if the most frequent tags were first, and the (ordered)
list descended by frequency. I don't see a table as a good use since
the tabular data is all hidden. The tag cloud is still sorted
alphabetically which isn't too useful as far as tag clouds go.

So, I think a better option would be an ordered list starting with the
most frequent tag and descending from there. The title of the list
could summarize this information and the class could be something like
"tag_frequency_list". It wouldn't look like a typical tag cloud but
those are ugly anyway (just like mullets).

--
--
Christian Montoya
christianmontoya.com ... rdpdesign.com ... cssliquid.com
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Re: [WSG] Absolute Positioning-A Naive Question (Maybe)

[Paula Petrik]

Felix & Todd,
Felix, nice to know that I'm in good company. Todd and Phillipe, I  
think that the footer business is the sticking point. But what is  
sacred about a footer? What information goes into a footer that could  
not go elsewhere? This has me puzzled. In the "table days," the most  
important element in a footer was a text version of image links. Even  
today there seems to be very little of consequence in the footer on  
most pages. In addition, there must be others ways (or other places)  
to display this information.  Lachlan, don't the faux columns  
technique (and its fellow travelers) address the problem of equal  
height columns? The reason I pose these questions is that I am  
testing a WYSIWYG program whose goal is to accommodate the rank  
beginner and the advanced user. I think that the engineers have hit  
on the idea of using absolute positioning to prevent beginners from  
making float errors--an interesting approach. Because the program  
emphasizes absolute positioning (it's also perfectly capable of  
floating everything), it has caused me to rethink all sorts of  
received wisdom.

Best,
Paula

Paula Petrik
Professor
Department of History & Art History
Associate Director
Center for History & New Media
George Mason University
http://www.archiva.net





On Mar 13, 2006, at 9:57 PM, Todd Baker wrote:


The main reason I dont use absolute positioning for all my layout is
that most of the sites I build require footers at the base of the page
content.

With every page of differing content length the only way to achieve
this is to float and then clear for the footer.

Thats just me. There are wiser brains on this list tho :)



On 14/03/06, Paula Petrik <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

When I read the W3C specs (not the most riveting exercise on the
planet), it seems that the developers emphasize absolute positioning.
For example, they describe using floats to float small bits of text
or images. It seems, however, that floats have become the order of
the day. Rather than small bits, whole parts of designs are floated
about. Was this the W3C's intent? Or, have floats become the modern
equivalent of tables? Is there some reason why absolute positioning
has fallen by the wayside? CSS-Discuss's wiki describes absolute
positioning as capable of "simple designs"; yet, a significant
proportion of csszengarden designs are absolutely positioned, and I
wouldn't term them simple. Just wondering what the current wisdom is
on this issue.

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Re: [WSG] Usability issue with form help

[Daniel Nitsche]

As an idea, why not make the label for each field a link, which will provide contextual help on that item/field?I'd do some user testing to make sure it works, but it makes sense to me that following such a link would lead to information about that field.  The advantage of this would be it reduces the number of elements on the form, and it doesn't repeat the label (eg. "First name", then "Contextual help for First Name").
Daniel NitscheOn 3/14/06, matt andrews <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On 13/03/06, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:> Hi all,>> I'm hoping to get some feedback from people regarding a solution to a
> usability issue. I work for a large organisation and we have very> large/detailed processing required. Because the applications we develop are> very detailed and change dynamically depending upon the current input,
> context sensitive help becomes very important.>> I have quickly thrown together an example of what Im talk about...>> 
http://users.bigpond.net.au/leenath/form/forms-example.htm>> The issue we face is that users are frustrated with having to tab through> the help icons all the time. Users get into the habbit of tabbing twice (to
> go past the help and get to the next input field), but sometimes a help item> wont exist, meaning the user accidentally tabs past the next input feild.> Users say they want the help, because it comes in handy frequently,
> especially as the organisation is so huge and complex that they could never> remember exactly what every input feild is about.>> So, here is what feeback Im looking for - How can we keep context sensitive
> help available for each input feild that requires it but potentially ignore> it in a tabbing sequence? However, help must also be accessible (think about> screen readers) and available via keyboard if they need to select it. It
> seems like a catch 22 to me, but I figure someone out there may see a> solution that I cannot.Seems to me that you're saying the primary problem is tabbing*consistency*.  If so, then I'd suggest ensuring there is a help item
for *every* field.  Surely there's potentially some kind of usefuladvice or clarification for every field?Occam's razor.  The simplest solution is often the best.**
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Re: [WSG] Absolute Positioning-A Naive Question (Maybe)

[Richard Czeiger]

Here's a potentially naive response ... does it matter?

As long as the (x)html is semantically marked up, does the rationale behind 
your css code make a difference (taking into account the fact that it should 
look the same on all browsers)?


The ONLY function of css is the control of the visual treatment of content. 
The use of hacks are an annoyance, but they're only implemented due to the 
failure of browsers to comply with the standards. The various layout options 
are again designed purely to aid you in getting your site to look the way 
you want it to.


Our way around such problems and the method we use to layout pages visually 
is the only thing that counts - if your css is messy or ugly or uses float 
as opposed to absolute position, who cares? The html is clean and semantic 
and the site looks the way you want it to. Isn't that what counts?


Just a thought...
R   ;o)

- Original Message - 
From: "Paula Petrik" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

To: 
Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2006 1:35 PM
Subject: [WSG] Absolute Positioning-A Naive Question (Maybe)


When I read the W3C specs (not the most riveting exercise on the  planet), 
it seems that the developers emphasize absolute positioning.  For example, 
they describe using floats to float small bits of text  or images. It 
seems, however, that floats have become the order of  the day. Rather than 
small bits, whole parts of designs are floated  about. Was this the W3C's 
intent? Or, have floats become the modern  equivalent of tables? Is there 
some reason why absolute positioning  has fallen by the wayside? 
CSS-Discuss's wiki describes absolute  positioning as capable of "simple 
designs"; yet, a significant  proportion of csszengarden designs are 
absolutely positioned, and I  wouldn't term them simple. Just wondering 
what the current wisdom is  on this issue.

Best,
Paula

Paula Petrik
Professor
Department of History & Art History
Associate Director
Center for History & New Media
George Mason University
http://www.archiva.net





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Re: [WSG] Absolute Positioning-A Naive Question (Maybe)

[Philippe Wittenbergh]

On Mar 14, 2006, at 11:35 AM, Paula Petrik wrote:

When I read the W3C specs (not the most riveting exercise on the  
planet), it seems that the developers emphasize absolute  
positioning. For example, they describe using floats to float small  
bits of text or images. It seems, however, that floats have become  
the order of the day. Rather than small bits, whole parts of  
designs are floated about. Was this the W3C's intent? Or, have  
floats become the modern equivalent of tables? Is there some reason  
why absolute positioning has fallen by the wayside? CSS-Discuss's  
wiki describes absolute positioning as capable of "simple designs";  
yet, a significant proportion of csszengarden designs are  
absolutely positioned, and I wouldn't term them simple. Just  
wondering what the current wisdom is on this issue.


You read that correctly, and Felix already pointed you to that  
article by David Baron.
The main reason that 'floats' are so popular in current css driven  
design:  they are currently, and very unfortunately, the best tool  
available for the job of creating multicolumn designs.
Absolute positioning has one problematic side effect: as the height  
of the column is usually unknown (depending on the contents), it is  
more difficult to position an element under that absolute positioned  
element. Not impossible, mind you, with a little help of javascript.
An alternative would be the use of {display:table} and {display:table- 
cell}. But that is not supported by IE, which puts serious limits on  
the technique.


Philippe
---
Philippe Wittenbergh




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Re: [WSG] Usability issue with form help

[matt andrews]

On 13/03/06, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm hoping to get some feedback from people regarding a solution to a
> usability issue. I work for a large organisation and we have very
> large/detailed processing required. Because the applications we develop are
> very detailed and change dynamically depending upon the current input,
> context sensitive help becomes very important.
>
> I have quickly thrown together an example of what Im talk about...
>
> http://users.bigpond.net.au/leenath/form/forms-example.htm
>
> The issue we face is that users are frustrated with having to tab through
> the help icons all the time. Users get into the habbit of tabbing twice (to
> go past the help and get to the next input field), but sometimes a help item
> wont exist, meaning the user accidentally tabs past the next input feild.
> Users say they want the help, because it comes in handy frequently,
> especially as the organisation is so huge and complex that they could never
> remember exactly what every input feild is about.
>
> So, here is what feeback Im looking for - How can we keep context sensitive
> help available for each input feild that requires it but potentially ignore
> it in a tabbing sequence? However, help must also be accessible (think about
> screen readers) and available via keyboard if they need to select it. It
> seems like a catch 22 to me, but I figure someone out there may see a
> solution that I cannot.

Seems to me that you're saying the primary problem is tabbing
*consistency*.  If so, then I'd suggest ensuring there is a help item
for *every* field.  Surely there's potentially some kind of useful
advice or clarification for every field?

Occam's razor.  The simplest solution is often the best.
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[WSG] Tag clouds

[Jude Robinson]

Leaving aside arguments about whether or not tag clouds are the new
mullets (http://www.zeldman.com/daily/0405d.shtml), I've been
pondering how to make one that is accessible, given the questionable
accessibility of most of the ones out there.

Tag clouds suffer from a number of problems, the biggest one being that
they rely on style to provide meaning - shade (or colour) and
font-size are used to provide information about frequency and freshness.
This is obviously *bad* as it does not account for non-CSS user
agents.

There are problems even for users of CSS supporting user agents - whilst 
it is easy to infer some meaning from the size of text (ie: bigger = 
more frequent), it is not easy in this case to infer meaning from a 
change in colour (which equals more fresh: red or blue?)


Wah wah wah. Check out this (very) basic demo (content borrowed from 
http://www.connotea.org/): http://www.dotcode.com/accessible_tag_cloud.html


Presenting it in a table is as far as I'm aware the only accessible way 
to do it, as using the title attribute or enclosing the information in 
the link text itself (then hiding it using CSS) both have serious drawbacks.


Which means there are (surprisingly) problems for IE.

Thoughts? Mild agreement? Sly refutations?

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Re: [WSG] Absolute Positioning-A Naive Question (Maybe)

[Lachlan Hunt]

Paula Petrik wrote:
When I read the W3C specs (not the most riveting exercise on the 
planet), it seems that the developers emphasize absolute positioning. 
For example, they describe using floats to float small bits of text or 
images. It seems, however, that floats have become the order of the day. 
Rather than small bits, whole parts of designs are floated about. Was 
this the W3C's intent?  Or, have floats become the modern equivalent of tables?


http://dbaron.org/log/2005-12#e20051228a

Is there some reason why absolute positioning has fallen by the 
wayside?


There are significant limitations with the use of absolute positioning 
such as the inability to create equal height columns and allow any 
column to have the longest content, which is one of the most common 
abuses of floats.


There are better approaches to layout being developed by the W3C, but 
they're still a very long way off from implementation.


--
Lachlan Hunt
http://lachy.id.au/
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Re: [WSG] Absolute Positioning-A Naive Question (Maybe)

[Todd Baker]

The main reason I dont use absolute positioning for all my layout is
that most of the sites I build require footers at the base of the page
content.

With every page of differing content length the only way to achieve
this is to float and then clear for the footer.

Thats just me. There are wiser brains on this list tho :)



On 14/03/06, Paula Petrik <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> When I read the W3C specs (not the most riveting exercise on the
> planet), it seems that the developers emphasize absolute positioning.
> For example, they describe using floats to float small bits of text
> or images. It seems, however, that floats have become the order of
> the day. Rather than small bits, whole parts of designs are floated
> about. Was this the W3C's intent? Or, have floats become the modern
> equivalent of tables? Is there some reason why absolute positioning
> has fallen by the wayside? CSS-Discuss's wiki describes absolute
> positioning as capable of "simple designs"; yet, a significant
> proportion of csszengarden designs are absolutely positioned, and I
> wouldn't term them simple. Just wondering what the current wisdom is
> on this issue.
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Re: [WSG] Absolute Positioning-A Naive Question (Maybe)

[Felix Miata]

On 06/03/13 21:35 Paula Petrik apparently typed:

When I read the W3C specs (not the most riveting exercise on the 
planet), it seems that the developers emphasize absolute positioning. 
For example, they describe using floats to float small bits of text or 
images. It seems, however, that floats have become the order of the day. 
Rather than small bits, whole parts of designs are floated about. Was 
this the W3C's intent? Or, have floats become the modern equivalent of 
tables? Is there some reason why absolute positioning has fallen by the 
wayside? CSS-Discuss's wiki describes absolute positioning as capable of 
"simple designs"; yet, a significant proportion of csszengarden designs 
are absolutely positioned, and I wouldn't term them simple. Just 
wondering what the current wisdom is on this issue.


The author here is the lead layout developer in the Mozilla project: 
http://dbaron.org/log/2005-12#e20051228a

--
"Blessed are they whose ways are blameless, who walk according
to the law of the Lord."   Psalm 119:11 NIV

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409

Felix Miata  ***  http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/auth/auth
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[WSG] Absolute Positioning-A Naive Question (Maybe)

[Paula Petrik]

When I read the W3C specs (not the most riveting exercise on the  
planet), it seems that the developers emphasize absolute positioning.  
For example, they describe using floats to float small bits of text  
or images. It seems, however, that floats have become the order of  
the day. Rather than small bits, whole parts of designs are floated  
about. Was this the W3C's intent? Or, have floats become the modern  
equivalent of tables? Is there some reason why absolute positioning  
has fallen by the wayside? CSS-Discuss's wiki describes absolute  
positioning as capable of "simple designs"; yet, a significant  
proportion of csszengarden designs are absolutely positioned, and I  
wouldn't term them simple. Just wondering what the current wisdom is  
on this issue.

Best,
Paula

Paula Petrik
Professor
Department of History & Art History
Associate Director
Center for History & New Media
George Mason University
http://www.archiva.net





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Re: [WSG] help with page...

[Todd Gleaton]

Well it's a little hard to explain but I'll try.  Inside 
this tag  I have a couple of Nav Studio 
Menus.  It is making my page have an unnecessary horizontal scroll bar 
at the bottom.  I was hoping someone with fresh eyes could take a look and 
see if they spot the reason for this.  Everything between...
 

 
and
 

 
Thankstg
 
 
 
 

  - Original Message - 
  From: 
  Paul 
  Bennett 
  To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org 
  Sent: Monday, March 13, 2006 8:27 
PM
  Subject: RE: [WSG] help with 
page...
  Well, as this is a standards list, the first thing people will 
  do is to validate your code and CSS :) Aside from that, can you be 
  more specific bout the error you're getting? I've had a look on Firefox and 
  IE6 and don't get any scrolling issues caused by the navigation.Paul 
  -Original Message-From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
  [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]Sent: 
  Tuesday, March 14, 2006 2:06 PMTo: wsg@webstandardsgroup.orgSubject: 
  [WSG] help with page...I have a question.  I am using Navstudio 
  for menus and I am having aproblem with it overflowing and making me have 
  a scroll at the bottom.  Cananyone take a look and see what my 
  problem might be.  I'll go ahead and sayit now, but it is not up to 
  standards, it is still in the 
  beginning. Thankstg  http://www.seaycointegrators.com/kelly/test/lollypop.htmlmail2web 
  - Check your email from the web athttp://mail2web.com/ 
  .**The 
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RE: [WSG] help with page...

[Paul Bennett]

Well, as this is a standards list, the first thing people will do is to 
validate your code and CSS :) 

Aside from that, can you be more specific bout the error you're getting? I've 
had a look on Firefox and IE6 and don't get any scrolling issues caused by the 
navigation.

Paul 

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2006 2:06 PM
To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org
Subject: [WSG] help with page...

I have a question.  I am using Navstudio for menus and I am having a
problem with it overflowing and making me have a scroll at the bottom.  Can
anyone take a look and see what my problem might be.  I'll go ahead and say
it now, but it is not up to standards, it is still in the beginning.
 
Thankstg
 
 
http://www.seaycointegrators.com/kelly/test/lollypop.html


mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .


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[WSG] help with page...

[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]

I have a question.  I am using Navstudio for menus and I am having a
problem with it overflowing and making me have a scroll at the bottom.  Can
anyone take a look and see what my problem might be.  I'll go ahead and say
it now, but it is not up to standards, it is still in the beginning.
 
Thankstg
 
 
http://www.seaycointegrators.com/kelly/test/lollypop.html


mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .


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Re: [WSG] Re: uppercase CSS and XHTML

[Lachlan Hunt]

Designer wrote:

Lachlan Hunt wrote:

Designer wrote:
Incidentally, I would be interested in any browsers you know which won't 
support application/xhtml+xml, apart from IE of course.


http://www.w3.org/People/mimasa/test/xhtml/media-types/results

Thanks, Lachlan. I studied the list, and the only failing browsers I saw were 
Opera prior to v7.10 (in some versions the type selector in style sheets matched 
case-insensitively) Amaya (well surely Amaya users are the type to upgrade to 
later versions, which are OK) and iCAB, the latter's only problem being the 
style sheet case mentioned above.


So, as far as I can see, if you have all your style sheets in lower case, the 
only problem is IE. If so, the selective feeding to IE should be fine.  Does 
anyone know why this wouldn't be the case?  If not, is this a new 'hack'?


No, because of the case sensitivity bug several browsers have 
(especially iCab) and the other reasons I mentioned before regarding 
browser Accept headers which would result in those browsers receiving 
HTML, not XHTML, and that would include users that have modified their 
browser's Accept header.  A browser's Accept header and its support for 
XHTML cannot be used as an indication of its CSS abilities.


In Firefox, this can be set with the pref network.http.accept.default 
and some users may have modified it to prefer HTML because of its 
inability to incrementally render XHTML.


iCab's accept header by default contains this:
  text/html;q=0.9,application/xhtml+xml;q=0.7

Safari's accept header contains just */*.  If you were using Apache 
Multiviews (which selects files based on the file extension and chooses 
the files alphabetically in the event that checking all other criteria 
didn't result in a single preference) then the .html file would be 
chosen over the .xhtml file.  Simply changing the file extensions to put 
the XHTML file alphabetically before HTML is not an option because then 
IE users would also receive the XHTML file.


Also keep in mind that that list is not a complete list of every 
browser, there may be others that don't support XHTML, do support 
stylesheets and are still in use by some people.


--
Lachlan Hunt
http://lachy.id.au/

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Re: [WSG] Standards compliant slideshow

[Jon Tan]

Darren West wrote:

Hello,

Can anyone please recommend a standards compliant slideshow script
that uses a list of images within the HTML markup to dynamically
create the show.
  
Slightly self-promoting but try http://scooch.gr0w.com . The current 
demo is woefully out of date already with a lot of work being done now 
around extra functionality but the core slide show features will 
persist. Please feel free to try it and let us know what you think. 
There's a free for personal use download coming shortly.


All the best, Jon
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Re: [WSG] Usability issue with form help

[leenath1]

Thanks for your replies to date. To give you a deeper understanding of the 
situation:


- despite quite skilled users, double tabbing hundreds and hundreds of times 
a day is seen as a efficiency issue too (x 5days x 45weeks)
- the sample form 
(http://users.bigpond.net.au/leenath/form/forms-example.htm) is nothing like 
our applications (obviously in real life first name, last name etc. would 
not require any help). They are complex! It's the nature of our business. 
Therefore, despite a very clear label, users often need to be reminded of 
the type of data that is required in a response. Sometimes policy and 
legislation requirements are included in the help, making them lengthy at 
times (so samples of input or "always there" help information/tips is not 
appropriate).


Thanks for your replies to date. I'll go through them all in more detail 
tonight.


---
ORIGINAL MESSAGE:

Hi all,

I'm hoping to get some feedback from people regarding a solution to a
usability issue. I work for a large organisation and we have very
large/detailed processing required. Because the applications we develop are
very detailed and change dynamically depending upon the current input,
context sensitive help becomes very important.

I have quickly thrown together an example of what Im talk about...

http://users.bigpond.net.au/leenath/form/forms-example.htm

The issue we face is that users are frustrated with having to tab through
the help icons all the time. Users get into the habbit of tabbing twice (to
go past the help and get to the next input field), but sometimes a help item
wont exist, meaning the user accidentally tabs past the next input feild.
Users say they want the help, because it comes in handy frequently,
especially as the organisation is so huge and complex that they could never
remember exactly what every input feild is about.

So, here is what feeback Im looking for - How can we keep context sensitive
help available for each input feild that requires it but potentially ignore
it in a tabbing sequence? However, help must also be accessible (think about
screen readers) and available via keyboard if they need to select it. It
seems like a catch 22 to me, but I figure someone out there may see a
solution that I cannot.

I look forward to your feedback/ideas.

Cheers

Nathan


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Re: [WSG] Usability issue with form help

[Micky Mourelo]

Maybe I'm missing your point, but using the tabindex attribute does not
solve your problem?, You can set the tabindex to cycle trough the
inputs and then continue with the help links. It is a totally
accessible method; a bit uncomfortable (to have to pass through all the
input fields to get to the help links, but the links are reachable)

Accesskeys are not good here because they would launch the help instead of focusing it.

Or you could show the help information on focus, either via css (not on
ie) or _javascript_, which would be a lot more informative as everyone
knows how to fill their last name, but if you put a question mark next
to the input field it will make them wonder if they have to fill their
last name in an unfrequent fashion.

BTW: Your example has a  repeated and you should put the meta before the title. 

Re:[WSG] Usability issue with form help

[Dennis Lapcewich]

Return Receipt
   
   Your   Re:[WSG] Usability issue with form help  
   document:   
   
   wasDennis Lapcewich/R6/USDAFS   
   received
   by: 
   
   at:03/13/2006 08:09:41  
   




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Re: [WSG] Standards compliant slideshow

[Darren West]

Thats cool, thanks all, although I think I may have miss explained
myself - will simplify with links :)

Basically I am trying to setup pagination - here are the pages:

http://ta.rt-ms.net/teamengine/property.html
http://ta.rt-ms.net/teamengine/assets/js/media.js

And is the markup:


 Photos
 Image 1 of 10
 
  Previous Image
  Next Image
 
 
 Click to replace image above
 
  
  
  
  
  
  
 
 Back to top


I want to use an unobtrusive method utilising the next and previous
IDs to page the anchors href attribute.

Thanks again all, any ideas would be very welcome.

Daz

On 13/03/06, Peter Goddard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Try Eric Meyer's solution
>
> http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/s5/
>
> Need I say More?
>
> Peter
>
> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Richard Stephenson
> Sent: 13 March 2006 15:01
> To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org
> Subject: Re: [WSG] Standards compliant slideshow
>
> > Can anyone please recommend a standards compliant slideshow script
> > that uses a list of images within the HTML markup to dynamically
> > create the show.
>
> http://slayeroffice.com/code/imageCrossFade/xfade2.html
>
> --
> DonkeyMagic: Website design & development http://www.donkeymagic.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/
>
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>
>
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RE: [WSG] Standards compliant slideshow

[Peter Goddard]

Try Eric Meyer's solution 

http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/s5/

Need I say More?

Peter 

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Richard Stephenson
Sent: 13 March 2006 15:01
To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org
Subject: Re: [WSG] Standards compliant slideshow

> Can anyone please recommend a standards compliant slideshow script 
> that uses a list of images within the HTML markup to dynamically 
> create the show.

http://slayeroffice.com/code/imageCrossFade/xfade2.html

--
DonkeyMagic: Website design & development http://www.donkeymagic.co.uk
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Re: [WSG] Re: uppercase CSS and XHTML

[Designer]

Lachlan Hunt wrote:
Designer
wrote:
  
  Incidentally, I would be interested in any
browsers you know which won't support application/xhtml+xml, apart from
IE of course.

  
  
http://www.w3.org/People/mimasa/test/xhtml/media-types/results
  
  

Thanks, Lachlan. I studied the list, and the only
failing browsers I saw were Opera prior to v7.10 (in some versions the
type selector in style sheets matched case-insensitively) Amaya (well
surely Amaya users are the type to upgrade to later versions, which are
OK) and iCAB, the latter's only problem being the style sheet case
mentioned above.

So, as far as I can see, if you have all your style sheets in lower
case, the only problem is IE. If so, the selective feeding to IE should
be fine.  Does anyone know why this wouldn't be the case?  If not, is
this a new 'hack'?

-- 
Best Regards,

Bob McClelland

Cornwall (UK)
www.gwelanmor-internet.co.uk



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Re: [WSG] Standards compliant slideshow

[Richard Stephenson]

> Can anyone please recommend a standards compliant slideshow script that
> uses a list of images within the HTML markup to dynamically
> create the show.

http://slayeroffice.com/code/imageCrossFade/xfade2.html

--
DonkeyMagic: Website design & development
http://www.donkeymagic.co.uk
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Re: [WSG] Usability issue with form help

[Joseph R. B. Taylor]

Keep in mind too, that most "tabbers" are familiar with "shift + tab" as 
well for navigating backwards.


Should we assume that keyboard navigators can competently do this, or is 
that giving too much of an assumption?


Joseph R. B. Taylor
Sites by Joe, LLC
http://sitesbyjoe.com
(609)335-3076
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Terrence Wood wrote:


On 14 Mar 2006, at 12:32 AM, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

How can we keep context sensitive help available for each input feild 
that requires it but potentially ignore it in a tabbing sequence?


Most of the items look reasonably self explanatory. I can't imagine why 
anyone would need help with title, first name, last name for example (I 
know the from is a sample ;-) ).


A few quick random ideas:

(1) en/disable help for the entire form with one click. Load help with 
ajax (since the help buttons are js), or reload the form.
(2) Create concise help that fits within the label e.g. card number (as 
it appears on your card), postcode (1234). Use spans to position it on 
the other side of the input if need be.
(3) Have looser requirements - do more processing server side so you 
don't have to specify formatting e.g. accept spaces, dashes, or not in 
credit card numbers.
(4) Improve consistency - provide help for every item so that 2 tabs 
always gets the next field.
(5) Use better labels that are descriptive and clear in themselves and 
don't require help.

(6) Provide help after the form that is always visible.
(7) provide a help key via js on a character you know won't be entered 
e.g.~
(8) Group items on your form better and provide a narrative paragraph 
for each fieldset.


kind regards
Terrence Wood.

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Re: [WSG] Standards compliant slideshow

[CHEN Benfeng]

Hi,

Maybe you could take a look at "HTML Sildy"
(www.w3.org/2005/03/slideshow.html )?

-Ben

> Hello,
>
> Can anyone please recommend a standards compliant slideshow script that
> uses a list of images within the HTML markup to dynamically
> create the show.
>
> Thanks
>
> Daz
> **
> The discussion list for  http://webstandardsgroup.org/
>
>  See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
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[WSG] Standards compliant slideshow

[Darren West]

Hello,

Can anyone please recommend a standards compliant slideshow script
that uses a list of images within the HTML markup to dynamically
create the show.

Thanks

Daz
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Re:[WSG] Usability issue with form help

[McIvor Lee]

Hi Nathan,

First of all I don't see any reason why the Help icons need to be in the tab
order. You could set a more appropriate tab order in the markup that skips the
Help icons, whilst still providing other methods of accessing the help text.

For example, you could use a server-side scripting language to activate a
link/button at the top of the form. This link/button could be used to display
some or all of the context sensitive help as and when required. Although users
might have to skip through this option to get to the form, they only do it once,
and shouldn't have problems missing out the form fields. I can only see this
being a problem if this is a form that's filled in repeatedly and rapidly by
skilled users.

In terms of accessibility, the best thing would be to test these alternatives
out with a screen-reader or two to see how they'd handle them.

Regards

Lee

[EMAIL PROTECTED]



[EMAIL PROTECTED]  (13/03/2006  11:32):
>Hi all,
>
>I'm hoping to get some feedback from people regarding a solution to a
>usability issue. I work for a large organisation and we have very
>large/detailed processing required. Because the applications we develop are
>very detailed and change dynamically depending upon the current input,
>context sensitive help becomes very important.
>
>I have quickly thrown together an example of what Im talk about...
>
>http://users.bigpond.net.au/leenath/form/forms-example.htm
>
>The issue we face is that users are frustrated with having to tab through
>the help icons all the time. Users get into the habbit of tabbing twice (to
>go past the help and get to the next input field), but sometimes a help item
>wont exist, meaning the user accidentally tabs past the next input feild.
>Users say they want the help, because it comes in handy frequently,
>especially as the organisation is so huge and complex that they could never
>remember exactly what every input feild is about.
>
>So, here is what feeback Im looking for - How can we keep context sensitive
>help available for each input feild that requires it but potentially ignore
>it in a tabbing sequence? However, help must also be accessible (think about
>screen readers) and available via keyboard if they need to select it. It
>seems like a catch 22 to me, but I figure someone out there may see a
>solution that I cannot.
>
>I look forward to your feedback/ideas.
>
>Cheers
>
>Nathan
>
>
>**
>The discussion list for  http://webstandardsgroup.org/
>
> See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
> for some hints on posting to the list & getting help
>**
>




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Re: [WSG] Re: uppercase CSS and XHTML

[Lachlan Hunt]

Designer wrote:
Incidentally, I would be interested in any browsers you know which won't 
support application/xhtml+xml, apart from IE of course.


http://www.w3.org/People/mimasa/test/xhtml/media-types/results

--
Lachlan Hunt
http://lachy.id.au/

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Re: [WSG] Usability issue with form help

[Terrence Wood]

On 14 Mar 2006, at 12:32 AM, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

How can we keep context sensitive help available for each input feild 
that requires it but potentially ignore it in a tabbing sequence?
Most of the items look reasonably self explanatory. I can't imagine why 
anyone would need help with title, first name, last name for example (I 
know the from is a sample ;-) ).


A few quick random ideas:

(1) en/disable help for the entire form with one click. Load help with 
ajax (since the help buttons are js), or reload the form.
(2) Create concise help that fits within the label e.g. card number (as 
it appears on your card), postcode (1234). Use spans to position it on 
the other side of the input if need be.
(3) Have looser requirements - do more processing server side so you 
don't have to specify formatting e.g. accept spaces, dashes, or not in 
credit card numbers.
(4) Improve consistency - provide help for every item so that 2 tabs 
always gets the next field.
(5) Use better labels that are descriptive and clear in themselves and 
don't require help.

(6) Provide help after the form that is always visible.
(7) provide a help key via js on a character you know won't be entered 
e.g.~
(8) Group items on your form better and provide a narrative paragraph 
for each fieldset.


kind regards
Terrence Wood.

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Re: [WSG] Re: uppercase CSS and XHTML

[Designer]

Jason Turnbull wrote:

Try changing the last style too DIV#container
  


Yup!  Works fine now.  Thanks (to both) for the clarification.

http://www.rhh.myzen.co.uk/rhh/gam/altgam/standards.php

Incidentally, I would be interested in any browsers you know which won't 
support application/xhtml+xml, apart from IE of course.  Or, more to the 
point, any that are (or could be) really relevant?

Many thanks

Best Regards,

Bob McClelland

Cornwall (UK)
www.gwelanmor-internet.co.uk


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RE: [WSG] Re: uppercase CSS and XHTML

[Jason Turnbull]

Lachlan Hunt wrote:
> > No, it will not work under XHTML at all.  The DOCTYPE is irrelevant,
> > XHTML is case sensitive and uppercase element selectors will not match
> > anything in XHTML.  It will only work for text/html.

Designer wrote:
> OH Dear, I'm getting confused again!
> 
> When I read the above, I thought "ah - here's a fine way to feed IE only
> stuff perhaps", so I did a simple experiment using the php generated
> headers trick mentioned by joshua [2].  I put the CSS as:
> 
> 
> #container {width : 400px; margin : 0 auto;}
> #content {padding : 25px}
> #CONTAINER {WIDTH : 700PX;}
> 

Notice Lachlan was referring uppercase *element* selectors (or type
selectors in his previous post)

Try changing the last style too DIV#container

Regards
Jason


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Re: [WSG] Re: uppercase CSS and XHTML

[Lachlan Hunt]

Designer wrote:

Lachlan Hunt wrote:
No, it will not work under XHTML at all.  The DOCTYPE is irrelevant, 
XHTML is case sensitive and uppercase element selectors will not match 
anything in XHTML.  It will only work for text/html.


OH Dear, I'm getting confused again!

When I read the above, I thought "ah - here's a fine way to feed IE only 
stuff perhaps",


That's a bad idea because IE is not the only browser that doesn't 
support application/xhtml+xml and some browsers actually prefer 
text/html according to their Accept headers.  So if your content 
negotiation was done correctly, such browsers would also get the 
text/html variant and, thus, your IE only styles.


so I did a simple experiment using the php generated 
headers trick mentioned by joshua [2].  I put the CSS as:



#container {width : 400px; margin : 0 auto;}
#content {padding : 25px}
#CONTAINER {WIDTH : 700PX;}



Those are ID selectors, not type (or element) selectors.  See my 
previous post for a discussion of why that doesn't match.


If you did want to use this technique, though I don't recommend it, you 
could use this instead:


#container { /* (X)HTML styles */ }
HTML #container { /* text/html only styles */ }

Note: that won't work if your non-conformant XHTML root element is:

http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml";>
  ...


--
Lachlan Hunt
http://lachy.id.au/

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Re: [WSG] Re: uppercase CSS and XHTML

[Designer]

Lachlan Hunt wrote:
No, it will not work under XHTML at all.  The DOCTYPE is irrelevant, 
XHTML is case sensitive and uppercase element selectors will not match 
anything in XHTML.  It will only work for text/html.



OH Dear, I'm getting confused again!

When I read the above, I thought "ah - here's a fine way to feed IE only 
stuff perhaps", so I did a simple experiment using the php generated 
headers trick mentioned by joshua [2].  I put the CSS as:



#container {width : 400px; margin : 0 auto;}
#content {padding : 25px}
#CONTAINER {WIDTH : 700PX;}


thinking that browsers with the correct mimetype would ignore the second 
(uppercase) container line, whereas IE (since it serves as text/html) 
would use the last line and over-ride the earlier 400px statement.  So I 
browsed it in firefox, it validates and says it's the correct mimetype, 
and ignores the last line. Great!  However, when I browsed it in IE6 it 
correctly served html4.01 - but still ignored the last line!


What am I doing wrong?  The file can be seen at [1]


[1]   http://www.rhh.myzen.co.uk/rhh/gam/altgam/standards.php

[2]   http://www.workingwith.me.uk/articles/scripting/mimetypes

--
Best Regards,

Bob McClelland

Cornwall (UK)
www.gwelanmor-internet.co.uk


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[WSG] Usability issue with form help

[leenath1]

Hi all,

I'm hoping to get some feedback from people regarding a solution to a 
usability issue. I work for a large organisation and we have very 
large/detailed processing required. Because the applications we develop are 
very detailed and change dynamically depending upon the current input, 
context sensitive help becomes very important.


I have quickly thrown together an example of what Im talk about...

http://users.bigpond.net.au/leenath/form/forms-example.htm

The issue we face is that users are frustrated with having to tab through 
the help icons all the time. Users get into the habbit of tabbing twice (to 
go past the help and get to the next input field), but sometimes a help item 
wont exist, meaning the user accidentally tabs past the next input feild. 
Users say they want the help, because it comes in handy frequently, 
especially as the organisation is so huge and complex that they could never 
remember exactly what every input feild is about.


So, here is what feeback Im looking for - How can we keep context sensitive 
help available for each input feild that requires it but potentially ignore 
it in a tabbing sequence? However, help must also be accessible (think about 
screen readers) and available via keyboard if they need to select it. It 
seems like a catch 22 to me, but I figure someone out there may see a 
solution that I cannot.


I look forward to your feedback/ideas.

Cheers

Nathan 



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Re: [WSG] CAPS in stylesheets

[Lachlan Hunt]

Jason Turnbull wrote:

I was a bit unsure too as I thought the term 'selectors' in style sheets
referred too all tags, ids & classes,


Selectors are patterns that match against elements in a tree.  They 
include the universal selector, type selectors, class selectors, ID 
selectors, attribute selectors, pseudo-classes and pseudo-elements



talking about uppercase tags in CSS (h1, p ect)


They are not "tags", they are *type selectors* which match an element 
based on its type (or tag name).



From what I tested and according the link Philippe posted uppercase
identifiers are ok


Yes and no.  It is perfectly acceptable to write type selectors, ID 
selectors and class selectors, etc. in upper case; but whether or not 
they match anything in the document depends on the case sensitivity of 
the markup language.


Thus, all of the following are valid selectors:

P /* Matches an element of type P */
.FOO  /* Matches an element whose class is "FOO" */
#BAR  /* Matches an element whose ID is "BAR" */

In an HTML document, tag names are case insensitive and so P will match 
either of the following; whereas in XHTML, tag names are case sensitive 
and so will only match the element with the upper case tag name:

  
  

However, all elements in XHTML are defined as lower case and so the 
uppercase  is an undefined element.  Thus if a document included the 
uppercase tag-name, the document would be invalid but the uppercase type 
selector would still match it.


According to the HTML4 Recommendation and browser implementations (but, 
technically, not according to the rules specified by SGML and expressed 
in DTD) id attribute values are case sensitive and since XHTML is all 
case sensitive, #BAR will match:

  
but it will not match:
  

Class attribute values are also case sensitive in both HTML and XHTML 
and so .FOO will match:

  
but it will not match:
  

--
Lachlan Hunt
http://lachy.id.au/

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Re: [WSG] (Opera) CSS print style problem with image

[郑玉萍]

On Mar 12, 2006, at 8:56 PM, Philippe Wittenbergh wrote:



A solution is to move your image of screen for screen display (like  
img {position:absolute; left: -1px}) instead of using  
{display:none}.

I once posted an article about this:



Philippe, thank you so much for the cure. The image prints now. It's  
been over two years since you wrote the article, so Opera isn't  
considered this a bug?


Greatly appreciated!

tee


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RE: [WSG] CAPS in stylesheets

[Jason Turnbull]

> John Wells wrote:
> Can we get a summary of this CAPS lesson?  Are we saying that:
> 
> - ONLY when serving XHTML as application/xhtml+xml, stylesheet
> selectors must be all lowercase.
> 
> Having said that, I'm a bit confused.

I was a bit unsure too as I thought the term 'selectors' in style sheets
referred too all tags, ids & classes, but obviously this thread is only
talking about uppercase tags in CSS (h1, p ect) which are invalid in the
XHTML markup anyway ...

>From what I tested and according the link Philippe posted uppercase
identifiers are ok

Please correct me if I'm wrong

Regards
Jason


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[WSG] Re: innerHTML

[Lachlan Hunt]

Joshua Street wrote:

On 3/13/06, Lachlan Hunt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Joshua Street wrote:

any elements in the inserted content _aren't_ created as
elements, and hence cannot be manipulated at all.


Um... What the?  Of course they are created as elements,


They're "created", but, as I understood it, doesn't exist as part of
the document tree. (Which generally isn't any great problem if you've
decided to use innerHTML anyway!) That is, you can't use the DOM
methods to manipulate the nodes within that innerHTML fragment, even
if you've put IDs into the rendered source.


Sure you can, there's no reason why one shouldn't be able to.


Testing innerHTML



var foo = document.getElementById("foo");
foo.innerHTML = "<\/em>";
var bar = document.getElementById("bar");
bar.appendChild(document.createTextNode("PASS"));


There may be bugs that prevent some things from working correctly, but 
such things are just bugs, not restrictions on the feature itself.


--
Lachlan Hunt
http://lachy.id.au/

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