Re: [WSG] Mobile sites
yep, plenty of division ;-) ...but while Sheldon is correct that responsive design can cater quite well to the most popular mobile devices, there are still a heap out there that don't recognise media queries or any of the other building blocks of responsive design. In some parts of the world these more basic handests dominate internet traffic. If you're targeting the affluent, western middle class, then you'll probably do alright, but there are plenty of countries where more basic handsets still reign. Your specific question, however, was about Accessibility and Standards. While Standards can be perfectly catered for by a responsive design, I'm not so sure about Accessibility. Certainly, the technical aspects of Accessibility can, but there's a wooly area of Accessibility regarding perceivability that sites can run foul of if the text and interactions aren't built specifically for mobile. The most common problem is simply too much text, but there are also issues around context and mobility that can be better catered for by a specifically designed mobile site. Probably the best example of this is a bank or an airline - it's well worth creating a specific site in their case, because a 'mobile' user quite likely has different needs and priorities to the desktop user. It's been said before, but it's more relevant than ever: Know your audience. It's definitely not for everyone, but if your audience is large, and your content complex, I think it's worth taking a tiered approach - a small, dedicated mobile site for the top handful of suitable interactions; responsive design for the vast majority of adaptable content; alternative fallback versions for 'difficult' content. In fact, there's a tier above the dedicated site - the stand alone app - but that's another argument altogether :-) And while I've been rabbiting on writing this email Enid has come back and made a similar point far more economically than I. -- Andrew Harris and...@woowoowoo.com http://www.woowoowoo.com ~~~ * ~~~ On 16 May 2012 13:12, Doc2626 dcamp2...@hotmail.com wrote: Grant, I think it's likely that you'll find a lot of division on this question. But I'll go ahead and offer my own opinion. I think it's an unnecessary expense and expenditure of energy to build a redundant site simply to suit mobile devices. There is a very workable solution using HTML5+CSS3, where a single site design can display quite satisfactorily on anything down to a 320px iPhone. Accessibility and usability needn't suffer in the process. If properly implemented, the user experience can maintain quality across all platforms. Additionally, if you're not enthusiastic about HTML5+CSS3, you can accomplish the same thing using XHTML+RDFa. In fact, since RDFa presently enjoys a bit more adoption than HTML5, the SEO benefits can be even greater. If you're interested, I recently posted a very brief explanation of the HTML5+CSS3 technique and will soon be posting a similar item on the RDFa option. Sheldon Campbell From: grant_malcolm_bai...@westnet.com.au Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2012 7:43 PM To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: [WSG] Mobile sites Hello, I was wondering whether having a dedicated mobile site represents an improvement with regard to accessibility and standards, or whether it is acceptable to have a single site that is adaptable to different screen widths (e.g. by means of CSS media queries). Of course, setting up a separate mobile site requires additional work and therefore expense. I would be grateful for comments. Thank you and regards, Grant Bailey *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
[WSG] accessibility statements... what are they worth?
Hi all, I recently had some problems with the Myki website (I like to use the keyboard to navigate - they don't make it easy!), which prompted me to visit the site's accessibility page. http://www.myki.com.au/Home/Accessibility/Accessibility/default.aspx There, they make a claim about their efforts to reach WCAG AA compliance. Ever pedantic, I ran a few checks over the site, and found many errors that would indicate that this simply isn't so. In fact only one of the five pages I tested actually passed! Does it have to wait for someone to bring an action against them, or is there some other sort of trigger that can be used to prompt them to action? After all, this isn't just some business selling widgets, it's a public transport ticketing system! -- Andrew Harris and...@woowoowoo.com http://www.woowoowoo.com ~~~ * ~~~ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
[WSG] spam in the site...
A query about the http://webstandardsgroup.org/ site. There's a heap of spammy stuff in it... eg: check the resources section! http://webstandardsgroup.org/manage/resource.cfm The decreasing signal to noise ratio just makes the site useless, is anyone maintaining/managing it? -- Andrew Harris and...@woowoowoo.com http://www.woowoowoo.com ~~~ * ~~~ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] lazyweb://schema.agnostic.URLs
On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 6:10 AM, Patrick H. Lauke re...@splintered.co.uk wrote: It really just depends on what you're trying to do though. Precisely, and the IE hit certainly pales into insignificance compared to the benefits for us. We run a lot of sites, an awful lot of pages, and an awful lot of visitors. Any resources - even the Uni logo in the corner - that can be shared effectively are going to make a substantial difference. Our current style sheets have absolute URLs to these shared graphics, which caused 'mixed content' problems in secure environments. shared assets between http and https versions that are cached even when moving from insecure to secure. I actually expect to see a cached version of each, not a single, shared object. We'll be doing a bit more testing, but at this stage, it looks like a thumbs up for our situation. Thanks again to all who contributed. -- Andrew Harris and...@woowoowoo.com http://www.woowoowoo.com ~~~ * ~~~ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
[WSG] lazyweb://schema.agnostic.URLs
I remember a discussion about this a long time ago, can't remember if it was on this list, but someone might remember... * We're a big university: lots of pages! * We want to use one master style sheet as much as possible, to maximise caching, minimise management etc. * The images referenced in the style sheet are absolutely referenced so that sites that are not on the same domain can still benefit from centralised, cached images and not have to have duplicate local copies. * This breaks a bit when a site switches a user to SSL :-( I once read that you could reference an absolute URL independent of the schema, so that instead of: http://some.domain.com/a/path you could use: //some.domain.com/a/path and that the reference would just adopt the current schema, http or https making everybody happy. Initial limited tests show me that this might work, but I can't find the source of the information now, or even whether it's correct usage - can anyone shed some light? or even offer an alternative solution! I'm vaguely thinking there might be an elegant apache solution for serving the right CSS. -- Andrew Harris and...@woowoowoo.com http://www.woowoowoo.com ~~~ * ~~~ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] lazyweb://schema.agnostic.URLs
oh, thank you! On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 12:58 PM, Mathew Robertson mathew.blair.robert...@gmail.com wrote: works fine. http://www.no-http.org/ http://www.webreference.com/html/tutorial2/3.html cheers, Mathew Robertson -- Andrew Harris and...@woowoowoo.com http://www.woowoowoo.com ~~~ * ~~~ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
[WSG] to submit or not to submit?
Interesting discovery today regarding the use of the return key to submit a form... Our ageing standard uni template has always had a mild form of validation on the site search box, where the submit button (input) remains disabled until something other than the standard text is entered into the text input. see it here: http://www.unimelb.edu.au/about/ We did this when we realised that by far the most common search term was an empty search, or one with some sort of default text. It seemed to work as far as avoiding those dud searches, but as I was working on a successor to the template and revisiting the old search box, I noticed that even with the submit button disabled, I could use the return key to submit the form. Further investigation revealed that the mac versions of Firefox, Camino and Opera would not submit, but Chrome (mac PC), Safari (mac) and IE6/7 would submit. Those were all I had on my machine at the time so I haven't done any more tests, but I thought it was curious. Any ideas on what might be the 'standard' behaviour - if one is specified? failing that, how about just a 'desired' behaviour ;-) -- Andrew Harris and...@woowoowoo.com http://www.woowoowoo.com ~~~ * ~~~ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
[WSG] HTML5 offline storage question
Hi all, I'm asking around the traps on a question which has come up at work. We want to develop an iPad app to will allow users to download from a website (like a synch) large quantities (hundreds of MB) of documents (pdf and word) for reading offline. Is the offline storage tool in HTML5 designed for this sort of heavy lifting? are there storage limitations? on an iPad? I've found a few examples of the tool in action and read bits and pieces, but it all seems to be about storing small chunks of data, not humunguous great whumps of it. -- Andrew Harris and...@woowoowoo.com http://www.woowoowoo.com ~~~ * ~~~ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
[WSG] that old IE6 thing...
I know this was a recent discussion, and I don't want to revive an already well worn subject, but I just noticed something amazing on a multi user blog site I manage. Two blogs, same base domain, same template, same environment, same university. Blog 1: Audience: Librarians IE6: 42.2% Firefox (all versions): 23% Blog 2: Audience: Students IE6: 9.8% Firefox (all versions): 40.5% Proving once again, that knowing your audience is key. (and perhaps that librarians are a bit slow to upgrade ;) -- Andrew Harris and...@woowoowoo.com http://www.woowoowoo.com ~~~ * ~~~ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] Help with mobile MIME type always fails test
Well, well, well, you learn something new every day eh? On Sat, Apr 17, 2010 at 9:47 AM, kevin_erick...@comcast.net wrote: Just cancel on the login but load the page into the test site please to see the results. I still couldn't get into a page, but it doesn't matter - I think I see the problem. According to dot-mobi: For XHTML-MP, the recommended MIME type is application/vnd.wap.xhtml+xml or application/xhtml+xml. Unlike HTML, XHTML-MP should not be served as text/html. Consequently the mobile site I maintain at: http://m.unimelb.edu.au also generates a warning. On the other hand, I get the feeling it's pretty much an 'edge case' as far as failure goes. Serving as text/html isn't going to break many browsers. I suspect only most primitive wap only browsers will fail to load the content. If you look at dot-mobi's little graph, it indicates that such browsers are likely to be on mobiles greater than 5 years old - pretty minor stuff given that, if you're anything like our site, more than 95% of your mobile traffic is going to be from Apple devices. However, there's nothing wrong with being fussy, so getting you server to use the correct MIME type will require you either getting into the apache.conf file or using .htaccess to set the mime type for the file extensions you're using. This can get tricky and will break things if you don't know what you're doing. (I don't!) In my case - using the MySource Matrix CMS, it's just a matter of adding a line to the beginning of my mobile template, if you are running a CMS you may have a similar setting. I'm going to leave that until Monday when I've got time to back out of it if it causes problems :-) -- Andrew Harris and...@woowoowoo.com http://www.woowoowoo.com ~~~ * ~~~ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
[WSG] developing a web strategy...
I suppose this is a bit off topic*, please bear with me, I make a habit of these oddball requests. We are (finally) looking to develop a new and comprehensive web strategy for our large and diverse university (unimelb). One immediate proviso is that the strategy should be developed by someone who is seen as an authority and is independent. Preferably an organisation with a track record - either here or overseas. Suggestions? Good/bad experiences? Please reply directly if you think it's not relevant to the list. * obviously, a web strategy will include, at some point, a discussion of web standards, so there's the tie-in! -- Andrew Harris and...@woowoowoo.com http://www.woowoowoo.com ~~~ * ~~~ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] developing a web strategy...
Yes, people are welcome to recommend themselves, however this is a big organisation and it's going to be one hell of a piece of work. Individuals are unlikely to get a call - established companies with a track record are what we are looking for. It's just not one of those things you can look up in the Yellow Pages :-) On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 12:37 PM, Nathanael Boehm n...@purecaffeine.com wrote: Hi Andrew, Just to clarify, considering that there are probably quite a few consultants and agencies on this mailing list who would be interested in this work - are you ok with them recommending themselves or submitting proposals etc? What are you wanting out of this process? Cheers, Nathanael Boehm -- Andrew Harris and...@woowoowoo.com http://www.woowoowoo.com ~~~ * ~~~ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] [OT] Google search/index/webmaster help
Because that file is being served as 'text/html' instead of 'text/xml' as it should. That is server misconfiguration. I'm not surprised Googlebot doesn't pick it up. yes, quite right, unfortunately, I don't think I can get the CMS to serve it correctly as xml, however google digested it happily enough - just failed to spider all URLs - something which I now know is normal. The only puzzle I still have is with the search results in our Custom Search Engine (still off topic!) but why would the public search return a different amount to the custom search? I have to admit, after 5 months of no change, this week it's gone from 1 result to 21 - go figure! Thanks again to all who replied. It's just reinforced to me that if you want an internal search engine that really works and is controllable, that leaving it up to the magic donkeys at google is really not an option. Still trying to convince our fine institution of that ;-) -- Andrew Harris and...@woowoowoo.com http://www.woowoowoo.com ~~~ * ~~~ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] [OT] Google search/index/webmaster help
How I love this community! I haven't solved my problems yet, but based on the comments and ideas I've gathered in the past few days, the site has improved substantially. This latest comment from Philippe... On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 10:04 AM, Philippe Wittenbergh e...@l-c-n.com wrote: Because that file is being served as 'text/html' instead of 'text/xml' as it should. That is server misconfiguration. I dismissed at first, thinking our CMS wouldn't allow me to tweak such fundamental settings, but it led me into the bowels of the support forums where I dredged up the little slice of code I needed. Now, the sitemap.xml as well as the kml and gpx feeds are all served correctly as text/xml - did I say how I love this community? - and I've a grudging respect for MySource Matrix too! -- Andrew Harris and...@woowoowoo.com http://www.woowoowoo.com ~~~ * ~~~ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] [OT] Google search/index/webmaster help
ahh - no. I did change some stuff on the site, but not the xml file - I suspect whatever you were looking at it with the first time had to put the html tags around it just to make sense of it. On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 10:00 AM, Swami Neelamber neelam...@gmail.com wrote: Sorry Hassan! It would seem it's been changed. Andrew's been beavering away, as one does. His original XML file I downloaded from the same URI as you did: http://maps.unimelb.edu.au/sitemap.xml, right onto my desktop (it's still there), and I believe I probably did that a number of hours before you looked. Sorry for the confusion. Keep breathing. Swami :) www.blueskyzen.com/design On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 4:35 AM, Hassan Schroeder has...@webtuitive.com wrote: Swami Neelamber wrote: I'm not totally sure about that htmlhead you've used top and bottom of your *sitemap.xml* file? Don't know what you're looking at but there are no such tags in the document at http://maps.unimelb.edu.au/sitemap.xml -- Hassan Schroeder - has...@webtuitive.com webtuitive design === (+1) 408-621-3445 === http://webtuitive.com twitter: @hassan dream. code. *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *** -- Andrew Harris and...@woowoowoo.com http://www.woowoowoo.com ~~~ * ~~~ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
[WSG] [OT] Google search/index/webmaster help
Yes, I know it's off topic, but I really need a hand with a mystifying problem. I've tried the google forums, but have received no replies. If there are any listers who understand the free Google Custom Search Engine, webmaster tools, sitemaps and indexing problems, then I'd really appreciate you contacting me directly in regards to some problems I'm having. Just to give an idea of my quandary... http://maps.unimelb.edu.au/ http://maps.unimelb.edu.au/sitemap.xml (100+ URLs submitted 5 months ago) http://www.google.com/search?q=site:maps.unimelb.edu.au (34 results = pathetic!) http://go.unimelb.edu.au/6t6 (1 result = totally pathetic!) Hopefully, it's nothing completely bleeding obvious that will humiliate me in front of my peers ;-) -- Andrew Harris and...@woowoowoo.com http://www.woowoowoo.com ~~~ * ~~~ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] [OT] Google search/index/webmaster help
Craig, OK - that's a really interesting comment. I had, as far as I knew, used the right formatting, the sitemap validates as XML and Google's webmaster tools accepted it as a valid feed (after a few tweaks!) I followed this document, which I understand is the definitive source. http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.php and my sitemap looks pretty much like that - apart from a couple of whitespace discrepancies. The fact that it worked for some of the URLs makes me think it's not a problem with the sitemap, but it's all interesting stuff. Thanks for taking the time to reply. On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 3:24 PM, Craig Jones cr...@designawebnoosa.com.auwrote: Hi Andrew, This is my firts time trying to help... It doesn't appear that your sitemap is written in xml The sitemap should look like this urlset xsi:schemaLocation=http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9 http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9/sitemap.xsd; url locwww.unimelb.edu.au/campuses/maps.html/loc /url url locwww.unimelb.edu.au/campuses/maps2.html/loc /url /urlset then submit you new sitemap in google webmaster tools Goodluck Craig Andrew Harris wrote: Yes, I know it's off topic, but I really need a hand with a mystifying problem. I've tried the google forums, but have received no replies. If there are any listers who understand the free Google Custom Search Engine, webmaster tools, sitemaps and indexing problems, then I'd really appreciate you contacting me directly in regards to some problems I'm having. Just to give an idea of my quandary...http://maps.unimelb.edu.au/http://maps.unimelb.edu.au/sitemap.xml (100+ URLs submitted 5 months ago)http://www.google.com/search?q=site:maps.unimelb.edu.au (34 results = pathetic!)http://go.unimelb.edu.au/6t6 (1 result = totally pathetic!) Hopefully, it's nothing completely bleeding obvious that will humiliate me in front of my peers ;-) -- *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *** -- Andrew Harris and...@woowoowoo.com http://www.woowoowoo.com ~~~ * ~~~ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] [OT] Google search/index/webmaster help
Bother! that last reply was supposed to be off list! Oh well, the discussion had got around to web standards by that point, so it's fair game. ...and it's a friday afternoon, cut me some slack!! Thanks to all those who have replied off list. By way of reporting back to the list, I'll say... 1) Sitemaps are not the magic fix I thought they were. 2) Inbound links and organic indexing are vital. 3) My map pages are pretty short on text - google likes text. One thing that no-one picked up on was that I still haven't inserted some common metadata tags - I know they say google doesn't look at the metadata tags, but it makes me wonder. Funny how asking your peers to check your work suddenly makes you aware of basic things you'd missed... yes, my pages weren't valid - but they are now!!! ;-p -- Andrew Harris and...@woowoowoo.com http://www.woowoowoo.com ~~~ * ~~~ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
[WSG] legal list numbering
How do people get around the problem of marking up ordered lists in legal documents, such as policies or terms and conditions? A typical structure might look like: 1 blah blah blah 1.1 blah blah blah 1.2 blah blah blah 1.2.1 blah blah blah 1.2.2 blah blah blah 1.3 blah blah blah 2 blah blah blah 2.1 blah blah blah 2.1.1 blah blah blah* I've seen a variety of convoluted javascript and CSS methods, but they're all hacks for what is essentially a pretty logical structure... nested ordered lists! I have to admit, I haven't even checked whether this is addressed in html 5. * BTW: I've read lots of legal documents and I reckon the text can mostly be replaced with blah blah blah without affecting their meaning. -- Andrew Harris and...@woowoowoo.com http://www.woowoowoo.com ~~~ * ~~~ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] Chrome now higher traffic than IE
hmmm - this is not reflected on our main site... from the past three days: 1. Internet Explorer 642,173 61.98% 2. Firefox 286,669 27.67% 3. Safari 89,030 8.59% 4. Chrome 11,195 1.08% which is, I imagine, par for a 'mainstream' site. -- Andrew Harris and...@woowoowoo.com http://www.woowoowoo.com ~~~ * ~~~ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] Question on servers and Email campaign
I Was called and asked for my server's root access information so that they can download their Software onto my server for my clients email campaign. that would be their software that sets up a mail relay for the purposes of illegal spamming? ...no, that would just be me being paranoid. You did right! -- Andrew Harris [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.woowoowoo.com ~~~ * ~~~ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Marking Up Poems
A poem is, essentially, a block quotation, is it not? I'd probably be throwing in a cite attribute too :-) http://reference.sitepoint.com/html/blockquote/cite -- Andrew Harris [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.woowoowoo.com ~~~ * ~~~ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
[WSG] making big selections
Been having problems with deciding on the best user interface for a particular type of form input (for an intranet application). When we have a list of values from which a user can select one or more items, there are a couple of choices. - we can use checkboxes, which is nice and easy for (lets say) up to 15 options, starts to get a bit clunky up to 25 and just gets ugly from then on. - we can use a multiple select list, which operates reasonably well up to quite a large number of choices, but gets a bit of negative feedback from users who don't find it intuitive. The whole modifier key thing throws people and they can't tell what's been selected without scrolling right through the list (what a nightmare that would be on a screenreader!). AFAIK, the multi-select is the *right* way to go, but when we're talking about your larger lists (200+ items) I agree that it is next to impossible to use - scrolling increments become tiny and you can't tell what's been selected at a glance (as all selections may be outside the viewport of the form control). We recently trialled something like this http://justinsomnia.org/2005/01/roll-your-own-multiple-select-listbox/ (an array of checkboxes styled to look like a big multi select), but although I was pretty happy with the style and feel of it, the user testing canned it... they'd rather sort through a huge array of hundreds of checkboxes (!). At least they can see at a (sort of) glance, what has been selected. In the end, I had to admit a partial defeat. Standard HTML elements are just not set up for this scale of information. Sticking to my roots, however, I'm looking for some sort of 'progressive enhancement' javascript that will allow me to use the multiple select as the basis for a more user friendly representation. So, any thoughts? either on the problem, or suggested solutions / UI libraries / examples. -- Andrew Harris [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.woowoowoo.com ~~~ * ~~~ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Where did I come from?
are there any SSI whizzes out there? I would have thought that you could use the referrer in an SSI to accomplish this sort of functionality. BTW: I am astonished at how few people understand the back button. And many more who don't trust it: a result of abuse, no doubt, from sites that break the behaviour or use unnecessary 'post' values that cause 'resubmit' problems. That being said, I think a back button is a bad idea as it only ingrains this behaviour... users end up believing if there is no button, they can't get back. -- Andrew Harris [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.woowoowoo.com ~~~ * ~~~ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Browser test: Construct
yum! that is excellent - FF2 on my mac loved it, but Safari 3 didn't respond to keyboard commands :-( I just created a layout tool: http://lab.christianmontoya.com/construct/ -- Andrew Harris [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.woowoowoo.com ~~~ * ~~~ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
[WSG] Re: multilingual website advice
Wow, what can I say? Just three hours ago, I asked a question and have already received three careful, helpful replies, with exactly the sort of information I was seeking! Thank you so much, this list is brilliant! On 11/2/07, Andrew Harris [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've been asked to work on a multilingual website... -- Andrew Harris [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.woowoowoo.com ~~~ * ~~~ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
[WSG] safari display issue : help please!
Hi all, hope you can help. I have a problem with a page in safari. I won't bore you with the backstory, but this is from a large and complex template deployment over a range of websites that I have little control over. To solve a problem that kept cropping up due to Block Formatting Context, I used a well documented fix: set the containing div to display:table; All seemed well, didn't seem to break anything, tested, rolled it out... zap! problem! Here is a completely stripped out version of the page, displaying the issue. http://www.woowoowoo.com/safari-bug/formbug.html In all browsers there is (should be) a form. In Safari, there is not. It just vanishes! I can fix it two ways: - wrap the form in a div - remove the display:table; rule on the enclosing div neither of which are very palatable in the context of the site. I would prefer to find some way with CSS to make Safari display the form as it should. Thus far, I have had no luck - any takers? Worth noting that safari 3 displays the page correctly, but that's not much help in the here and now. cheers. -- Andrew Harris [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.woowoowoo.com ~~~ * ~~~ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
[WSG] commenting javascript in script tags
'morning all, It is common and often recommended practice to comment javascript placed in a document. script type=text/javascript language=javascript !-- myVariable = 'woo'; // -- /script The reason cited is that 'very old browsers' that do not understand the script tag may print the raw code. How old are we talking? Has anyone ever seen this happen? Can't we safely leave behind what is essentially a hack? While I'm on the topic - what about the whole ![CDATA[ ... ]] thing? Should I be using that? What are the possible consequences of ignoring it like the vast majority of page authors? -- Andrew Harris [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.woowoowoo.com *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] commenting javascript in script tags
On 4/26/07, Patrick H. Lauke [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Use external scripts, and you avoid both issues quite elegantly. Thanks Patrick - I should point out that this question is mostly in regards to a case where the bulk of the js is an external script. I just need to occasionally insert a variable relevant to a particular page. So, abhorrent as it might be, the script snippet has to live in the head. -- Andrew Harris [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.woowoowoo.com *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] WANAU - anyone heard of them?
Tim, if there's no sandwiches, I'm not going. ... ;-) seriously though, I think you have a point, but I don't think your approach will achieve anything. It's like howling at the developers of IE because they were part of a team that brought us a dodgy browser. There are many many good folk building websites at universities and WANAU is one way that they can share their ideas... but, by and large, these are not the people who hold the purse strings and call the shots when it comes to developing big university systems, so there is no use ranting at them and alienating them. You condemn the Griffith page apparently on the basis of a URL that contains unescaped ampersands. I know at Melbourne University, we have had systems that simply would not recognise escaped ampersands in links (haven't checked that one for a while), so we were forced to leave links invalid. These are not little systems - to upgrade or change vendor would cost many many millions of dollars. Not valid and therefore, strictly speaking, not accessible. Still, I couldn't be 100% certain, but I'd take a guess that no-one apart from the validator cared or even noticed. -- Andrew Harris [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.woowoowoo.com *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
[WSG] colour matching transparent png files
Learned friends - hope you can help me. I am having trouble matching transparent png files to html background colours. The dodgy test page here: http://www.woowoowoo.com/pngtest/ illustrates the effect. It's pretty self explanatory, but I want to run a div which matches the page background and provides a 'band' effect over a background image for me to run some type through. I specify the page background to #003366 In photoshop I specify the starting blue of the vignette to #003366 I also create a 20px square of #003366, set the opacity to 50% and save out a png24 with transparency Trouble starts in the browser though - the 'transparent' bands are almost always visible - if not in one browser then another. Now I have a fair hunch that this is to do with colour profiles, but my trial and error testing so far has only resulted in confusion and frustration. I get it almost right in Firefox and IE7 goes crazy or pretty good in both and Opera and Safari fall off. It's cross browser incompatibility gone mad! Is it just my browsers? (I doubt it!) Has anyone got any experience or resources that they can ease my troubles with? -- Andrew Harris [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.woowoowoo.com *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] colour matching transparent png files
James, http://hsivonen.iki.fi/png-gamma/ thank you so much - explains everything! @Dwain - I need 8bit transparency, so png8 is not an option no, the article referred to by James has convinced me, sadly, that png24 is just going to cause me too many troubles - I'll have to find another way. Saved me heaps of time and frustration though! -- Andrew Harris [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.woowoowoo.com *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] colour matching transparent png files
On 4/11/07, twe melb [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As far as i know png alpha transparency does not work well in IE 5.5 and 6, Thanks, you're right - but no problems there as I'm serving an extra css to grumpy old browsers It's a shame there are so many problems with png24 as the lack of a viable transparency solution leads designers into all sorts of workarounds (like javascript!) or the use of extra images to 'fake' transparency. I'm surprised this problem is still with us after gawd knows how many years of trying. For a little while, I went down the path of opacity: 0.5; but quickly found that nothing could be done to reverse the effect for children of the object - they all went wishy washy too! I'd be really interested in seeing examples of successfully implemented transparent elements in web pages if anyone has got them - not really interested in the javascript IE/hacks. -- Andrew Harris [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.woowoowoo.com *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
