RE: [WSG] semantic list with explanations
The desire for semantic purity is only one of many factors when deciding how to mark up a page. Other factors include (but are not limited to) UA support, the user experience, the time available to implement the design and the expected life of the website. I would expect a professional designer to balance these appropriately, taking into account the best interests of their customer. The ability to find the appropriate balance is what sets professional apart from hobbyists. It's easy to go to one extreme - it saves you having to think. Anyone can write semantically perfect code that validates if they don't care how long it takes, what the user experience is like and what it looks like in browsers that are not standards-compliant. If you're designing your own site and you're on a mission to embarrass UA vendors into making a better product then go right ahead. But if you're designing websites for real people to use with real user agents, you're doing them a disservice. If you're being paid for that design I would say you have no right to follow your personal preferences rather than make a professional judgement, unless your customer has given informed consent. The average life of a website is only a couple of years before it gets redesigned or scrapped. Designing for non-existent user agents is therefore futile because there's little likelihood they will come into existence within the life of such a site. To then make compromises that are to the detriment of existing user agents is absurd. Steve -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Thierry Koblentz Sent: 09 January 2008 06:58 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: RE: [WSG] semantic list with explanations Absolutely it is. I'm rather surprised at how badly they handle DLs, but almost zero percent of web developers use them even now (remember that standards-compliant designers represent perhaps 1% of the industry). Go back just a few years and no one at all was using them. Is it not also the responsibility of designers to design for the user agents that actually exist rather than utopian user agents that do not exist? After all, the WCAG make several references to Until user agents... which explicitly acknowledges that user agents don't yet have all the functionality that users need. In fact they never will because expectations will change over time. In another document that I can't currently find, the W3C state that it is necessary for designers, user agent vendors and the standards themselves to all move together. There's no use one of these going off in their own direction at their own pace. It's never going to be possible for all of them to be exactly in sync but that's what we need to aim for while making progress in an agreed direction. I don't think that using headings in this example is cheating at all. It's perfectly valid as other people have suggested. IMHO, the markup you suggested would be valid *only* if this succession of name/value pairs was *not* considered as a list. If it is a list, then the only proper markup is a list (imho). Remember that the purpose of semantics is to convey information effectively. There is no point in using them if they do not achieve that goal. If you care about the users you will provide semantics that 'are' useful to them, not semantics that 'should' be useful. I think a DL is the element that would convey the information the more effectively. And I guess that's why most of the posters who replied to the OP before you did, told him to use a definition lists. Because for all these posters it is the element they think would be the most semantic in regard to that content; best proof (imho) that it should be the markup of choice. Could you stand in front of your customer a justify your viewpoint to them? I don't suppose they would be terribly impressed because they want the best user experience for their customers. How can you intentionally deny them that? The same way I tell them we should not use table for layout to please people using old browsers. To me, it makes absolutely no difference. I think there should be no double standards when it comes to UAs. If you think it is important to not really follow the rules by using headings/paragraphs instead of a DL to give SR users a better experience then let's say bravo to table markup used for layout when it is done to increase user experience! -- Regards, Thierry | http://www.TJKDesign.com *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe:
Re: [WSG] Float-less layouts
Thierry Koblentz wrote: You're saying that a wrapper is needed to enclose all other elements in a document to give it more meaning? No I'm not. Point out to me where I'm saying that. And I'm tired of your lengthy metaphysical argument about meaning. Have fun turning the world into lists. As I said on GAWDS, why not turns sentences into ordered lists of words, and words into ordered lists of letters, next? Surely that would carry more meaning, no? *rolls eyes* P -- Patrick H. Lauke __ re·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively [latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.] www.splintered.co.uk | www.photographia.co.uk http://redux.deviantart.com __ Co-lead, Web Standards Project (WaSP) Accessibility Task Force http://webstandards.org/ __ Take it to the streets ... join the WaSP Street Team http://streetteam.webstandards.org/ __ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Force landscape on a print style sheet?
wsg wrote:
I'm doing a print style sheet for a reporting system, and I'm trying
to figure out if it's possible to force a printer to print in
landscape orientation using CSS
Yes, there is something like that in CSS. The W3C have something called
Paged Media, see [1]. You could print in landscape just by adding the
following clause to the print style sheet:
@page {size: landscape;}
However, sadly browser support is still lacking. The above does not work
in Firefox, IE or Safari. Only Opera seems to like it.
[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/page.html
Ca Phun Ung
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Re: [WSG] Acronym element
the abbr and acronym elements have extra value in the fact that a screen reader will say out each letter opposed to trying to pronounce the word. so I would recommend if you have control over the content that use use them every time you need (the title doesn't have to be used each time though) - Original Message From: John Faulds [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Sent: Wednesday, 9 January, 2008 4:54:22 AM Subject: Re: [WSG] Acronym element e.g. Web Standards Group (WSG) the WSG wouldn't benefit from the acronym element. No, I believe you only then need to use the acronym or abbr tag for the first instance of it following where it appears in brackets on any one page (ie at the start of a new page, you'd expand the acronym/abbreviation again). -- Regards John --- Tyssen Design www.tyssendesign.com.au Ph: (07) 3300 3303 Mb: 0405 678 590 *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** __ Sent from Yahoo! Mail - a smarter inbox http://uk.mail.yahoo.com *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Float-less layouts
On Jan 8, 2008, at 3:30 PM, Patrick H. Lauke wrote: Why would we need to group containers together if it is not for styling purpose? Because we're saying that anything in the container belongs together (thematically, content-wise, logically, etc). On Jan 8, 2008, at 7:56 PM, Thierry Koblentz wrote: Does it prove that DIVs carry more semantics? I'm wondering if the pursuit of semantics might sometimes be taken to unreasonable extremes? Must everything that is contained in the marked-up document contain some semantic value? Must anything that does not have an inherent semantic value be excluded? Surely not. If an element is semantically neutral (as DIV) then it necessarily has no impact on the semantic value of the content contained within. My understanding is that the whole argument against using tables for structure is that that use distorts the semantics of the table's content. I hope this analogy is not too far-fetched, but I don't think anyone would argue that a page or a column is not a semantically neutral container of content in a book, still less that pages should be dispensed with as they don't have any semantic value! Anyone (except perhaps the occasional Kerouac purist...) want to go back to reading scrolls? Parts, chapters, sections, paragraphs, sentences, clauses and individual words (and let's remember that the introduction of the humble space between words was once a revolutionary innovation), even the use of different fonts to represent different voices, are all divisions of content that add something semantically. But the individual page or column is entirely neutral - different editions of a book may have very different page numbers, but it's generally agreed that they are in fact the same book. Also, many books contain empty pages by necessity as part of the binding process - it's laughable to imagine a movement calling for empty pages to be excluded on the grounds that they don't have any meaning. So perhaps it's not too unreasonable to carry the analogy forward and suggest that book is equivalent to website, part is equivalent to site area, chapter is equivalent to web page and page or column is equivalent to DIV? Which would allow for the continued use of P, OL/UL, DL, and the dread TABLE (let's not bring I/EM and B/STRONG into it!) to support their intended semantic roles. None of which, by the way, Thierry, is intended to detract from the skill and ingenuity of your IMPRESSIVE demonstration. Andrew http://www.andrewmaben.net [EMAIL PROTECTED] In a well designed user interface, the user should not need instructions. *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
[WSG] standards-compliant designers
On Jan 9, 2008, at 12:58 AM, Steve Green wrote: standards-compliant designers represent perhaps 1% of the industry is this really the figure - any sources? very depressing - and doesn't help those in a similar position to mine - The Florida Library Association (of which our director was president at the time) drew up guidelines calling for standards/508 compliant library web sites. But when I put forward the suggestion that our site should adhere to the guidelines: Oh, I think people make too much of accessibility... La lutte continue! Andrew http://www.andrewmaben.net [EMAIL PROTECTED] In a well designed user interface, the user should not need instructions. *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
[WSG] SemanticCamp London
Hello Web Standards Group, I don't contribute to this list as much as I should do. But, I wanted to let you all know about an event that I am co-organising. It is SemanticCamp London. Its a BarCamp style event for people who use or are just interested in Semantic Web technology and meaningful data on the web. It will be at Imperial College, London, UK on the 16th and 17th February 2008. If you wish to turn up it is important that you sign-up as soon as you can (space is very limited, and there is a lot of interest). Sign-up can be done at this website: http://semanticcamp.tommorris.org/ Many thanks, Daniel Lewis * Technology Evangelist at OpenLink Software * Personal Blog: http://vanirsystems.com/danielsblog/ * OpenLink Software: http://www.openlinksw.com/ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] standards-compliant designers
On Jan 9, 2008 2:01 PM, Andrew Maben [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: standards-compliant designers represent perhaps 1% of the industry is this really the figure - any sources? It's impossible to say, unless you draw a line in the sand and define what qualifies someone to call themselves a 'web designer'. Does it have to be your job title? Your business? Do you have to be paid for it? Our industry includes everyone from Zeldman to the marketing department struggling with a CMS to back-bedroom solo web agencies to the neighbour's kid with a copy of FrontPage. -- - Matthew *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Acronym element
On 1/9/08, Ross Bruniges [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: so I would recommend if you have control over the content that use use them every time you need (the title doesn't have to be used each time though) cynthia says that each use needs a title for priority 3 validation. i have just dealt with this on my site. dwain btw, how do you get rid of the dotted underline on each abreviation? i tried styling the abbr with text-decoration:none and the underline is still there. any ideas? - -- dwain alford The artist may use any form which his expression demands; for his inner impulse must find suitable expression. Kandinsky *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] semantic list with explanations
On Wed, 09 Jan 2008 18:13:13 +1100, Chris Knowles wrote: because thats a different issue. Its an issue of the user not upgrading to software thats available and thats better. ... Just one niggle here. The user might well be using a computer at work, school, a library, or an Internet café. What chance do these millions have of upgrading? It *is* possible to conform to web standards *and* to write code that is accessible to a wide audience, as a great deal of Thierry's writing makes abundantly clear. As an example, I work for a school district that still inflicts Netscape 4 on its children. A clean, semantically marked-up plain HTML page with little or no styling should work fine for them, I hope. Cordially, David -- *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Acronym element
border:none 2008/1/9, dwain [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On 1/9/08, Ross Bruniges [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: so I would recommend if you have control over the content that use use them every time you need (the title doesn't have to be used each time though) cynthia says that each use needs a title for priority 3 validation. i have just dealt with this on my site. dwain btw, how do you get rid of the dotted underline on each abreviation? i tried styling the abbr with text-decoration:none and the underline is still there. any ideas? - -- dwain alford The artist may use any form which his expression demands; for his inner impulse must find suitable expression. Kandinsky *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Acronym element
thank you. On 1/9/08, Rochester oliveira [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: border:none btw, how do you get rid of the dotted underline on each abreviation? i tried styling the abbr with text-decoration:none and the underline is still there. any ideas? - -- dwain alford The artist may use any form which his expression demands; for his inner impulse must find suitable expression. Kandinsky *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** -- dwain alford The artist may use any form which his expression demands; for his inner impulse must find suitable expression. Kandinsky *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Acronym element
About the abbr, i think u may use it only once per page but if u want to
speel-out the other times use the css aural.
Example:
Bla bla bla acronym title=World wide web consortiumW3C/acronym
bla bla bla... bla bla span class=spellW3C/span
and the css (media aural) span.spell { *speak: *spell-out }
--
[]'s
-
Rochester Oliveira
http://webbemfeita.com/
Viva a Web-Bem-Feita
Web Designer
Curitiba - PR - Brasil**
2008/1/9, dwain [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
thank you.
On 1/9/08, Rochester oliveira [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
border:none
btw, how do you get rid of the dotted underline on each abreviation?
i tried styling the abbr with text-decoration:none and the underline is
still there. any ideas?
-
--
dwain alford
The artist may use any form which his expression demands;
for his inner impulse must find suitable expression. Kandinsky
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dwain alford
The artist may use any form which his expression demands;
for his inner impulse must find suitable expression. Kandinsky
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Re: [WSG] Acronym element
have you run this through taw online? i was mistaken earlier saying cynthia
says remarked on having to have the title attribute on the abbr element.
after i added titles to the abbr element i didn't get the error.
i am also finding differences between the online accessibility checkers. i
also found it amusing that taw has some accessibility errors on the test
page.
dwain
On 1/9/08, Rochester oliveira [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
About the abbr, i think u may use it only once per page but if u want to
speel-out the other times use the css aural.
Example:
Bla bla bla acronym title=World wide web consortiumW3C/acronym
bla bla bla... bla bla span class=spellW3C/span
and the css (media aural) span.spell { *speak: * spell-out }
--
dwain alford
The artist may use any form which his expression demands;
for his inner impulse must find suitable expression. Kandinsky
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RE: [WSG] standards-compliant designers
Of course I made up that 1% figure but I don't suppose it's far out. Just look at the phenomenal number of crap websites out there. There are something like 100,000 people offering web design services in the UK (10,000 in London alone) yet GAWDS membership (which is global) is only around 500 and I believe WSG membership is similar. Those who take standards-compliant design seriously tend to be individuals producing small volumes of work, but the large volumes are typically generated by organisations that neither know nor care about standards-compliance. They are invariably tied to enterprise-scale CMSs that guarantee the code will be horrible. Likewise, ASP.Net implementations can be made to be standards-compliant but it takes a huge amount of work so most organisations just use it as it comes out of the box. Steve _ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Matthew Pennell Sent: 09 January 2008 14:12 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] standards-compliant designers On Jan 9, 2008 2:01 PM, Andrew Maben [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: standards-compliant designers represent perhaps 1% of the industry is this really the figure - any sources? It's impossible to say, unless you draw a line in the sand and define what qualifies someone to call themselves a 'web designer'. Does it have to be your job title? Your business? Do you have to be paid for it? Our industry includes everyone from Zeldman to the marketing department struggling with a CMS to back-bedroom solo web agencies to the neighbour's kid with a copy of FrontPage. -- - Matthew *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] standards-compliant designers
Steve Green wrote: Of course I made up that 1% figure but I don't suppose it's far out. Just look at the phenomenal number of crap websites out there. There are something like 100,000 people offering web design services in the UK (10,000 in London alone) yet GAWDS membership (which is global) is only around 500 and I believe WSG membership is similar. Don't confuse volume with quantity. Lots of people do. There are a lot of crap sites out there but that doesn't mean there's 1 crap designer for every crap site. A lot of the time, the crapness has to do with the business manager who over-rules any technical considerations because he wants animated pictures of little ponies flying round the product. 1 crap designer can turn out many, many crap sites. The damage done by Sieglal's Designing Killer Websites (1st edition - he recanted later) was huge. Back when I was starting, I bought it and used it as a bible of what not to do, but many used it as a how-to guide, and some of those sites still exist. Also add in the spectrum of experience from people creating websites. Some are just learning, some are doing it on the side for their schools or offices - these are not professional web designers and you shouldn't include them in your 'spurious assessment' ;-) but they are the key people to reach out to, if I could figure out how to do it. I started building web in 1996, when bandwidth was an issue (9600 was common here in New Zealand and 56K was only just arriving) and the techniques I learned were aimed at optimizing for speed and volume. Funnily enough the same principles apply to accessibility but I wasn't learning accessibility per se. I didn't join any groups although there were a few around, but I did get on several mailing lists (some of which I'm still on). Some people just aren't joiners. And I don't see participation in the WSG as joining exactly, as there are no dues, no elections and no formality - it's just a place to come and talk. There may be lots of lone coders out there, religiously adhering to standards we don't know and I can't think of a way to find out for sure. Let's make our talking places more well known and inviting, rather than the fearsome arena that many fora become, with the resident experts snarling at the clueless. (Not saying that about the WSG as it is usually quite civilized) Which is all to say don't make up statistics that others will take as gospel as they'll come back and bit us all in the arse. Those who take standards-compliant design seriously tend to be individuals producing small volumes of work, I call unproven assumption - you may be right but we just don't know. but the large volumes are typically generated by organisations that neither know nor care about standards-compliance. They are invariably tied to enterprise-scale CMSs that guarantee the code will be horrible. Likewise, ASP.Net implementations can be made to be standards-compliant but it takes a huge amount of work so most organisations just use it as it comes out of the box. So the simple answer is 'focus on those manufacturers' - yes? Get THEM to change and you won't need to bemoan those chumps who use their stuff out of the box instead of hiring us bespoke designers at our outrageous rates. Curmudgeonly, Mark Harris *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] standards-compliant designers
Mark Harris wrote: 1 crap designer can turn out many, many crap sites. The damage done by Sieglal's Designing Killer Websites (1st edition - he recanted later) was huge. Back when I was starting, I bought it and used it as a bible of what not to do, but many used it as a how-to guide, and some of those sites still exist. I find this whole argument really interesting. :) See, I think the benefits of what Siegal and his book (and lots of other stuff around the same time) far outweigh the costs. And yes, I can understand why he recanted the book, and yes it was good that he did. But, remember, the web was even more in its infancy than it is now. No one knew it would become what it is today - the book was published a year before Google started for example! One of the huge huge factors is the growth of the web was how easy it was/is for people to create web pages. I agree entirely that content is the key thing on the web, but it was the ability to do cool things visually (and otherwise) they drew a lot of people into building websites in the early days. It was just plain fun (and magic even!). And Siegal was a big part of showing people what could be done, pushing boundaries, making people excited etc. I don't think we'd be where we are today without that huge burst of creativity. And I think a part of what caused that was people not knowing any better. And none of the above is an argument against not using web standards today! Mike *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] standards-compliant designers
I tend to agree with Mark. IT guys in my experience tend not to be 'joiners' you work in a corporate IT department and you will quickly realise that people use terms like 'Crypt' and 'Beige' I have worked from both sides of the fence as both an indepentant but also as the main web guy within a large organisation. Yes there are situations where we have had to use external vendors to design websites purely because they have to resources to deliver quickly...and I can see how these agencies can produce very poor code and have the business owner say 'yes'. But there are also organisations where they will impose a set of design guidelines upon these firms and really put the pressure on them to deliver (especially is industries where you are an essential service and need to deliver to a wide audience of both abled and disabled people). Does it make the firm a bunch of non-compliant designers...perhaps. But I say for every poorly design website, there is someone who says 'Yes that is what I want' or 'that'll do'. Steve Green wrote: Of course I made up that 1% figure but I don't suppose it's far out. Just look at the phenomenal number of crap websites out there. There are something like 100,000 people offering web design services in the UK (10,000 in London alone) yet GAWDS membership (which is global) is only around 500 and I believe WSG membership is similar. Don't confuse volume with quantity. Lots of people do. There are a lot of crap sites out there but that doesn't mean there's 1 crap designer for every crap site. A lot of the time, the crapness has to do with the business manager who over-rules any technical considerations because he wants animated pictures of little ponies flying round the product. 1 crap designer can turn out many, many crap sites. The damage done by Sieglal's Designing Killer Websites (1st edition - he recanted later) was huge. Back when I was starting, I bought it and used it as a bible of what not to do, but many used it as a how-to guide, and some of those sites still exist. Also add in the spectrum of experience from people creating websites. Some are just learning, some are doing it on the side for their schools or offices - these are not professional web designers and you shouldn't include them in your 'spurious assessment' ;-) but they are the key people to reach out to, if I could figure out how to do it. I started building web in 1996, when bandwidth was an issue (9600 was common here in New Zealand and 56K was only just arriving) and the techniques I learned were aimed at optimizing for speed and volume. Funnily enough the same principles apply to accessibility but I wasn't learning accessibility per se. I didn't join any groups although there were a few around, but I did get on several mailing lists (some of which I'm still on). Some people just aren't joiners. And I don't see participation in the WSG as joining exactly, as there are no dues, no elections and no formality - it's just a place to come and talk. There may be lots of lone coders out there, religiously adhering to standards we don't know and I can't think of a way to find out for sure. Let's make our talking places more well known and inviting, rather than the fearsome arena that many fora become, with the resident experts snarling at the clueless. (Not saying that about the WSG as it is usually quite civilized) Which is all to say don't make up statistics that others will take as gospel as they'll come back and bit us all in the arse. Those who take standards-compliant design seriously tend to be individuals producing small volumes of work, I call unproven assumption - you may be right but we just don't know. but the large volumes are typically generated by organisations that neither know nor care about standards-compliance. They are invariably tied to enterprise-scale CMSs that guarantee the code will be horrible. Likewise, ASP.Net implementations can be made to be standards-compliant but it takes a huge amount of work so most organisations just use it as it comes out of the box. So the simple answer is 'focus on those manufacturers' - yes? Get THEM to change and you won't need to bemoan those chumps who use their stuff out of the box instead of hiring us bespoke designers at our outrageous rates. Curmudgeonly, Mark Harris *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
RE: [WSG] Float-less layouts
I'm wondering if the pursuit of semantics might sometimes be taken to unreasonable extremes? Must everything that is contained in the marked-up document contain some semantic value? Must anything that does not have an inherent semantic value be excluded? Surely not. If an element is semantically neutral (as DIV) then it necessarily has no impact on the semantic value of the content contained within. My understanding is that the whole argument against using tables for structure is that that use distorts the semantics of the table's content. Thanks for keeping the discussion focused on *DIVs* ;) And yes, that's the whole point I've been trying to make. IMO, the use of DIVs carry no semantic, they are neutral and that's why we can abuse them. Using empty ones to clear elements, using double wrappers, etc. None of which, by the way, Thierry, is intended to detract from the skill and ingenuity of your IMPRESSIVE demonstration. Thanks. I must say I got what I paid for, as I knew the title of the article was provocative :) -- Regards, Thierry | http://www.TJKDesign.com *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
RE: [WSG] semantic list with explanations
The desire for semantic purity is only one of many factors when deciding how to mark up a page. Other factors include (but are not limited to) UA support, the user experience, the time available to implement the design and the expected life of the website. I would expect a professional designer to balance these appropriately, taking into account the best interests of their customer. The ability to find the appropriate balance is what sets professional apart from hobbyists. It's easy to go to one extreme - it saves you having to think. Anyone can write semantically perfect code that validates if they don't care how long it takes, what the user experience is like and what it looks like in browsers that are not standards-compliant. If you're designing your own site and you're on a mission to embarrass UA vendors into making a better product then go right ahead. But if you're designing websites for real people to use with real user agents, you're doing them a disservice. If you're being paid for that design I would say you have no right to follow your personal preferences rather than make a professional judgement, unless your customer has given informed consent. The average life of a website is only a couple of years before it gets redesigned or scrapped. Designing for non-existent user agents is therefore futile because there's little likelihood they will come into existence within the life of such a site. To then make compromises that are to the detriment of existing user agents is absurd. The average life of a website is only a couple of years. That doesn't seem much, where does it say that? FWIW, mine is almost 6 years old... and I'm a web designer. Also, may I ask you if you've ever thought of using a DOM solution to give SR users a better experience instead of replacing every DL with headings and paragraphs? Because, imho, that's part of the job too, assessing issues and trying to come up with solutions that do not imply to cut corners. Isn't progressive enhancement the real answer to this problem? -- Regards, Thierry | http://www.TJKDesign.com *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
RE: [WSG] semantic list with explanations
Thierry Koblentz wrote: No, what I'm saying is that we should write semantic markup and hope that SR manufacturers fix their product asap. JAWS, to name one product, is a very expensive software. Freedomscientific should take care of its customers, it is not to the authors to lower the quality of their documents to give SR users a better experience. but I would call them your customers first, JAWS customers second - if you can make their life easier, do it, then lobby the vendor and even notify the JAWS user of the issue so they can too There is no issue if nobody use DL: and unfortunately that's where we are heading with discussions like this one. If using headings and paragraphs instead of DLs becomes best practice, then don't expect manufacturers to address an issue they keep on the back burner for years already. If you can read French you may want to read a discussion [1] I had with people involved with the RGAA [2] a few months ago. They were about to do just this, declare the use of DLs bad practice, for the same reason Steve gives us here. Because like I said, following this logic why not using table markup to give users of other UAs (old visual browsers like IE 5 Mac, NN6, etc) a better experience too? Why just SR users? because thats a different issue. Its an issue of the user not upgrading to software thats available and thats better. The issue we speak of is the user unable to do anything about the situation themselves because there is no better software, so we should look after them if we can. User not upgrading to software that's available and that's better. Do you think it's that simple? Believe me, many people do not have that choice. We have seen the same issue with acronym and abbr. Most authors are using acronym *instead* of abbr for the only reason that IE is ABBR-challenged, *not* because acronym is the proper element to use. sure, but IE is challenged in many areas so there are many ways we do things so they work in IE to make sure the end user is looked after. Are you saying we should not use any workarounds in the hope Microsoft will fix IE? Which IE versions? For IE 5+ Win I'd say these workarounds involve the presentational layer so there is no issue here really. For IE5 Mac, I think table markup would give users a *better experience*. I know that for people running OS 9, IE5 Mac is the best browser they can run, but you're telling me there is no reason to take care of them because they should buy a new computer and upgrade their browser... And I'm not talking about NN4 users ;-) I would have thought take care of your users first and foremost and then lobby the vendors is a better approach. I hear you. If you look at my articles, you'll see that I spend a lot of time making sure they work in almost every possible browser. For example, I have a pure CSS menu which is IE 5 Mac compatible. This is to say that authors should focus on a web site as a whole and not be proud of themselves just because they cheated with the markup in one document on their site to give SR users a better experience. How many authors talk about user experience, but have their layout break apart in version 4 browsers or even in IE 5? When I say break apart I don't even mean look bad, I'm talking navigation not being functional, text overlapping, etc. I'm talking about sites not being ACCESSIBLE. A Definition List represents how many documents in a web site? And keep in mind that a definition list is NOT inaccessible to screen reader users, it is just not easy for them to make sense of it, which is - imho - a big difference. May be a better approach would be to use something like this: http://tjkdesign.com/articles/best_practice/IamAScreenReaderUser.asp It takes care of the issue without cheating with the markup. thats true and that solution is fine, but looking at the code, it seems to me you've gone to a hell of a lot of trouble - personally I would have just used different markup. But seeing as you've already written it, then it's a good solution. The fact that I've done this proves that I was aware of the issue and ready to spend some time to fix the problem rather than take a shortcut and cheat with the markup ;) [1] http://rgaa.planete-accessibilite.com/discussion/15/point-de-controle-36-lis tes-de-definition/ [2] http://rgaa.referentiels.modernisation.gouv.fr/ -- Regards, Thierry | http://www.TJKDesign.com *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
RE: [WSG] Float-less layouts
Thierry Koblentz wrote: You're saying that a wrapper is needed to enclose all other elements in a document to give it more meaning? No I'm not. Point out to me where I'm saying that. I said: Why would we need to group containers together if it is not for styling purpose? You answered: Because we're saying that anything in the container belongs together (thematically, content-wise, logically, etc). I said: Do we use a wrapper because it brings more meanings to the document or because it let us center our layout, create faux columns etc.? You answered: To create meaning, of course. So I believe my question made sense. And I'm tired of your lengthy metaphysical argument about meaning. Have fun turning the world into lists. As I said on GAWDS, why not turns sentences into ordered lists of words, and words into ordered lists of letters, next? Surely that would carry more meaning, no? Do I say anywhere people should use lists for everything? Do I even say anywhere people should use lists for construct? I thought the discussion was about the semantic value of DIVs. That's the discussion I was trying to have here. But almost in every single post of yours you mention lists. Get over it or move to the other thread where we do talk about lists. *rolls eyes* what do you think I've been doing since our discussion on GAWDS? ;) -- Regards, Thierry | http://www.TJKDesign.com *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
