Re: [WSG] editor

[Jay Gilmore]

Artemis wrote:
Could
you pretty please elaborate on "rubbish"? I mean, I know what you're
saying, but I am curious as to
  
what code Frontpage and Dreamweaver puts out that is rubbish. I've seen
it said so many times, but no one
  
ever elaborates.
  
  
Many thanks,
  
Artemis
  
  

Artemis, 

I am not one of the web standards gurus here but FrontPage, Dreamweaver
(DW) and almost all other WYSIWYG editors by design cannot interpret
your visual design based decisions. They are unable to determine the
meaning of content and are only aimed at one end -- to achieve visually
what you design in layout/design view. They sacrifice clean, efficient
mark-up for the end result."If it looks good in preview mode it is
done" is the method or madness of these applications. 

When I first started really getting into web design I began with DW and
found that I liked what I saw but as I learned about cross-browser
compatibility, then download speeds and optimization, I found I was
spending so much time in the design view fixing stuff that I realized
there was a better way. On top of everything else you have to contend
with the weird and wild markup created by these programs. You either
ended up with nested table after nested table and images sliced up like
teriyaki steak or css inline styles like
style=".msp101{font-weight:bold}" or styles at the page top with no
discernable meaning other than the order in which it was created. 

Once you realize that you can create efficient clean meaningful code,
faster and then be able to edit files that you haven't touched for a
year without a special editor you will understand why Dreamweaver and
FrontPage(Microsoft doesn't use it-- that should tell you something)
are not desirable for editing good code. Dreamweaver can be configured
to edit in code view but it requires so much system resources to do it
--it nearly cripples my new laptop with PhotoShop CS2 running at the
same time. I personally use HTML-Kit (chami.com) and have used various
Linux and Win32 editors. The text editor of choice for me is Notepad++.


There are many editors out there find and try as many as you can,
choose the ones you like and find the efficiencies in them and start
writing great code faster and better than you ever could in a
WYSIWYG-BIS(But It's Poo[family friendly version]) editor.

All the best,

Jay



Jay Gilmore
Developer/Consultant
Affordable Websites and Marketing Solutions for Real
Small Business.
SmashingRed Web & Marketing
P) 902.529.0651
E) [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: [WSG] Oracle/Peoplesoft and accessibility/standard code

[Jesse Rodgers]

Hey,

Oh the code is horrid. No question. What I am being told is that 
Peoplesoft/Oracle are *working on it* and there is nothing the developer 
using the tools can do.


Drill down into a discussion with a development team and you find out 
that if they do change the way the HTML is then when/if they upgrade 
everything breaks. So I am told.


What I am looking for is a case where: (a) people have an accessible 
deployment or (b) people have been forced to ditch it because of 
accessibility. I am hoping for (a) cause you can't convince a Peoplesoft 
developer that what they are using is essentially a dated tool set that 
is a throwback to 1996... and with the amount they make consulting I can 
see why. According to them: It is all powerful, does all things, nothing 
can handle the loads it does (it chokes on 5000 or less simultaneous 
users) and nothing can touch it.


But really its just a tool that generates SQL and code for the front end 
in a visual authoring environment... There are (or was) a lot of uni's 
using it as they had some big add blitz in the late 90's promising all 
things to all people with regards to admissions, someone must have some 
idea ;)


Jesse

James Ellis wrote:

Hi

You could try running it through HTML tidy... or maybe you could write 
your own frontend to their backend?


Do you have some example pages?

Cheers
James

On 12/3/05, *Jesse Rodgers* <[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> wrote:


Hi,

I am getting the total run around here from developers on
Oracle/Peoplesoft and I was hoping someone on this list could help. My
couple questions:

- Does anyone know of an accessible PeopleSoft built application?
- Has the issue of PeopleSoft generated code been an issue or is the
responsibility that of the company using it?
- Does anyone know if, besides white papers, Oracle/PeopleSoft are
actually working on standard code that is accessible?
- How customizable is the HTML PeopleSoft spits out?

Thanks ahead of time...

Jesse


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Re: [WSG] editor

[Artemis]

I'm confused lol. My personal site is XHTML and I don't get any popup 
box when viewing in IE.
What is this  used for? Why would the average personal site need 
it? If you could explain in "beginner speak", I would greatly appreciate 
it :)


Artemis

 Original Message 
From: Lachlan Hunt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org
Subject: Re:[WSG] editor
Date: 12/1/2005 19:31



Try this in IE:
http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/wrongWithIE/?chapter=XHTML&withHeader=1

Oops, that's served as application/xhtml+xml, so it won't work.  
Here's the same article as text/html:

http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/wrongWithIE/?chapter=XHTML

One other thing that doesn't seem to be mentioned in that particular 
article is that if you use the  declartion (or, in fact, 
anything before the DOCTYPE), then it will trigger quirks mode in IE6 
and below.  IE7 will fix that particular bug, but still won't support 
XHTML properly.




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Re: [WSG] editor

[Artemis]

Could you pretty please elaborate on "rubbish"? I mean, I know what 
you're saying, but I am curious as to
what code Frontpage and Dreamweaver puts out that is rubbish. I've seen 
it said so many times, but no one

ever elaborates.

Many thanks,
Artemis

 Original Message 
From: Lachlan Hunt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org
Subject: Re:[WSG] editor
Date: 12/1/2005 18:38




Avoid MS Frontpage like the plague, it will output rubbish for even 
the most experienced users.





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Re: [WSG] Oracle/Peoplesoft and accessibility/standard code

[James Ellis]

Hi

You could try running it through HTML tidy... or maybe you could write your own frontend to their backend?

Do you have some example pages?

Cheers
JamesOn 12/3/05, Jesse Rodgers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hi,I am getting the total run around here from developers onOracle/Peoplesoft and I was hoping someone on this list could help. Mycouple questions:- Does anyone know of an accessible PeopleSoft built application?
- Has the issue of PeopleSoft generated code been an issue or is theresponsibility that of the company using it?- Does anyone know if, besides white papers, Oracle/PeopleSoft areactually working on standard code that is accessible?
- How customizable is the HTML PeopleSoft spits out?Thanks ahead of time...Jesse--Jesse RodgersManager, Web CommunicationsCommunications and Public AffairsUniversity of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
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Re: [WSG] editor

[James Ellis]

Hi Lori

Welcome to the list

HTML Tidy is a third party tool, rather than an editor. It comes in
very handy when you want to convert some code to standards compliant
code. Your best introduction to Tidy is probably via the Firefox
extension @
https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?application=firefox&category=Developer%20Tools&numpg=10&id=249

then head off to some random pages and view the source.Tidy will kick
in and you will see the results of it trying to clean up and bad code,
with explanations.

There are many editors out there that can pass code through Tidy - try
under the "TidyLib Applications" heading on the Tidy homepage

HTH
James

On 12/2/05, Lori Cole <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:













I am new to (trying to learn how) constructing standards conforming web
pages using XHTML and would like to know what HTML editor you folks that are
light years ahead of me would recommend?  Like HTMLTidy?  I am
Windows based with IE v6 which I will soon be switching to Firefox based on
this list.  Thank you.  Lori

[WSG] liquid widths

[kvnmcwebn]

Im only starting to play around with liquid layouts.

I like this 3 column example that uses min widths.
For non-mozilla browsers it uses horizontal rules to set the min scaling of the 
boxes.
It then hides these from browser that support min width, it seems a bit 
reduntant to me but. 
 
http://www.saila.com/usage/layouts/saila_layout.html




Anyway i started modifying the layout to have a fixed width left column.
So far it looks allright in ff but im not sure about it because i set the 
widths "visually" and they dont really add up to 100%.
Is this ok?


http://www.mcmonagle.biz/finaloti/index3.html

http://www.mcmonagle.biz/finaloti/finalstyle.css


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Re: [WSG] Newcomers and Web Standards (was editor)

[XStandard]

Lachlan, you have been on this list long enough to know that when you make 
extreme statements such as "since you're new, you might want to stick with 
HTML4" or "IE does not support XHTML", that debate will ensue. This is not what 
newcomers to Web Standards need. A better approach would have been to ask why 
this person needs/wants to use XHTML and if he/she has a good reason to do so, 
give this person advice on how to do it right.

To address your statement that "IE does not support XHTML" - this is not true. 
IE does support XHTML 1.0 - you and I just don't like the level of support IE 
offers. If you serve valid XHTML as HTML to IE, will there be any data loss? 
No! Will any modern assistive technology running on top of IE not be able to 
access the data? No! So, if XHTML is written to specification and to 
compatibility guidelines, IE will support XHTML.

Now, I don't want to give Hickson any more of my attention. But I will say that 
he and his groupies are not interested in teaching people how to use XHTML 
correctly. They are far more interested in inventing HTML 5 that no one now or 
will ever support.

Regards,
-Vlad
http://xstandard.com



 Original Message 
From: Lachlan Hunt
Date: 12/2/2005 5:08 PM
> Vlad Alexander (XStandard) wrote:
>> Lachlan Hunt wrote:
>>> Lori Cole wrote:
 I am new to (trying to learn how) constructing standards
 conforming web pages using XHTML and would like to know what HTML
 editor you folks that are light years ahead of me would
 recommend?
>>>
>>> Since you're new, you might want to stick with HTML4
>>
>> Lachlan, here is a classic example of a person new to Web Standards
>> asking for a recommendation about which editor to use and instead you
>> embroil this person in a debate over MIME types.
>
> My original advice to Lori did not include anything about MIME types or
> any other technical issues, I merely advised him/her that XHTML was not
> widely supported that there's a lot to learn about XHTML before one can
> use it; both points are true and I would expect anyone to give such
> advice to a beginner, before they go off and learn XHTML wrongly.  I
> only brought up all the technical issues in order to defend my position,
> and if I wasn't able to defend my position, I would have lost credibility.
>
>> Do you think this is a healthy environment for newcomers to learn
>> about Web Standards?
>
> Yes.  Why should we attempt to hide the truth from them, especially when
> they're just starting out and they need to lose/avoid any bad habits and
> mistakes as quickly as possible.
>
>> Since you brought up MIME types and Hickson's article, let me say that
>> you will get a lot more credibility for your argument if you stop
>> referring to an article that is based on flawed assumptions.
>
> The assumptions are not completely flawed, and while the conclusion that
> authors blame XHTML may not be true in all cases, substitute "XHTML"
> with "browsers" or anything else commonly blamed by incompetent authors
> other than themselves, and the rest of the assumptions still hold true.
>  But those assumptions you quoted from the article are irrelevant to the
> accuracy of the technical arguments within it.  It is the technical
> arguments you need to dispute, not some introductory prose.
>


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Re: [WSG] Newcomers and Web Standards (was editor)

[Rimantas Liubertas]

2005/12/2, XStandard Vlad Alexander <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> So Rimantas, you have written invalid XHTML, served it as XML and then blamed 
> XHTML
> because your Web site broke.

Your assumption is wrong :)

>If you had written invalid HTML 4 and some User Agents had
> not parsed it correctly, would you blame HTML 4?

No. And I do not blame XHTML. I don't like the selling of XHTML
without explaining exactly those
perils Hixie talks about.

> Wow, calling us liars because XHTML 1.1 has  
> constructs speaks volumes > about your character.

I call you liars because of this:
"...because only XHTML Strict and 1.1 guarantee the clean separation
of data from formatting, making them the clear choice whenever
availability of data is an important factor."

This is a lie, plain and simple.

  > As it happens, there is no other way to do arbitrary alignment in
XHTML 1.1 other than using
> this construct without resorting to inline CSS, which is deprecated, or by 
> using constructs
> that are no better like:
>
> 

I'd put it another way: "no other way to do arbitrary alignment in
XHTML 1.1 generated by WYSIWYG tool".

Because:

1. Content of  is aligned to the left by default. No align="left"
is necessary.
Content of  is centered by default.

In your case you used align="center" to center images in some columns.
This can be done in external CSS file with one rule td img
{display:block; margin:auto}

2. Content in  by default is centered vertically. In most cases we
want it to be aligned to
the top, so single rule tr {vertical-align: top} takes care of all
valign="top" attributes.
And if want to pollute your markup with these attributes, why not to
put them on tr, not each td?

3. If you have some cells which use different layout from the rest,
that means you have something
special in them. And this means you can have some id or class with
semantic, not presentational name. WYSIWYG tools are not smart enough
for that, but this is not the problem of (X)HTML and CSS.

All that means I can recode the page I referred in last post with
HTML4, and will have less and cleaner code than your XHTML1.1.
Recoding whole "Notes" section with  and getting rid of all those
decorative 
would save a bunch too.

So, "only XHTML Strict and 1.1 guarantee the clean separation of data
from formatting"???

Language does not matter, how you use it matters.

Regards,
Rimantas
--
http://rimantas.com/
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Re: [WSG] Newcomers and Web Standards (was editor)

[Matthew Cruickshank]

Lachlan Hunt wrote:
Yes.  Why should we attempt to hide the truth from them, especially 
when they're just starting out and they need to lose/avoid any bad 
habits and mistakes as quickly as possible.


Yours is a fringe and pedantic opinion, and you're being ridiculously 
harsh on XHTML.


I'm glad that people have been speaking up so that hopefully Lori will 
see that it's not so black and white an issue.



.Matthew Cruickshank
http://holloway.co.nz/


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Re: [WSG] Newcomers and Web Standards (was editor)

[Lachlan Hunt]

Vlad Alexander (XStandard) wrote:

Lachlan Hunt wrote:

Lori Cole wrote:

I am new to (trying to learn how) constructing standards
conforming web pages using XHTML and would like to know what HTML
editor you folks that are light years ahead of me would
recommend?


Since you're new, you might want to stick with HTML4


Lachlan, here is a classic example of a person new to Web Standards 
asking for a recommendation about which editor to use and instead you 
embroil this person in a debate over MIME types.


My original advice to Lori did not include anything about MIME types or 
any other technical issues, I merely advised him/her that XHTML was not 
widely supported that there's a lot to learn about XHTML before one can 
use it; both points are true and I would expect anyone to give such 
advice to a beginner, before they go off and learn XHTML wrongly.  I 
only brought up all the technical issues in order to defend my position, 
and if I wasn't able to defend my position, I would have lost credibility.


Do you think this is a healthy environment for newcomers to learn about 
Web Standards?


Yes.  Why should we attempt to hide the truth from them, especially when 
they're just starting out and they need to lose/avoid any bad habits and 
mistakes as quickly as possible.


Since you brought up MIME types and Hickson's article, let me say 
that you will get a lot more credibility for your argument if you 
stop referring to an article that is based on flawed assumptions.


The assumptions are not completely flawed, and while the conclusion that 
authors blame XHTML may not be true in all cases, substitute "XHTML" 
with "browsers" or anything else commonly blamed by incompetent authors 
other than themselves, and the rest of the assumptions still hold true. 
 But those assumptions you quoted from the article are irrelevant to 
the accuracy of the technical arguments within it.  It is the technical 
arguments you need to dispute, not some introductory prose.


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

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Re: [WSG] Re: the basics of Firefox (was RE: [WSG] BBC E-mail: Overhaul for Firefox web browser)

[Adam Morris]

ok ok ok... don't get your knickers in a twist! I'll shut up about FF now!!xOn 02/12/05, Lachlan Hunt <
[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:Adam Morris wrote:> If I uninstall everything, will I lose all my bookmarks, prefs etc.?
No, you won't, that's not how it works.  However, as has been saidseveral times on this list, this is not a Firefox support list.  Look upinformation about the profile folder, how to backup your bookmarks,
passwords, etc, and how to create a new profile.  Reinstallation usuallywon't fix problems associated with corrupted profiles.--Lachlan Hunthttp://lachy.id.au/
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Re: [WSG] Newcomers and Web Standards (was editor)

[XStandard]

Here is Hickson's reasoning as taken from http://www.hixie.ch/advocacy/xhtml

1. Authors write XHTML that makes assumptions that are only valid for tag soup 
or HTML4 UAs, and not XHTML UAs, and send it as text/html.

2. Authors find everything works fine.

3. Time passes.

4. Author decides to send the same content as application/xhtml+xml, because it 
is, after all, XHTML.

5. Author finds site breaks horribly.

6. Author blames XHTML.

[Rimantas wrote: You know, I have tested those "flawed assumptions" and they 
appear to be true.]

So Rimantas, you have written invalid XHTML, served it as XML and then blamed 
XHTML because your Web site broke. If you had written invalid HTML 4 and some 
User Agents had not parsed it correctly, would you blame HTML 4?

Wow, calling us liars because XHTML 1.1 has  constructs 
speaks volumes about your character. As it happens, there is no other way to do 
arbitrary alignment in XHTML 1.1 other than using this construct without 
resorting to inline CSS, which is deprecated, or by using constructs that are 
no better like:



Regards,
-Vlad
http://xstandard.com


 Original Message 
From: Rimantas Liubertas
Date: 12/2/2005 11:54 AM
> <...>
>> Lachlan, here is a classic example of a person new to Web Standards asking 
>> for a
>> recommendation about which editor to use and instead you embroil this person 
>> in a
>> debate over MIME types. Do you think this is a healthy environment for 
>> newcomers to
>> learn about Web Standards? Why do you need to stir things up?
>
> You know, I have tested those "flawed assumptions" and they appear to be true.
>
> What definitely looks like false statement is:
> "...because only XHTML Strict and 1.1 guarantee the clean separation
> of data from formatting, making them the clear choice whenever
> availability of data is an important factor."
>
> (from 
> http://xstandard.com/page.asp?p=A4372B00-8D7F-4166-977C-64E5C4E3708E&s=E638AEB0-ADC1-448B-9CE5-FB8AAE1FE55B#feature-xhtml-note)
>
> I guess   (same
> source) adds credibility to the claim.
>
> You know, in old bad HTML I can just drop align="left" part, because
> that's default behaviour, and use vertical-align: top instead of
> valign="top".
>
> Marketing is marketing, but lie adds no credibility either.
>
> Regards,
> Rimantas
> --
> http://rimantas.com/
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>
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>
>


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Re: [WSG] Layout Check Please

[Joseph R. B. Taylor]

Can you please send me a screenshot of that chaos?  If you care to, my 
email site [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Thank you everyone!

I wonder whats going wrong with IE/Mac?

Joe Taylor
http://sitesbyjoe.com

Lucid Realm Design wrote:


I'm running Mac OSX 10.2. It checks out on Firefox and Safari but on
IE your content is all over the place. (All browsers are most current
versions.)
--
Dan Smith
Lucid Realm Design
www.lucidrealmdesign.com
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


On 12/2/05, Joseph R. B. Taylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
 


Guys,  I'm on a PC with Firefox 1.5, IE 6.0 and Opera 8.5.  Everything
looks okay so far, but I was hoping some of you mac / linux guys could
take a peek at this layout please.

http://sausalito.sitesbyjoe.com/default.asp

Thanks so much,

Joe Taylor
http://sitesbyjoe.com
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Re: [WSG] Layout Check Please

[James O'Neill]

My only little comment is to either make the font size fo the nav bar a little bigger or to bold the text. The size of the font seems kind of hard to read verses the background.On 12/2/05, 
Patrick Haney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Guys,  I'm on a PC with Firefox 1.5, IE 6.0 and Opera 8.5.  Everything looks okay so far, but I was hoping some of you mac / linux guys could take a peek at this layout please.
http://sausalito.sitesbyjoe.com/default.as

-- __"Bugs are, by definition, necessary. Just ask Microsoft!"www.co.sauk.wi.us
 (Work)www.arionshome.com (Personal)www.freexenon.com (Consulting)__Take Back the Web with Mozilla Fire Fox 
http://www.getfirefox.comMaking a Commercial Case for Adopting Web Standardshttp://www.maccaws.org/Web Standards Project
http://www.webstandards.org/Web Standards Grouphttp://www.webstandardsgroup.org/Guild of Accessible Web Designers
http://www.gawds.org/

Re: [WSG] Layout Check Please

[Lucid Realm Design]

I'm running Mac OSX 10.2. It checks out on Firefox and Safari but on
IE your content is all over the place. (All browsers are most current
versions.)
--
Dan Smith
Lucid Realm Design
www.lucidrealmdesign.com
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


On 12/2/05, Joseph R. B. Taylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Guys,  I'm on a PC with Firefox 1.5, IE 6.0 and Opera 8.5.  Everything
> looks okay so far, but I was hoping some of you mac / linux guys could
> take a peek at this layout please.
>
> http://sausalito.sitesbyjoe.com/default.asp
>
> Thanks so much,
>
> Joe Taylor
> http://sitesbyjoe.com
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>
>
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Re: [WSG] Layout Check Please

[Patrick Haney]

Guys,  I'm on a PC with Firefox 1.5, IE 6.0 and Opera 8.5.  Everything looks okay so far, but I was hoping some of you mac / linux guys could take a peek at this layout please.http://sausalito.sitesbyjoe.com/default.asp Joe,Took a look at it with a few browsers in OS X 10.4.3, everything looks good (compared it to Firefox 1.5 on XP).Safari (latest version), Camino 1.0beta and Firefox 1.0.7 (haven't upgraded to 1.5 yet) all check out fine.PatrickPatrick HaneyNot a Sausagehttp://patrickhaney.com[EMAIL PROTECTED] 

Re: [WSG] Site check and review please

[Rob Mientjes]

On 12/2/05, Jad Madi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> We have alpha launched itoot.net yesterday, please give me your
> opinion, feedback, criticism

Looks good, no issues. That is to say, no issues with design and
performance. The about page could use some revisions. The quotation
marks aren't pretty (in fact, they are a hinder: they break the flow
of the sentence) and I'd like to know just a bit more about the
company (it's a company website? Can't tell from the front page _at
all_, and this time I'm not sure if that's good).

Good luck with pushing it into (real) alphas, betas and point aughts! :)

-Rob.

[WSG] Layout Check Please

[Joseph R. B. Taylor]

Guys,  I'm on a PC with Firefox 1.5, IE 6.0 and Opera 8.5.  Everything 
looks okay so far, but I was hoping some of you mac / linux guys could 
take a peek at this layout please.


http://sausalito.sitesbyjoe.com/default.asp

Thanks so much,

Joe Taylor
http://sitesbyjoe.com
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[WSG] Site check and review please

[Jad Madi]

Hi,
We have alpha launched itoot.net yesterday, please give me your
opinion, feedback, criticism

Thank you in advace.


--
Regards
Jad madi
Blog
http://jadmadi.net/
Web standards Planet
http://W3planet.net/
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Re: [WSG] Newcomers and Web Standards (was editor)

[Rimantas Liubertas]

<...>
> Lachlan, here is a classic example of a person new to Web Standards asking 
> for a
> recommendation about which editor to use and instead you embroil this person 
> in a
> debate over MIME types. Do you think this is a healthy environment for 
> newcomers to
> learn about Web Standards? Why do you need to stir things up?

You know, I have tested those "flawed assumptions" and they appear to be true.

What definitely looks like false statement is:
"...because only XHTML Strict and 1.1 guarantee the clean separation
of data from formatting, making them the clear choice whenever
availability of data is an important factor."

(from 
http://xstandard.com/page.asp?p=A4372B00-8D7F-4166-977C-64E5C4E3708E&s=E638AEB0-ADC1-448B-9CE5-FB8AAE1FE55B#feature-xhtml-note)

I guess   (same
source) adds credibility to the claim.

You know, in old bad HTML I can just drop align="left" part, because
that's default behaviour, and use vertical-align: top instead of
valign="top".

Marketing is marketing, but lie adds no credibility either.

Regards,
Rimantas
--
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Re: [WSG] Newcomers and Web Standards (was editor)

[XStandard]

[Lori wrote]
I am new to (trying to learn how) constructing standards conforming web
pages using XHTML and would like to know what HTML editor you folks that are 
light years ahead of me would recommend?

[Lachlan wrote]
Since you're new, you might want to stick with HTML4


Lachlan, here is a classic example of a person new to Web Standards asking for 
a recommendation about which editor to use and instead you embroil this person 
in a debate over MIME types. Do you think this is a healthy environment for 
newcomers to learn about Web Standards? Why do you need to stir things up?

Since you brought up MIME types and Hickson's article, let me say that you will 
get a lot more credibility for your argument if you stop referring to an 
article that is based on flawed assumptions.

Regards,
-Vlad
http://xstandard.com


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Re: [WSG] Re: UK Government Web Accessibility

[Jan Brasna]

accessibility is an optional extra or it's the usual "yeah, everything
we do is accessible". You know it isn't.


Not neccessarily. If the producer is working with standards and 
approaching his task responsively, it should be included in his "best 
practise".



Micro-perfection of HTML tags
and solid CSS design across even the most stubborn of browsers is not
financially viable for the majority of the website market.


I also don't agree, I think it's a myth that well structured, usable and 
accessible web sites are (more) expensive. Due to the text above. Only 
those developers, that treat clients with some specific needs they can't 
achieve as experimentees to learn it, bill the clients more to learn it 
themselves.


IMHO.

--
Jan Brasna aka JohnyB :: www.alphanumeric.cz | www.janbrasna.com
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Re: [WSG] Standards and Aesthetics

[Jan Brasna]

+ discussion at 



--
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[WSG] Oracle/Peoplesoft and accessibility/standard code

[Jesse Rodgers]

Hi,

I am getting the total run around here from developers on 
Oracle/Peoplesoft and I was hoping someone on this list could help. My 
couple questions:


- Does anyone know of an accessible PeopleSoft built application?
- Has the issue of PeopleSoft generated code been an issue or is the 
responsibility that of the company using it?
- Does anyone know if, besides white papers, Oracle/PeopleSoft are 
actually working on standard code that is accessible?

- How customizable is the HTML PeopleSoft spits out?

Thanks ahead of time...

Jesse

--
Jesse Rodgers
Manager, Web Communications
Communications and Public Affairs
University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
+1 519 888 4567 x3874, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: [WSG] editor

[Tom Livingston]

On Thu, 01 Dec 2005 21:38:31 -0500, Steve Clason  
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:



I'd suggest avoiding WYSIWYG editors (Dreamweaver, Frontpage, etc.)


FrontPlague, yes - avoid it. DreamWeaver 8, i'd think about. It's pricy  
(compared to NotePad and TextEdit), sure, but it has excellent CSS support  
(drops down a list of attributes, etc. as you type declarations and the  
like - very helpful) and many other treats like FTP. I use it only in  
"code view" but the WYSIWYG aspect has been much improved as I hear it -  
writing clean valid code (much improved over previous versions).


2¢

--
Tom Livingston
Senior Multimedia Artist
Media Logic
www.mlinc.com

Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
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Re: [WSG] Mambo & Accessibility

[David Nicol]

Hi all,
 
We used Textpattern for http://www.bustahouse.com/ and http://www.selfcateringshetland.com/
 
It's a really nice solution for putting together sites. My main concern with Textpattern is teaching clients how to use it, as the sections/categories model is sometimes a little tricky for them to understand.

 
That said, teaching a client to use Mambo is not the easiest job in the world either ... clients are always initimidated by the number of steps involved to add a new page: create the page, make sure the correct menu is displayed on the page and also make sure the page is linked to from the correct menus ... and so on.

 
Cheers
David
 
 
On 12/2/05, Rakesh Patil <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Plz dont send me any mail onword..
otherwise i'll.!!1 
On 12/1/05, Lloyd <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote: 
Hi Guys,I have been asked to work on a web site and Mambo is the current CMSbeing used. They want to, if possible, keep Mambo as they're CMS but 
upon inspecting it I am surrounded by tables and poor markup. It doesnot even seem possible (Without hacking the source) to add ALT text tosome images!Is there a way to make Mambo compatible (A large reason for the work 
is to allow blind users to get value from the site) with accessiblilyand hopefully web standards?Is there another CMS that you would mention which may suit my needs?Regards,Lloyd
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political correctness (was RE: [WSG] UK Government Web standards - IE and serving issues...)

[Patrick Lauke]

> Lachlan Hunt

> I'll be sure to make sure all my future examples use 
> "non-technologically inclined, gender indeterminent homo sapien" 
> instead.  Sure it's a mouthful, but we mustn't be sexist.

You can go overboard on political correctness, certainly...but Daisy's
comment is very valid in my opinion. And yes, my original reply was
(uncharacteristically for me) devoid of sarcasm.

P

Patrick H. Lauke
Web Editor / University of Salford
http://www.salford.ac.uk

Web Standards Project (WaSP) Accessibility Task Force
http://webstandards.org/

N���.�Ȩ�X���+��i��n�Z�֫v�+��h��y�m�쵩�j�l��.f���.�ץ�w�q(��b��(��,�)උazX����)��

Re: [WSG] UK Government Web standards - IE and serving issues...

[Lachlan Hunt]

Patrick Lauke wrote:

Daisy
Could we drop the sexist (it's never a grandfather!), ageist digs at 
people who simply had the misfortune to be born 10, 20, 50 
years too early?


Replace my previous statement with something non-gender/non-age
specific phrase to signify users who may have a average computer skills
and are not tech savvy.


I'll be sure to make sure all my future examples use 
"non-technologically inclined, gender indeterminent homo sapien" 
instead.  Sure it's a mouthful, but we mustn't be sexist.


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

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RE: [WSG] UK Government Web standards - IE and serving issues...

[Cameron Edwards]

Patrick/Lachlan - many, many thanks for your input...

...clashing as it is in some regard. :o)

I'd still prefer to deliver my site as XHTML 1.0 STRICT - if I serve it
merely as text//html then I'm still covering the bases somewhat while
elements of the world at large play catch-up. 

My mark-up will be perfectly structural - I'll make sure my publishing
system doesn't allow users to bruise either markup or accessibility
etc...

...but, in terms of enabling the site to upgrade at a future date with
minimal hassle I wouldn't personally user HTML 4.01 - even if it was
served in a really clean manner.

Currently, I also plan on enabling XML apps like SVG etc also.

Sig - choices are tough. Pretty sure I know what I'm picking
though. Further input will be warmly received...

C.

>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/02/05 11:05 am >>>
> Cameron Edwards

> Following some of the very interesting UK .gov mails of late, 
> I've been
> involved in a fierce debate about serving XHTML 1.0 STRICT either as
> application/xhtml+xml or text/html, content negotiation and the like
-
> whether, in fact, the world is ready for XHTML etc

Hmm...that old chestnut...right, my current view:

A large part of the world is ready for XHTML served as
application/xhtml+xml,
but IE isn't (and won't, even in version 7), and neither are older
browsers
which may still be in use (particularly in Govt and Education). So, by
just using application/xhtml+xml you are excluding any user agents that
don't
know what to do with it right from the start (imagine your grandmother
with
her IE6 going to her local council website - after you finally got her
to use
the "interweb" - to find information on some opening times or whatever,
only
to be presented with a "Open / Save as..." dialog).

Add to that the draconian error handling of application/xhtml+xml aware
user
agents...one unescaped character or  instead of  and the
entire
house of cards fall apart. Yes, you should have systems etc in place to
ensure
that this sort of thing doesn't happen (e.g. if you have content
authors, give
them an XHTML compliant editing environment, and run any external
source such
as integrated news feeds through a validator and fix them on the fly),
but
stuff can slip through in the most unusual of places.

Although heavily frowned upon, you can use text/html (it's a SHOULD NOT
rather
than a MUST NOT) http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-media-types/ 
"The use of 'text/html' for XHTML SHOULD be limited for the purpose of
rendering
on existing HTML user agents, and SHOULD be limited to [XHTML1]
documents which
follow the HTML Compatibility Guidelines."

Content negotiation, if done properly, works as an acceptable fallback
mechanism
to deliver XHTML 1.0 to HTML user agents.

Of course, for the last two points, there is a fundamental
philosophical issue
that HTML user agents will see your XHTML as broken HTML...but off hand
I can't
remember if this causes any *actual* issues or if it's just a "but in
theory
we're doing a bad thing" kind of deal.

With all of the above points many will ask: *why* do you need to
actually use
XHTML? There is no practical gain from the user perspective in using
HTML compatible XHTML, not mixed with any other X languages, over
simply going
for HTML 4.01 Strict (and avoiding the use of attributes/elements that
have
been deprecated in XHTML). One of the only situations I came across was
when I
recently needed to run an existing page through XSLT to turn it into
something else
... I couldn't have run an HTML 4 page through the transform (as noted
on another
recent thread here, I believe). The counter argument here would
obviously be
that the XHTML document should not be the final repository of
information, that there
should be a generic XML file which is then transformed to HTML 4.01 and
any other
required format. Ho hum...

Sorry...hope my slightly twisty arguments and stream of consciousness
type
ramblings made some kind of sense...

Patrick

Patrick H. Lauke
Web Editor / University of Salford
http://www.salford.ac.uk 

Web Standards Project (WaSP) Accessibility Task Force
http://webstandards.org/ 

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RE: [WSG] UK Government Web standards - IE and serving issues...

[Patrick Lauke]

> Daisy

> Could we drop the sexist (it's never a grandfather!), ageist digs at 
> people who simply had the misfortune to be born 10, 20, 50 
> years too early?

Fair enough, my sincere apologies. In my defence, the example was actually
based on a real life example from a colleague of mine.

Replace my previous statement with something non-gender/non-age
specific phrase to signify users who may have a average computer skills
and are not tech savvy.

Patrick

Patrick H. Lauke
Web Editor / University of Salford
http://www.salford.ac.uk

Web Standards Project (WaSP) Accessibility Task Force
http://webstandards.org/

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Re: [WSG] UK Government Web standards - IE and serving issues...

[Daisy]

Patrick Lauke wrote:


(imagine your grandmother with her IE6 going to her local council website - 
after you finally got her to use
the "interweb" - to find information on some opening times or whatever, only
to be presented with a "Open / Save as..." dialog).

Patrick, I'm a grandmother -- albeit a stunningly youthful one ;-) -- 
and I'm following this thread avidly as I try and decide whether to 
serve up html or xhtml as I accessify a delightful but flawed WP theme. 
On this "interweb" so many of you dashing young things are talking about.


Could we drop the sexist (it's never a grandfather!), ageist digs at 
people who simply had the misfortune to be born 10, 20, 50 years too early?


I hate to pick on you (of all people, who do so much for accessibility) 
but the "aunt mabel" type tag (it's nearly always an older, female 
relative) comes up too frequently and whilst I'm no bra burning 
feminist, even I get hacked off at throwaway remarks such as this.


Now where did I put my dentures and zimmer frame last night...

;-)


Daisy
---
http://chasingdaisy.com




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RE: [WSG] UK Government Web standards - IE and serving issues...

[Patrick Lauke]

> Cameron Edwards

> Following some of the very interesting UK .gov mails of late, 
> I've been
> involved in a fierce debate about serving XHTML 1.0 STRICT either as
> application/xhtml+xml or text/html, content negotiation and the like -
> whether, in fact, the world is ready for XHTML etc

Hmm...that old chestnut...right, my current view:

A large part of the world is ready for XHTML served as application/xhtml+xml,
but IE isn't (and won't, even in version 7), and neither are older browsers
which may still be in use (particularly in Govt and Education). So, by
just using application/xhtml+xml you are excluding any user agents that don't
know what to do with it right from the start (imagine your grandmother with
her IE6 going to her local council website - after you finally got her to use
the "interweb" - to find information on some opening times or whatever, only
to be presented with a "Open / Save as..." dialog).

Add to that the draconian error handling of application/xhtml+xml aware user
agents...one unescaped character or  instead of  and the entire
house of cards fall apart. Yes, you should have systems etc in place to ensure
that this sort of thing doesn't happen (e.g. if you have content authors, give
them an XHTML compliant editing environment, and run any external source such
as integrated news feeds through a validator and fix them on the fly), but
stuff can slip through in the most unusual of places.

Although heavily frowned upon, you can use text/html (it's a SHOULD NOT rather
than a MUST NOT) http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-media-types/
"The use of 'text/html' for XHTML SHOULD be limited for the purpose of rendering
on existing HTML user agents, and SHOULD be limited to [XHTML1] documents which
follow the HTML Compatibility Guidelines."

Content negotiation, if done properly, works as an acceptable fallback mechanism
to deliver XHTML 1.0 to HTML user agents.

Of course, for the last two points, there is a fundamental philosophical issue
that HTML user agents will see your XHTML as broken HTML...but off hand I can't
remember if this causes any *actual* issues or if it's just a "but in theory
we're doing a bad thing" kind of deal.

With all of the above points many will ask: *why* do you need to actually use
XHTML? There is no practical gain from the user perspective in using
HTML compatible XHTML, not mixed with any other X languages, over simply going
for HTML 4.01 Strict (and avoiding the use of attributes/elements that have
been deprecated in XHTML). One of the only situations I came across was when I
recently needed to run an existing page through XSLT to turn it into something 
else
... I couldn't have run an HTML 4 page through the transform (as noted on 
another
recent thread here, I believe). The counter argument here would obviously be
that the XHTML document should not be the final repository of information, that 
there
should be a generic XML file which is then transformed to HTML 4.01 and any 
other
required format. Ho hum...

Sorry...hope my slightly twisty arguments and stream of consciousness type
ramblings made some kind of sense...

Patrick

Patrick H. Lauke
Web Editor / University of Salford
http://www.salford.ac.uk

Web Standards Project (WaSP) Accessibility Task Force
http://webstandards.org/

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Re: [WSG] UK Government Web standards - IE and serving issues...

[Lachlan Hunt]

Cameron Edwards wrote:

Following some of the very interesting UK .gov mails of late, I've been
involved in a fierce debate about serving XHTML 1.0 STRICT either as
application/xhtml+xml or text/html, content negotiation and the like -
whether, in fact, the world is ready for XHTML etc


While I do strongly believe the future of the web lies with XHTML [1], 
the world is not ready for it yet, which is why I currently advocate 
that beginners learn HTML.  Before XHTML can be used seriously on the 
web, here a few milestones we need to reach first:


* Majority of UAs support XHTML
  (including Google, IE, lynx, handheld devices, etc.)
* Support for incremental rendering.
  Gecko currently cannot incrementally render XHTML.
* CMSs need to properly support XHTML, using XML tools that guarentee
  well-formedness and validity.
* CMSs need to handle character encodings correctly
  (there are currently significant problems with blogs handling
   trackbacks from sites in a different character encoding)
* CMSs need to be able to serve XHTML as XML to users that support it
  and transform to HTML for those that don't.
  (not just content-negotiation, I mean actual XSLT transformation
  (or equivalent) from XHTML to HTML)

Plus, the following extras would be nice, but not essential:
* ECMAScript for XML (E4X) widely supported
* MathML, SVG, XForms, etc. widely supported
  (natively in implementations, not just plugins)

Until such a time, there is little point using XHTML for any major 
corporate or government site, especially if you don't need to use any 
XML only features, like mixed namespaces, etc.


By the way, for anyone interested, the next versions of XHTML, including 
XHTML 2.0 and the WHATWG's XML serialisation of HTML 5 (XHTML 5), are 
being defined so  that they *must not* be served as text/html.


[1] http://lachy.id.au/log/2005/04/xhtml-future

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

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[WSG] UK Government Web standards - IE and serving issues...

[Cameron Edwards]

Following some of the very interesting UK .gov mails of late, I've been
involved in a fierce debate about serving XHTML 1.0 STRICT either as
application/xhtml+xml or text/html, content negotiation and the like -
whether, in fact, the world is ready for XHTML etc

Gurus argue for and against - at best. Jeez - clarity is a pain in the
ass. I'm wondering what some of you guys think in this regard -
especially if you had the opportunity for a brand new site launch etc
I'm ambivalent as it stands...

Thanks.

C.
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Re: [WSG] XHTML Issues

[Christian Montoya]

On 12/2/05, Christian Montoya <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 12/2/05, Rimantas Liubertas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > 2005/12/2, Lachlan Hunt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> > > Rimantas Liubertas wrote:
> > > > It is pretty easy to check, all we need is some online tool which, 
> > > > given an url
> > > > can resend page's content with application/xhtml+xml. Then grab those
> > > > XHTML pages and see what happens.
> > >
> > > Try Hixie's content-type proxy.
> > > http://software.hixie.ch/utilities/cgi/content-type-proxy/content-type-proxy
> >
> > Oh, thanks a lot, you saved me from some coding :)
>
> Is this a trick?
>
>  at the bottom of the page prevents it from handling xml. Any sort
> of xml. Now how am I going to test my XHTML pages
>

Ignore that, a mistake! It's actually my spam protection blocking
access... wow. What a good script.

--
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christianmontoya.com ... rdpdesign.com ... cssliquid.com
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Re: [WSG] XHTML Issues

[Lachlan Hunt]

Christian Montoya wrote:

2005/12/2, Lachlan Hunt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:

Try Hixie's content-type proxy.
http://software.hixie.ch/utilities/cgi/content-type-proxy/content-type-proxy


Is this a trick?

 at the bottom of the page prevents it from handling xml. Any sort
of xml. Now how am I going to test my XHTML pages


What are you talking about?  What ?  It's certainly not being put 
there by that script, it must be present in your own XHTML.  See, for 
example, w3.org as application/xhtml+xml


http://software.hixie.ch/utilities/cgi/content-type-proxy/content-type-proxy?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F&type=application%2Fxhtml%2Bxml

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http://lachy.id.au/

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Re: [WSG] Mambo & Accessibility

[Rakesh Patil]

Plz dont send me any mail onword..
otherwise i'll.!!1 
On 12/1/05, Lloyd <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hi Guys,I have been asked to work on a web site and Mambo is the current CMSbeing used. They want to, if possible, keep Mambo as they're CMS but
upon inspecting it I am surrounded by tables and poor markup. It doesnot even seem possible (Without hacking the source) to add ALT text tosome images!Is there a way to make Mambo compatible (A large reason for the work
is to allow blind users to get value from the site) with accessiblilyand hopefully web standards?Is there another CMS that you would mention which may suit my needs?Regards,Lloyd**
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Re: [WSG] Mambo & Accessibility

[Geoff Deering]

Lloyd wrote:


Guys,

Thanks for all the feedback! Backend is important as one of our
content providers is blind. Does anyone know much more about Joomla?
They are possibly prepared to upgrade (As they see this is just the
same thing). I want to know whether its possible to do this with
either Mambo or Joomla but I guess otherwise it will need be something
else so your suggestions of other good CMS's are welcome!

Thanks again.

Regards,

Lloyd

 



Just as a point of interest, Mambo, before it split into Joomla, said 
that the next major release (5.x) would aim to generate web standard 
compliant code, they had taken on board as a core developer the 
person/people who takes Mambo, and fixes it to produce XMambo 
(http://mamboforge.net/projects/xmambo/).  I don't think that will 
happen of itself, and will need web standards developers to work with 
the various teams to provide feedback.  I don't know what has happened 
with these initiatives since the Mambo/Joomla split.


The Typo3 people have said the same thing about Typo3 V4.x, which is in 
alpha 
(http://typo3.org/?tx_newsimporter_pi1%5BshowItem%5D=0&cHash=e4a40a11a9).  
Again, it will require web standard developers to work with them on that.


So I think there's the opportunity to work with and provide feedback to 
bring these products up to a standard where we can maybe*enjoy* good web 
content management tools.


--
Geoff Deering
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Re: [WSG] XHTML Issues

[Christian Montoya]

On 12/2/05, Rimantas Liubertas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 2005/12/2, Lachlan Hunt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> > Rimantas Liubertas wrote:
> > > It is pretty easy to check, all we need is some online tool which, given 
> > > an url
> > > can resend page's content with application/xhtml+xml. Then grab those
> > > XHTML pages and see what happens.
> >
> > Try Hixie's content-type proxy.
> > http://software.hixie.ch/utilities/cgi/content-type-proxy/content-type-proxy
>
> Oh, thanks a lot, you saved me from some coding :)

Is this a trick?

 at the bottom of the page prevents it from handling xml. Any sort
of xml. Now how am I going to test my XHTML pages

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christianmontoya.com ... rdpdesign.com ... cssliquid.com
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Re: [WSG] XHTML Issues

[Rimantas Liubertas]

2005/12/2, Lachlan Hunt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> Rimantas Liubertas wrote:
> > It is pretty easy to check, all we need is some online tool which, given an 
> > url
> > can resend page's content with application/xhtml+xml. Then grab those
> > XHTML pages and see what happens.
>
> Try Hixie's content-type proxy.
> http://software.hixie.ch/utilities/cgi/content-type-proxy/content-type-proxy

Oh, thanks a lot, you saved me from some coding :)

Regards,
Rimantas
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Re: [WSG] XHTML Issues

[Lachlan Hunt]

Rimantas Liubertas wrote:

It is pretty easy to check, all we need is some online tool which, given an url
can resend page's content with application/xhtml+xml. Then grab those
XHTML pages and see what happens.


Try Hixie's content-type proxy.
http://software.hixie.ch/utilities/cgi/content-type-proxy/content-type-proxy

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

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Re: [WSG] Re: the basics of Firefox (was RE: [WSG] BBC E-mail: Overhaul for Firefox web browser)

[Lachlan Hunt]

Adam Morris wrote:

If I uninstall everything, will I lose all my bookmarks, prefs etc.?


No, you won't, that's not how it works.  However, as has been said 
several times on this list, this is not a Firefox support list.  Look up 
information about the profile folder, how to backup your bookmarks, 
passwords, etc, and how to create a new profile.  Reinstallation usually 
won't fix problems associated with corrupted profiles.


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

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Re: [WSG] XHTML Issues

[Rimantas Liubertas]

<...>
> I code in xhtml Strict and serve it as text/html.  My code is
> future-proof, valid and well structured.  If I code in HTML4,
> there is less "need" for writing properly structured documents.

Too bad if quality of code depends on choice between HTML and XHTML.

> If at some point in the future browsers understand xhtml served
> as xthml, changing the way it's served is a relatively simple
> operation.  Re-coding from HTML to xhtml (and unlearning bad
> coding habits) is not as simple.

Yep, changing will be the changing the line in servers config.
Not so simple for majority of happy XHTML coders will be to find out,
why CSS stopped working (case sensativity), what had happened with
bacgrounds (html vs. body issue), why JavaScript is not working anymore
(document.write, *NS and  issues), why document
does not show up at all, and browsers throw ugly error (unrecognized entities
and other issues).

Or do you claim, that all those things are showed and explained to the newbies?
What I see is "lowercase tags, quote attributes" staff.

XHTML is more "dangerous" because of the way how errors are treated and thus
requires more knowledge. Coding something in  XHTML does not make it
automaticly better.

>  > Plus, I'm sure you've read Ian Hickson's "Serving XHTML as
>  > text/html considered harmful" article?!
>
> One man's view, based on an assumption that people will write
> xhtml tagsoup. Even if they do, they will find out soon enough.

In a very painful way. And from what I've seen I can say his assumption
is pretty correct. If IE7 team cannot tell application/xhtml+xml from
application/xml+xhtml what can we expect from newbies?

It is pretty easy to check, all we need is some online tool which, given an url
can resend page's content with application/xhtml+xml. Then grab those
XHTML pages and see what happens.

> > In the case of IE and XHTML, there isn't even limited support
> > for it, there's none at all.
>
> While technically correct, it is misleading, particularly for
> newbies, who might read it as "don't code in xhtml - people with
> MSIE will not be able to view your site".  It's not true if the
> page is served as text/html.

What is the point to teach begginers The Bad Thing (tm).
If they are unspoiled begginers, they can learn to code properly
whaterver language is. And HTML4 serverd as text/html does
not rely on any unimplimented features.

<...>
>  > I think it's important for beginners to learn correctly from
>  > the beginning.
>
> Exactly.  Teach them properly structured xhtml 1.0 and serve it
> in a MIME type that the browsers people use can work with.  Ready
> to reap the benefits of X(HT)ML later, when browsers support it.
>

Benefits of XHTML, which are?

And speaking of the future browsers and "one man's view":

http://annevankesteren.nl/2005/11/xhtml-advocates
http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200511/choosing_html_or_xhtml/
http://annevankesteren.nl/2005/11/draconian

Regards,
Rimantas
--
http//rimantas.com/ (in XHTML - that's WP fault).
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Re: [WSG] Re: UK Government Web Accessibility

[Jon Tan]

"Edward Clarke" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


I've just been informed of a BBC article referencing the UK Government and
accessibility.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4478702.stm



The stats claimed are actually a lot sharper than I'd imagine but I can see
why this is the case.


The actual report, 'eAccessibility of public sector services in the European 
Union' is here: 
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/e-government/resources/eaccessibility/index.asp


FWIW my summary is here with the stats converted to accessible tables: 
http://www.gr0w.com/articles/design/accessibility_of_eu_governments_web_sites_report/



They are paying for expert advice and being misinformed so
who's fault is this? Is an accountant meant to know about W3C validation?


IMO anyone buying any service for an organisation should be concerned with 
ROI / value for money and therefore should do their research or at the very 
least, ask a few service providers what they need to be looking out for and 
then research the answers. I've seen and contributed to articles in business 
magazines and industry publications that discuss these very issues. That's 
not to say there isn't more overt publicity that could be drawn to 
professional standards in design (I for one would lend as much support as 
I'm able to such a campaign), but information for procurers is out there if 
they look. Having said that, there are a list of stakeholders a mile long 
who should be interested in highlighting the issues you have in E Sussex, 
not least of all, the DTI and Chambers of Commerce.



How do we address the bigger picture though? Micro-perfection of HTML tags
and solid CSS design across even the most stubborn of browsers is not
financially viable for the majority of the website market.


I disagree. It's no less financially viable than tag-soup. In fact, 
accessible, standards-based design is more financially viable in the long 
term than not. It's inherent SEO and as such, any SEO / marketing budget 
that might otherwise go to adwords or meatspace marketing of the web site 
per se should be channelled in to the development and agencies could be 
advising this and evidencing it. I agree most businesses look at the bottom 
line; this appeals directly to that.


All the best,
Jon Tan
www.gr0w.com
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


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Re: [WSG] XHTML Issues

[Lachlan Hunt]

Bert Doorn wrote:
I code in xhtml Strict and serve it as text/html.  My code is 
future-proof, valid and well structured.


Future proof from what?  Do you really think any browser will ever drop 
support for HTML4?



If I code in HTML4, there is less "need" for writing properly structured 
documents.


Rubbish.  It's just as important to write properly structured HTML as it 
is for XHTML, the only difference is that when served as XML, UAs will 
just give up, but tag soup parsers are much more lenient.  In fact, it's 
that lenience you're relying on when serving XHTML as text/html.


If at some point in the future browsers understand xhtml served as 
xthml, changing the way it's served is a relatively simple operation.  
Re-coding from HTML to xhtml (and unlearning bad coding habits) is not 
as simple.


What bad coding habits are there that can be learned in HTML that can't 
be learned in XHTML as text/html?



Plus, I'm sure you've read Ian Hickson's "Serving XHTML as
text/html considered harmful" article?!


One man's view, based on an assumption that people will write xhtml 
tagsoup. Even if they do, they will find out soon enough.


How many sites claiming to be XHTML, but served as text/html, do you 
honestly think will survive the transition to application/xhtml+xml?


I can't speak for others, but I write proper xhtml, not html tagsoup 
translated to xhtml.


You might, but you do really expect beginners to when they're not seeing 
and learning from the actual results of an XML parser?



I think we've had a thread about this article  already, so will leave it there.


Yes, the issue has been discussed to death in many forums, newsgroups 
and mailing lists, but there are clearly still some people that haven't 
got the message.



In the case of IE and XHTML, there isn't even limited support
for it, there's none at all.



While technically correct, it is misleading, particularly for
newbies, who might read it as "don't code in xhtml - people with
MSIE will not be able to view your site".


What's wrong with teaching them that?  The fact is XHTML really should 
not be served as text/html, despite what the joke that is Appendix C 
says.  (Also note that most sites claiming to be XHTML as text/html, 
don't conform to appendix C)



It's not true if the page is served as text/html.


If the page is served as text/html, then you're not really using XHTML, 
despite what the DOCTYPE says and the syntax used in the file may look like.



I think it's important for beginners to learn correctly from
the beginning.


Exactly.  Teach them properly structured xhtml 1.0 and serve it in a 
MIME type that the browsers people use can work with.


Since when does using XHTML correctly involve using the wrong MIME type?


 Ready to reap the  benefits of X(HT)ML later, when browsers support it.


In theory, that sounds good.  But the reality is, unless you actually 
developed the page and tested it under XML conditions, it's often not 
that simple.  Here's a brief overview of the serious problems many 
people will encounter if they ever attempt to serve their XHTML as 
application/xhtml+xml if they've only ever tested it as text/html:


Scripts
* If you've used this very common and outdated comment trick, the script
  will be hidden from XHTML UAs:

  

  (the same applies to