Re: [WSG] Using ellipsis to indicate truncated overflow content
text-overflow: ellipsis? http://www.quirksmode.org/css/textoverflow.html Thank you, yes, the text-overflow property is great but does not work in Firefox 3.6. Do you know of a work-around for Firefox. Unless you have a really massive FF 3.6 userbase that you know is blocked from upgrades, I'd say use it anyway. People regularly use things that don't work in IE - it doesn't stop being Progressive Enhancement just because Firefox was the weakest link in this case :) cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] IE9's Browser Mode Controls - Reliable?
This way of switching browser modes (between 7, 8 and 9) is quite convenient but... is it a true representation of how the project will render in these three browsers? From what I've read about them, they are close emulations rather than true representations (that is, IE is applying a set of rendering rules but not firing up genuine IE7/8 instances). Given the convenience factor though, I tend to use the modes for quick testing and only fire up VMs for a final test or if a specific bug has been raised. If not, I'd love to get some suggestions on the LEAST INVASIVE way to test different modern flavors of IE. I'm yet to find any option that's ultimately more reliable than VMs. I don't trust multi-IE solutions ever since I tried one that installed an entirely-unsecure, unpatched IE6 instance that was sandboxed away from all security measures (the results were predictable from that point). On Win7 I use XP Mode with differencing to set up multiple versions. The images don't expire so it's a one-off setup rather than re-downloading Microsoft's test VMs. I've written up my experiences at http://weblog.200ok.com.au/2010/08/browser-testing-with-windows-7-xp-mode.html On Mac I've just tried using https://github.com/xdissent/ievms and other than being a very very long download it worked without incident. I'd suggest installing one version at a time when you won't be disconnecting for a while :) cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] what is the exact version of FF 3.6 x prior to FF4?
I upgraded to FF4 without checking the compatibility of the addons. Both YSlow and Page Speed aren't compatible, now I need to install the previous version that I used, but can't remember the exact version. There seems to be a number of 3.6.x. 3.6.16. http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-older.html With Firefox there's usually a link in the right-hand column on the all systems and languages page; or you can get old versions from the FTP server (see http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Installing%20a%20previous%20version%20of%20Firefox ). I've found it doesn't hurt to keep a copy of the last Firefox, plus the .xpi files of compatible key extensions (eg. firebug and the web dev toolbar). -Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] HTML5 v. HTML 4.x
On 25 January 2011 09:44, grant_malcolm_bai...@westnet.com.au wrote: Hello, Could someone please clarify this for me. I realise that HTML5 has introduced new semantic elements such as header, aside etc., but does this really increase the expressive power of the markup? In the long run, yes this increases the expressive power of markup. Some moves are more obviously practical than others, eg. section means for the first time HTML can have heading levels more than six deep - lawyers' web developers will be pleased ;) Pity we didn't get a generic heading element to go with section, but cest la vie. Can't the same thing be achieved in HTML 4.x using classes (e.g. p class=header)? Yes, the same semantics could have been applied using attributes; but the WHATWG chose to mint new elements instead. Although few systems make real/significant use of the new semantic elements, in time they will and they provide some meaning HTML4 could not provide with elements alone. On the flip side, you can do basically the same thing right away using HTML4/XHTML and WAI-ARIA (and for some specific cases, Microformats); and I've seen a few recommendations to use both HTML5 and WAI-ARIA together, with WAI-ARIA bridging the implementation gaps in the meantime. I am reluctant to move to HTML5 due to the issue of backwards compatibility. There's no harm moving to the doctype and just sticking to the HTML4 element set - that way you can legitimately start using new features as they are supported (sites like http://caniuse.com/ help identify those). There's also no harm sticking HTML4, you just can't (validly) use the new HTML5 markup features. If you're maintaining a web app that already requires JS for functionality, there's no real harm using a javascript solution like shiv to enable use of the new elements across browsers. So it all depends what you need to achieve and what benefit you'd get from HTML5. cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] disallow IE6 to load the main style sheet
On 18 December 2010 22:20, tee weblis...@gmail.com wrote: I am finally to begin to stop supporting IE6 starts from 2011 as the usage has fallen below 5%. I don't want the IE6 users to see a broken page due to no special treatment made for the browser, rather, I would like them to see an un-styled page as if the style sheet has switch off. Can this be done? Rather than a completely unstyled page I use a combination of http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200511/valid_downlevelrevealed_conditional_comments/and http://code.google.com/p/universal-ie6-css/ (alternatively you could write a basic stylesheet, setting your usual typefaces and colours but leaving layout to the default - time box it to something like ten minutes' effort). !--[if ! lte IE 6]!-- link to normal css !--![endif]-- !--[if lte IE 6] link to IE6 css ![endif]-- That way it doesn't cost anything in good browsers; I'm not spending time on IE6; but anyone stuck on IE6 (eg in a corporate environment) does get something styled (a lot of people equate unstyled with broken). Because I favour actively pushing IE6 out I do include a little message just for IE6, respectfully suggesting the user should upgrade or ask their IT people if an upgrade would be possible. -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] Order of Tags within head (XHTML)
On 15 December 2010 13:31, Michal Miksik mmik...@gmail.com wrote: I was advised by an SEO company that : The Title tag should be the first tag in the HEAD area of the web pages, otherwise search engines may overlook it which will significantly damage the rankings. What is the best practice/order for placing tags withing the head section? Any feedback very appreciated. One thing I haven't seen mentioned is that if you set your IE rendering mode with an x-ua-compatible meta tag, it needs to be within the first 512bytes of the document. In practice that just means do it as the second thing inside head, after your document encoding (which needs to be before title for security purposes http://code.google.com/p/doctype/wiki/ArticleUtf7). cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] HTML5 Boilerplate
On 4 September 2010 18:30, tee weblis...@gmail.com wrote: I was reviewing the HTML5 Boilerplate that was mentioned in one of the thread, curious if this really is a good practise: !-- Always force latest IE rendering engine (even in intranet) Chrome Frame Remove this if you use the .htaccess -- meta http-equiv=X-UA-Compatible content=IE=edge,chrome=1 If you don't set the mode explicitly IE8 will pick its own rendering mode, so I think it's worth doing. I've seen some debate about whether edge is better than specifying a version of IE, but nothing truly conclusive. -Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] that old IE6 thing...
I think it's more to do with the fact that librarians are always getting hand-me-down hardware :) Pretty likely. I'd say it's probably also an effect of the corporate-owned hardware syndrome - as in, they may not have admin rights on their workstations to change the browser. Students on the other hand probably own their computers and can use whatever they like. -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] Yes/No structure?
On 7 June 2010 14:58, Steve Gibbings st...@stevegibbings.co.uk wrote: I have a problem with that. Radio button sets should always have an option selected, there is no undefined selection. This makes sense when you remember where the radio button metaphor came from. However seems that doesn't get universally implemented. Technically correct, true. Would you recommend a checkbox instead, or some other option? In practice I think the usage of radio buttons has shifted to accommodate sets with no initial selection. In usability terms it's probably better than a dropdown for a yes/no; and some people do have some issues with the implied off state of checkboxes. Compare it with a paper form where you have two boxes and you tick or cross an option - there's no preselection. I guess it depends which paradigm is more likely to fit the scenario. cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] Yes/No structure?
On 4 June 2010 12:29, nedlud ned...@gmail.com wrote: I have a web form I'm building and there is a simple yes/no question in it. I got to wondering what the best semantic mark up for this is? Does anyone have any good UI/UX suggestions? My three ideas were... Two radio buttons for yes and no... pDo you...?/p label for=ans-yesYes/labelinput type=radio name=ans id=ans-yes label for=ans-noNo/labelinput type=radio name=ans id=ans-no I go back to the fact radio buttons show mutually-exclusive options, which makes a very clear yes/no. If your question needs the user to actively specify a yes or no, it's a good solution. Checkboxes mean one response is given by omission, which is a less definitive interaction. Since radio buttons are one element short on their own, you need to wrap them in a fieldset and legend to essentially act like a label for the set of radio buttons. I also think the button should be on the left and the text on the right (in left-to-right languages), since a) that just seems the most common thing, and b) if you were to add a couple of divs to create rows, the buttons would line up neatly above each other. Which gives us... fieldsetlegendDo you...?/legend input type=radio name=ans id=ans-yeslabel for=ans-yesYes/label input type=radio name=ans id=ans-nolabel for=ans-noNo/label /fieldset Hope that helps... cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] color contrast, success criterion 1.4.3
So my question, how accurate is for Juicestudios Color Contrast Analyser and Color Checker Firefox extension? Will the brightness of monitor affect the result. Those tools should be accurate for text-only combinations that don't use transparency*, but I don't think they can detect the contents of images. Regardless, if you need something that works absolutely on the final rendered result, try http://www.paciellogroup.com/resources/contrast-analyser.html which gives you an on-screen selector. cheers, Ben * if you're using alpha transparency i've expanded on that point at http://weblog.200ok.com.au/2009/09/accessibility-vs-alpha-transparency.html -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] breaks, lists in a form or not, and more or less divs
In case of a poem, if I place every verse in a paragraph, what do I do with each line of text in the verse? Is this one of the very few occasions to use breaks? A verse doesn't seem a list to me... or is it? I like your opinion. This one has been debated a few times and it seems to come down to two common suggestions; paragraphs + breaks, or pre. I think both are fine, although I prefer paragraphs and breaks unless the poem has particularly significant formatting which requires pre. So, in order of preference... p First line of poembr / Middle line of poembr / Last line of poem/p Semantically fine, since the meaning relies on line breaks and I'm happy to consider each verse as a paragraph. Or.. pre The author put this line over here but this one here this one way over here ...and the form and layout is part of the poem's message /pre (hopefully that whitespace will survive ;)). Semantically ok as the content is preformatted. It's not strong semantics but there's not much else to work with and it gets the job done. In the very few tutorials I have seen about how to markup a form semantically, both were using a list in the form. To me that seems totally unneccessary plus too much markup. Does anyone know what can be the reason of doing it that way? Some people feel that each line of the form is the next step in a list of items to be filled out, and also to make the grouping clear; others are simply being pragmatic about the need for something to work with for style. I'm sure there will be other reasons too. It's not required, but I don't think it's a bad technique. Personally I'm quite comfortable putting each line of a form into a div (for complex forms you need *something*); but I tend to use fieldset+legend to ensure the grouping is obvious. Hope that helps :) cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] Including a DIV element inside an HREF tag
2009/11/4 dionisis karampinis dkarampi...@gmail.com I would like your comments regarding the inclusion of a DIV, inside a Link tag. I need to make the following div element - 'linkable' , as such when the user hovers on it, to be able to follow a link to another page. Do you think this is a semantic way of structuring these elements or not ? And if not do you know if there are any other alternatives so i could perform the same functionality? Well... your example won't validate as XHTML1; and you have something noted as a heading so semantically it would seem logical to use a heading tag. So I'd suggest something more like this: div id=service1 h2 class=servicepa href= http://www.impelmedia.co.uk/index.php/services/design/;My Heading/a/h2 p class=summarya href= http://www.impelmedia.co.uk/index.php/services/design/;Lorem ipsum text lorem ipsum text lorem ipsum text orem ipsum text lorem ipsum text orem ipsum text lorem ipsum text/a/p /div ...obviously pick the appropriate heading level. I've just assumed this wouldn't be the top level heading. This way everything's clickable, valid and semantically logical. cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] Ordered list start value
On 29 Sep 2009, at 00:45, Ben Buchanan wrote: The only valid way to change the numbering of lists in strict XHTML is to put a value= on each LI. The value attribute for li elements doesn't appear in Strict. http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/index/attributes.html is marked with an L, so it appears only in Loose (Transitional). Ahh so it is, well spotted. Guess it's transitional or bust then! :) -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] Ordered list start value
2009/9/28 T. R. Valentine trvalent...@gmail.com What is the proper way to start an ordered list at a value other than '1' in XHTML? I had ol start=9 flagged because 'there is no attribute start' The only valid way to change the numbering of lists in strict XHTML is to put a value= on each LI. I have to admit in some scenarios I've used start anyway and just worn the validation error. But if you're generating the list perhaps you can use value without too much hassle. The deprecation of start was... well I consider it a mistake! Thankfully it has been reversed in HTML5 ( http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/semantics.html#the-ol-element) so eventually the better solution will both work AND validate. I've never been able to understand why people thought the numbers weren't a critical part of the document, as opposed to display style! :) cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] [Spam] :The wisdom? of using q to clear
2009/9/27 designer desig...@gwelanmor-internet.co.uk Thanks to all who replied. However, no-one said don't do this because . . . ?? OK, well, since you're kind of asking... ;) Don't do that because it's horrendously non-semantic and you should be making your pages semantically correct. You are basically adding fake content to your page just to support a specific design requirement at a specific point in time, etc... Since you're actually adding content, you could potentially end up with some users seeing for clearing when they view your page. For example some mobile phones I've used revealed content that was hidden by CSS. Also Google will pick up all the extraneous for clearing text and read it along with your real content. If you want to put something into your markup just for clearing purposes I can't really see the point in using q - it's not a quote by any stretch of the imagination. If you can make it work with a br / tag stick to that, I think. If you need text just use a neutral tag and a space, eg. div class=brute-force-clearnbsp;/div which is at least better than actual text. Better to avoid it entirely though, using one of the alternative fixes mentioned earlier. cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] [Spam] :The wisdom? of using q to clear
Can anyone tell me what is wrong (apart from not being semantic) about using: Have you tried using the easy clearing fix instead? http://www.positioniseverything.net/easyclearing.html ...it avoids the need for markup just for clearing. If you stick with markup I'd suggest just using br / rather than including extraneous text. cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] hr / or CSS3 Border Background
After reading the following article, I ask which is more semantic, using the
hr / element with a background or using the CSS3 border background
property?
Well... markup has semantics/semantic meaning, CSS is style applied over the
top but is not part of the document's content. Applying the graphic with CSS
only means you are saying it's purely visual and not part of the content at
all... and I don't think that's what you really intend.
So if you are communicating a break in content (which is the semantically
meaningful concept), include the hr / even if you then hide it and display
a border when CSS is applied. On my blog I do just that, with hr
class=hidden /
and
.hidden {
position: absolute;
left: -5000px;
width: 4000px;
overflow: hidden;
}
I should really change the class to assistive as it's not actually
hidden from everybody, but that's a finer point. Anyway, with the HRs
hidden from view with CSS I then have a design with very clear breaks in the
content, which is a visual representation of the underlying semantics.
cheers,
Ben
--
--- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/
--- The future has arrived; it's just not
--- evenly distributed. - William Gibson
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Re: [WSG] Installing More than one version of IE6
It will not run on any of the Home editions of Windows; you must have Professional, Enterprise or Ultimate. A good warning, although not 100% true - it's not *supported* on Home editions... however I used it on XP Home recently and it does run if you accept all the warnings :) Admittedly it didn't run terribly fast, but I'm inclined to think that was just my Eeepc hitting a natural limit of performance (main machine is out of action, wouldn't normally be using the Eee for all my dev work). Definitely a case of YMMV here. So if someone's stuck with a Home edition it's still worth a shot. VPC's definitely the multi-browser testing solution that I trust the most in terms of accuracy. cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] Span within a li
PS: I ended up with a string something like this... (ineffectual)
#left ul li item361 a:link span
If tha'ts the actual string you have two issues
1) Missing dot for .item361, so it's not combining with the li
2) you're only styling unvisited links
Also it sounds like your selector is losing a specificity war. Try debugging
with this:
#left ul .item361 a span { display: none !important; }
or
#left ul li.item361 a span { display: none !important; }
If it disappears, you're at least hitting the right element. Remove the
!important and if it reappears then it's a specificity issue.
Not entirely sure what you're trying to do so I'm not sure if that helps...
hope it does though :)
cheers,
Ben
--
--- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/
--- The future has arrived; it's just not
--- evenly distributed. - William Gibson
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Re: [WSG] Browser toolbars
I have a quick question regarding browser toolbars and functionality. I have a client who is requesting a web application (online form) be built where they will lose some if not all browser navigation control and functionality, much like you would see on a Internet banking page. I'm against the idea personally but wanted to find out if there are any such standards out there that strongly encourage you keep these on your web page for usability and accessibility reasons. Finally, they wanted to the URL to be hidden as well, surely this is not recommended?? I have to admit it's a long time since I actually looked up supporting articles etc on this topic... messing with the browser chrome has been considered a bad idea for a long time (and thanks to a certain new browser, searching for articles about browser chromes has become exceedingly irritating). Banks are holdouts but I wouldn't be taking any web dev/usability leads from that industry ;) Usability and user relations suggest that interfering with the user's browser (tantamount to attacking their OS in the modern day) is a really bad idea. It's a huge breach of trust in an increasingly trust-based economy - if people can't trust you online, why would they trust you offline? Hiding the URL just suggests you're trying to do something dodgy and in Opera at least the browser makes it trivially simple to reopen the toolbars etc. I wouldn't be surprised if browsers simply stopped letting pages hide toolbars and URLs altogether, now that they use the URL bar for important status and security information. The other point I'd have to make is that removing these functions doesn't do anything positive for the web app. People can still click back (right click), refresh (f5), etc... you're not preventing any undesirable user interactions that might cause problems for a web app. It's unclear what benefit the client thinks they're getting. From the accessibility point of view, it's not acceptable to mess with the user's equipment. The browser is controlled by the user (it's not part of the page after all), who will have learned their setup and may be significantly annoyed and disoriented if your site changes it. Not sure if those points will help convince your client to leave the browser alone, but if you haven't already made those arguments maybe they'll help. Essentially they need to ask themselves: do I want my website to behave like it's a phishing scam? cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] how reliable is it to use IE8 compatible mode to test IE7/6
Anybody use IE8 compatible mode to test IE7/6 instead of standalone version? It doesn't cover IE6; and IE8-as-IE7 is not 100% the same as IE7 - http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2009/03/12/site-compatibility-and-ie8.aspx- so you would still need to double-check standalone IE7 anyway to be sure. Personally I use Virtual PC for testing extra versions of IE. cheers Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] how reliable is it to use IE8 compatible mode to test IE7/6
It doesn't cover IE6; This is strange. Wasn't that the whole Compatible Mode was to not break the web because of the massive IE6 users in corporate world? MS's position, near as I can tell, is that they don't want to break the web *with IE8, for people already running IE7 or IE7-only web services*. They recommend people upgrade anything requires IE6; and upgrade any user with IE6 on their machine. cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] Classes---Adding multiple classes to an element, is there a downfall???
Is there a downfall to applying multiple classes to an element, like the one
above? How does it affect UAs?
Just thought I'd offer an alternate viewpoint to the argh! no! responses
so far.
Like most web dev questions there's a contextual aspect to the question.
There's a time and a place to use multiple classes.
Multiple classes are hugely useful if you have a really large site (or
collection of sites) with design variations over a standard structure (i.e.
standardised markup). You can use multiple classes to build up layers of
style and save a lot of repetition.
eg.
.default { /* set up widths, sizing, etc */}
.variant1 { color: #000; background: #fff; }
.variant2 { color: #fff; background: #000; }
(obviously in a real build you'd do this with meaningful classnames)
Then you can have:
div class=default variant1
and
div class=default variant2
...and you've saved the hack work of setting up the basics twice. When you
have hundreds of different pages it's pretty powerful. The downside of the
approach is that you really do have to have standardised markup - not just
similar or usually the same but things actually have to follow a
standard.
For a smaller site with the current browser market it's probably overkill,
and for the scenario in the original question I think contextual selectors
are the way to go.
But we should keep in mind that the end of IE6 is in sight, at which point
combined selectors will work as they're supposed to. That will make multiple
classes more broadly useful - including being useful on small sites - as
there's the potential to do more style work with less elements.
So basically... don't be hating multiple classes, they have their place ;)
cheers,
Ben
--
--- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/
--- The future has arrived; it's just not
--- evenly distributed. - William Gibson
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Re: [WSG] Blockquote
2009/1/8 James Jeffery jamesjeffery@googlemail.com I'm developing a site. A quote site infact. For the quotes I think it's wise to use blockquote ... but, the quotes are being scraped from other sites so how would I cite them? Could I use a wiki url for the author? And what if the author is unknown or has no wiki page. Do I *need* to include the cite attribute? While the cite attribute isn't mandatory, your scenario actually solves its own problem. You can put in the URL you got the quote from. The cite attribute is set up for that sort of usage: cite = uri [CT] The value of this attribute is a URI that designates a source document or message. This attribute is intended to give information about the source from which the quotation was borrowed. http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/text.html#h-9.2.2 If you wanted to visibly show the actual author/quote source (ie. who said it, not where you got it) then you could include the name in a cite. eg. blockquote cite= http://www.rtnda.org/pages/media_items/edward-r.-murrow-speech998.php; pThis instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful./p pciteEdward R. Murrow/cite, RTNDA Convention Speech, October 15 1958/p /blockquote cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] JavaScript as External File vs. Internal Code and linking to images
Recently, I experimented with changing check boxes with JavaScript. If the user clicked on the words next to the check box, then the box would be checked, once checked if the user clicked again, then the box would be unchecked. As someone has mentioned, that's precisely what putting the text into a label does (without the need for any javascript at all). I'm just curious to know if you are using labels and/or if there was something in your scenario that meant labels weren't producing the effect you wanted? -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] list-style can't work with inline and float in IE?
2008/12/13 tee weblis...@gmail.com
I have two list items that must display horizontally. Wanting to use
list-style instead of background image, but in IE 6 and 7, the circle style
refuses to show up even I adjusted padding left (or margin).
ul.add-to li{ padding: 5px 10px 5px 0;list-style-type: circle;font-size:
.85em;float: left;color: #d9d49d;margin-right: 5px;}
Using display:inline also of no use.
If I add a 'float:none' in the CC for IE, than it works.
Generally I just use background image and be done with it ;) But in your
scenario have you tried setting display: inline-block for IE? Worth a try.
cheers,
Ben
--
--- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/
--- The future has arrived; it's just not
--- evenly distributed. - William Gibson
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Re: [WSG] is there a way to force legend text shows in TWO lines?
2) I have a column that is 160px wide, but the text in legend is a bit longer, I added a span class, declared a width, but in Firefox, the text still refuse to run in two lines - the rest of the text simply get cut off when the words reaches 160px threshold. I really don't want to add a br /, and it will be more ridiculous to use a p tag for the text so that I can force it display exactly the way my client wanted, then use a negative text-indent to hide the legend. Did you set the span to display: block? cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Text-only version
2008/11/21 Rob Enslin [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hi Ben, cynical/suspicious about what suppliers claim in the pre-signoff phase I agree - that's why I questioned it. With my internal clients a little naive displaying this long list of 'pieces of functionality' broken down it conveys the impression that there's a lot of 'extra' work involved. To see this exact billable function in action check out: http://www.kbb.co.uk/intkbb08/ scroll to the footer where you'll see 'Text only version' which then takes you to: http://www.kbb.co.uk/cgi-events/betsie.pl I'm quering whether: a) it should appear on the breakdown in the pricing quote and b) whether this is actually good web standards practice (or outdated with little value) From the link you've shown, it looks rather like the extra work is installing a perl script and linking to it in the footer. It is still a reasonable thing to list separately though, mostly since it's a relatively unusual feature. I certainly wouldn't assume that a text only converter would be included in a web build. Whether it's good practice... that's where it gets interesting. Accessbility guidelines allow for text only versions; but the absolute best practice is considered making one version of the site that's accessible in its own right. So it's slightly grey. It's certainly not harmful but it is a bit oldschool. Is it worth it? Well, if it doesn't cost much I'd be inclined to leave it in. The converted site has appropriate robots tags to avoid any negative issues in search rankings and it might benefit some users. But I'd be grilling them about the standard they plan to meet on the default version of the site :) cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Text-only version
Do you think it's a service I should be paying for? Although not expensive, I'm wondering why the 'functionality' needs to be highlighted at all? Surely, it's the same as saying we'll charge you separately for css or html markup? I'm naturally cynical/suspicious about what suppliers claim in the pre-signoff phase. Generally everything's a lot easier, more stuff is included and nothing is impossible.until the ink hits paper ;) In this instance I'd be asking them why the site needs a text-only alternative! It smells rather like they're going to build a table-based site or some other thing that's not accessible, then create a whole second version instead of doing the first one the right way. Alternatively they may just be setting up an easy way for users to disable styles. But you should get them to explain a bit further. cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] XHTML Standard question
Therefore, I was wondering if it would be feasible to include a standard that would use a syntax similar (does not actually *have* to be this way) to selected=selected? In which case, the syntax would be required=required. Or, if it is an email input (i.e. Your e-mail address:input type=text required=required; include:@ /). The stats you quoted do seem quite high - I'd be interested to see the full questions etc to see if there was some further context. Anyway, that aside... I would suggest that you follow the hijax approach and build your form with server-side validation to back up js validation (eg. if you're using PHP, Y Validate might be suitable for you http://www.sitepoint.com/article/javascript-just-not-validation/). Looking to the future, HTML5 is introducing a simple required attribute: The new required attribute applies to input (except when the type attribute is hidden, image or some button type such as submit) and textarea. It indicates that the user has to fill in a value in order to submit the form. [http://www.w3.org/TR/html5-diff/#new-attributes] Obviously that just requires *something* to be entered and doesn't validate the actual input; but it will still make life easier. Plus, of course, being HTML5 it could be quite some time before we see a level of browser implementation that would let us go ahead and use it. But it's good to know it's in the plan :) cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] XHTML Standard question
So exactly what behavior is mandated for UAs implementing HTML5 if a form is submitted with a 'required' element unsatisfied? If I'm reading http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-forms/current-work/#required0correctly, the form just won't submit if a required field is empty. Not sure about the UI feedback and so on, although looking at http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-forms/current-work/#form-submission I think the onus will be on the developer to handle error feedback (ie. same as now). cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] google and validation
Hi, I am just curious how many people in this list actually spend extra time making a validation error free page for the sake of validation when third party's code is embedded. Surely the above example is an easy fix, but how about embedding google calendar or other scripts? Wherever possible, yes. It removes noise from debugging/validation reports. The most common errors are pretty easy to fix, too - it seems there's not a third party on the planet that knows how to write a valid script tag or encode ampersands... but other than that it's often ok from a validation point of view. cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] google and validation
And Ben, are you saying you validate or not? I aim for sites to validate unless there's an immovable reason why not (unmodifiable third party code, legally locked code, unable to prevent users creating errors, etc). So I suppose for your scenario the simpler answer is just yes, because the code's in your control. cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Chrome and Safari
Seeing as though Google's new Chrome browser uses the same rendering engine as Apple's Safari, would it be acceptable to test browser layout issues in Chrome and assume the same CSS solutions apply in Safari? Does anyone know of any distinct differences in CSS rendering between the 2 browsers? I don't know of any issues now, but as a long term solution I would assume that the two browsers will get out of synch at some stage in terms of the specific version of teh rendering engine. Also as other people have noted the whole browser is more than just the rendering engine; so it's prudent to test them separately. cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Is it a good practice to have 'Back to Top' link?
Any suggestions would be appreciated. If you have a really really long page I think a back to top is ok. It's unlikely to harm anyone and it's likely to help some users. If the pages have a table of contents with jump links (probably a good idea) then you could also make it a back to table of contents link. Alternatively if you have a skip/jump menu at the start of the page, that makes a logical target without requiring the addition of any extra elements just for top links. Top links are certainly old school; but unlike some other list members I don't think users know how to to hit home or ctrl/cmd-home and so on. I'm constantly surprised at how little the average user knows about computers; and how resistant they are to being told how to use them in better ways. People on this list probably enjoy using computers or at the least know how to use them properly, with all the tips and tricks to make it more efficient. But the majority of users I observe know how to turn the machine on; they know how to click a few things to achieve the bare minimum of tasks with the bare minimum of involvement; they know how to shut it down again; end of story. Just like some people are turn the key, push the pedal, call mechanic when it breaks drivers and others are the more involved type - drive a manual - shift cleanly, watch the revs, drive to conditions, maintain the car properly cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Opera not playing nice with checkbox
By the way, the radio buttons on the above page, is exactly what I wrote
about annoying thing about Opera that it inherits the borders from input
element. In my case, adding a class with border none only gotten rid of
top, left, right borders. I actually needed to use !important to get right
of border-bottom.
Well given that radio buttons *are* inputs, that's what should happen.
Granted it is annoying but it's per spec. Anyway, given that your beef is
only with Opera, you can solve it easily with this:
input[type=radio] { border: 0; }
You might need to make the selector a bit more specific to avoid the need
for !important, of course; but you get the idea :)
cheers,
Ben
--
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--- The future has arrived; it's just not
--- evenly distributed. - William Gibson
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Re: [WSG] best practices for using access keys
Before you add accesskeys, check out http://www.wcagsamurai.org/errata/errata.html#GL9 ... basically the errata captures best practice methodology as it evolved in the years after WCAG 1.0 was released. Accesskeys are problematic between it says not to use them... but ... what about mobile sites? (where you might want to use keypad shortcuts for ease of use with a very tiny mobile phone screen) WCAG 1.0 was released in 1999 - ie. before people seriously started using the web on mobiles - and the errata address WCAG 1.0. Realistically it's about web pages for computers, not mobile-specific web pages. For mobile sites, I'd look at Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0 ( http://www.w3.org/TR/mobile-bp/), released just a few weeks back. Based off a *very* quick look, it does appear to recommend/allow accesskeys, although given that this directly conflicts with the Samurai-updated guidelines for general web pages, I'd only use accesskeys for *dedicated* mobile sites. If one site is doing both general web and mobile web duty, personally I'd suggest that conflicts should be resolved in favour of general web guidelines. At this stage, that's still doing the greatest good for the greatest number. But I'd also expect that this point will be debated more as the lines between mobile/general web blur further. cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] best practices for using access keys
i'm slowly bringing my web site up to better accessibility standards and i have a few more things to do like add a skip nav link and access keys. Before you add accesskeys, check out http://www.wcagsamurai.org/errata/errata.html#GL9 ... basically the errata captures best practice methodology as it evolved in the years after WCAG 1.0 was released. Accesskeys are problematic between browsers and other software so in general I think the concensus is to concentrate on making the site accessible and usable without custom keyboard controls. eg. rather than an accesskey for your site's search box, use your skip menu to provide a jump link at the start of the document (and not everyone will agree with me even on that point ;)). It's kind of similar to the whole issue of tabindex - don't use it, instead make sure the natural tab order is logical. Same general principle. cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Google chrome... Accessibility coming very soon???
Hey guys... it is great that talk about accessibility and chrome has been raised - but I do think that we need to wait until it is out of beta. Well... Google has a track record of a) keeping products in permanent beta; and b) never getting around to that pesky accessibility bit. So, personally I think waiting until its out of beta is a bad idea :) -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Google chrome... Coming very soon...
However Gmail won't load on any computers with Chrome on at work (in fact, I can't sign in to any google services). Is this problem affecting everyone or is it just our network? If it's affecting everyone that's pretty massive fail for Google. We had that problem here but it turned out to be a proxy issue. Interestingly though it turns out that Chrome loads and edits the connection settings from IE, instead of having its own settings. It's truly Frankenstein's Browser: bits of Safari, Firefox and IE stitched together into a new creature ;) Did everyone get a laugh out of about:internets in Chrome? :) cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Code for Firefox, hack for IE
For a while now, I've been operating on the principle Code for Firefox, hack for IE. That is, writing CSS for the most standards-compliant browser, and then making adjustments for non-standard behaviour. Is this the way anyone works? Is it the best way to work? I use basically the same approach, but I code for Opera; checking in Firefox and Safari. Then hack for IE at the end. On very large builds I do the occasional check for IE as well just to make sure things haven't gone really badly wrong in IE in some unpredictable way. I don't think you should code for firefox though. That's no better than coding for IE since you're just coding for a specific browser. A much better way to operate is coding for standards compliant browsers (or at least those browsers with the strongest standards support). I would recommend you broaden your initial testing to include Opera and Safari as well - they generally agree anyway but it's better to be thorough. If your boss really questions this you can always point out that building and testing in the better browsers is much faster. Most people find it is more efficient to get things working in the good browsers then do one round of hacking at the end for IE. I know I find it more efficient that way. You just have to get clients/etc to do their previews in something other than IE :) cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Design of forms on web vs paper
As a matter of best practice, should forms on the web be designed to look like their paper equivalents? Why/why not? There's a fair bit of interpretation for that wording; but my high level response would be web pages should be designed as web pages. The question has a definite air of things people worry about when they are transitioning print skills to the online space. The obvious concept people tend to come around to is that print and the web are different; and both should be designed for their purpose and according to best practice for the medium. There should be consistent design cues, ie. use a similar colour scheme (print colours often don't translate directly to screen colours), use the same general branding and so forth. If you hold up the paper next to the screen, you should be able to tell they are from the same source, but they do not need to look exactly the same (in fact I think it's unlikely that making them look exactly the same would be a good idea). cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Marking Up Poems
A question was raised at work today 'How do you mark up a poem'. It depends on the form, really. For most poetry, I think paragraphs with line breaks are appropriate. If the poem requires very specific positioning, pre would be the first option as that doesn't rely on CSS. Finally if all else fails, divs for verses and paragraphs for lines, with classes to position them. But that won't degrade gracefully, since CSS is required to convey core meaning. There's not much hope for something better in future either. XHTML2 had the l element, which was the line element. That would have been useful in this case. Sadly HTML5 doesn't seem to have anything so simple as a way to mark up a line of text within a paragraph. cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Marking up company logo
For a few years now I've been marking up a clients company logo as a h1. I just wanted to get an idea of how many people actually do this compared to using a html image tag? I believe a h1 is more semantically correct however I'd be interested in seeing what other people on this list think. My take is that only the homepage should have the company name/logo as the h1. As you move through the site, the h1 should shift to the more specific top heading on the page - on a category/index page it would be that category's name; on a specific content page it should be the headline on the content. On these other pages the logo/name just goes in a div, usually with a strong. That way, you build a logical structure across the site. Each page will have a logical h1. That's the ideal of course. If your system doesn't allow for that sort of thing, having the logo as the h1 on every page isn't the end of the world, although you really need to make sure your title and h2 combination is accurate to make up for it :) cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] XHTML 1.1 CSS3 - Is it worth using right now?
Is there a reason why not many sites adopt this Doctype and is there any point using right now if your site is 1.0 Strict? Very very generally, I've found it's less critical which standard you use than whether your stuff validates in your chosen standard. Secondly, I see a lot of sites that speak about CSS3 and using parts of that now in the browsers that support it. Basically what you're getting into there is the progressive enhancement methodology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_enhancement). Personally I think it's the way to go - give good stuff to the good browsers, so long as it doesn't mess up the bad ones. That way IE doesn't hold everything up. cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Older Browsers
My question to you guys is how do you develop test your websites to ensure they are interpreted correctly by older more popular browsers ? Do you have older browsers handy to test them with? Personally I wouldn't support IE5 for a full design, it's just too old - for many reasons they should upgrade. About the most I'd do for IE5 would be to exclude it from the current design and perhaps send it a cut down stylesheet with some basic font and colour settings. To test IE I run Virtual PC with IE6/7 - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=21EABB90-958F-4B64-B5F1-73D0A413C8EFdisplaylang=en I'm not wild about the multiple IE system as early experiences with it suggested they were inconsistent versus the real thing. -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] The Problem of adjacent links
What is the current thinking on this? How can I do this WITHOUT putting any characters in there? I don't emwant/em any characters in there! You could put the two links into a list. That would separate them into two disctinct elements without requiring punctuation. I'm not 100% sure of the usability aspect of having such a short nav list thought - anyone have any thoughts on that? Also, just another vote here to follow WCAG Samurai over raw WCAG 1. The Samurai know their stuff and the Errata really capture the best practice that emerged while working with WCAG 1 (many notes in WCAG 1 need clarification or are no longer correct in their original form). -Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Full flash websites
What do you people, professionals and hobby standardists think about full flash websites?? where is the usability and accessibility for flash in general?? Accessibility and search engine visibility of Flash in most cases is zero. I've only heard of one Flash site that was considered accessible and it made a lot of news at the time! Flash only reliably works for users with no physical or technical barriers; and search engines can't read Flash in any useful manner. I generally don't like the usability aspects either - that's subjective I guess, but I've found Flash is generally used when someone thought HTML didn't make them look cool enough. Which means they wanted lots of stuff to bounce and flash and so on ;) Essentially you should only ever add a Flash layer over the top of XHTML; and give users the choice between the two. Flash isn't evil, but *only offering Flash* is evil. -ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Colour accessibility/ usability
Hiya, What we need more information about is how the colour red can affect readability. I have done research, and I know about the w3c colour contrast algorithm. I've also had a look at the psychology of the different colours and that red is associated with anger and intensity. I used to work on a site that had a red/white/black corporate look and I can sympathise :) I suspect that actually you know all the reasons why not to use red in certain ways, but you're being outvoted by a client. I'd keep fighting for certain basics - your colours must at least comply with the W3C contrast rules (if you're not already using it, grab the CCA to make that easier - http://www.paciellogroup.com/resources/contrast-analyser.html). I'm sure there is research out there for everything else; but you could try a different tack and run some usability tests with real live users. Get ten people to test drive your designs and see if anyone finds the colours confronting. There's no research as relevant as your own :) Anecdotally, a key thing to avoid is primary red #f00 - it's just too bright. Also especially avoid using red on white (or reverse) for blocks of text, people often describe the result as it vibrates and that's prime territory for headaches; particularly for anyone who's photosensitive. cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Best way to hide form legends?
.hidden {
position: absolute;
left: -999em;
width: 990em;
}
For that method you're missing the overflow rule. Try this:
.hidden {
position: absolute;
left: -5000px;
width: 4000px;
overflow: hidden;
}
cheers,
Ben
--
--- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/
--- The future has arrived; it's just not
--- evenly distributed. - William Gibson
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Re: [WSG] transitional vs. strict
Pages that validate as strict are superior to transitional because ___. It is important to serve pages that validate as strict because ___. ...validation is a quality metric, and we want a quality web presence. Given that you're dealing with someone that has no interest in standards, I wouldn't attempt to convince them that they are inherently good. From your description, they don't care and they're unlikely to start caring! :) If they're a bottom-line type, mention that you will be able to maintain the site more efficiently (ie. less cost). If they're an SEO type, mention that valid sites tend to index more consistently in search engines (validation doesn't guarantee high ranking, but it is still a major part of any serious, ethical SEO). Your question about strict vs. transitional also begs the questions how close to strict are they?. If they could almost validate as strict already, then cool - go for strict. If they are miles off because hundreds of users would need to be trained to produce strict, I'd live with transitional and work on a strategy that doesn't require training hundreds of users to be standardistas. cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] transitional vs. strict
@Ben Buchanan: Are the points you raised true or were you mentioning them as things to feed bottom-line oriented people? The point I'm most interested in is this one: If they're an SEO type, mention that valid sites tend to index more consistently in search engines (validation doesn't guarantee high ranking, but it is still a major part of any serious, ethical SEO) Is that proven to be true? Genuinely curious. Yes I believe the points are true - I wouldn't recommend lying as an advocacy tactic :) You are of course giving things the best spin to achieve your goal, everyone does that. But the spin should be presenting the truth in the best light and addresing benefits that your manager cares about. Talk bottom-line with bottom-line people; talk standards to standardistas. re: Cost efficiency it's about how well you can redesign your current site or build new pages. My experience is that standards make that process faster, which means less staff time, which means less cost. Of course if your developers aren't any faster working with a standards-based site, you might not be able to use that argument. But I'm yet to meet a standardista who wasn't able to do things more efficiently with a standards-based site compared with a non-standards site. For SEO, there are two things to remember at all times: 1) No one single thing is a magic bullet, but there are lots of parts of the puzzle. 2) Nobody except Google/Yahoo/etc's engineers are 100% sure what works. Many SEO consultants pretend they're privy to inside knowledge, but the ethical ones admit that everything is just informed guesses based on observations. So with that in mind, what I've said about SEO is as proven as you can actually get with SEO. I've had an SEO consultant say (direct quote) if everyone built their sites with web standards, we'd be out of a job. What they meant was, if everyone created *semantically correct* documents, with a good title and heading structure. You don't have to build with standards to rank well - the crappiest website in the world will rank highly if millions of people link to it. But, all else being equal, a standards-based, semantically-correct site will do a bit better than a site with no structure. More to the point, a correct heading structure allows you to define the content heirarchy and create a natural/organic keyword definition for your site. It gives you a lot of control, by virtue of really accurately defining what you're publishing. Nothing in the markup can guarantee high rank (not counting dirty tricks I guess). But you can be pretty sure of accurate keyword indexing, which is a big part of the SEO picture. cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] premature to test/worry new site for IE8?
I am about to start coding for a new site, and client asked me to make sure my code will work for IE8, meaning when IE 8 comes out, she doesn't need to pay me extra to fix any problem that may occur in IE 8. Client is from a web media company, though I understand her concerns and that she has to answer to her client, but I just don't know how or if I should commit to such 'expectation'. Last time with IE 7, there was no problem and none of the sites I coded for her break when IE 7 came out. I think this version targeting thing really got people worry. Say, I code my CSS with best practice just like I'd always do, and treat IE browsers with CC should it be needed. Do I need to worry anything with IE8? It didn't occur to me to worry anything at all until client was making this request. My take on this is you cannot *really* code for a browser that's not released yet. Alpha/Beta/pre-release versions simply are not the same as final versions. There's a slight difference in this case because you do have a safety net - if the site works in IE7, but truly goes pear shaped in IE8, you can version switch it back to IE7. But, that's a first ever situation and I would not change my dealings with a client on that basis. As an ongoing client relations precedent I'd suggest that you do not commit to making something work in a browser that's not in final release. Reassure them that you will code to best practice; ensure any conditional comments are version tagetted appropriately (do not use if IE, always use something like if IE lte 7 or if IE 6); mention that version switching is a safety net; do test in beta browsers but don't guarantee the final release. If their site ultimately needs work due to a new browser release, that's part of the cost of ownership of a web presence. You can agree to minimise the risk, but you can't guarantee the site won't need work in IE8's final version. Hope that helps :) -Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] use of p in li
Hi, You don't need the p inside the li (although it's ok to put on in there it's not required). It's fine to just style the li. So unless you have a specific need for the extra tag I'd leave it out. cheers, Ben On 11/02/2008, Taco Fleur [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello all, I've been wondering about this for a while, just hesitated to ask (as it could be a stupid question). I've always been using p within olli (example, see state list on www.web-designers-australia.com) However, I see many people use a list without p tags, and style the text within the list item by creating a duplicate style of the paragraph tag. Just wondering, what is the way to go? Thanks *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] linking to images with //
I placed the code on the pages without really paying attention to it, after a while I discovered the image was linked as src=//images.scanalert.com/meter/www.clickfind.com.au/12gif I never seen this before, but it worked! I changed it to src= http://images.scanalert.com/meter/www.clickfind.com.au/12gif; and now it doesn't seem to load anymore, for an example see: http://www.clickfind.com.au/about-clickfind.cfm right next to Yahoo Web Service the scanalert icon should load. I have no idea whether the way they linked to the image is valid, does anyone know? I've seen this before but only in conjunction with Javascript that (we think) was completing the URI before requesting the graphic. We actually had the opposite issue though - without the full URI in our markup the whole page would freeze until the // request timed out. So I'm also curious to see what people here can tell us about this method! I guess if it is, linking to the images that way would overcome any issues with linking to an image over HTTP or HTTPS We thought it was probably something to do with that too. -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] This IE8 controversy
I just like to ask if it might be possible to turn off this version freezing thing in IE8, maybe with some markup or something. I agree with Drew Mclellan when he said in his blog that old browsers must die. You can't turn it off as such, since it will be built in to IE8 and enabled by default. But you can negate the effect by setting your pages to IE=edge which simulates what would have happened without the version freeze thing. Or you can explicitly set IE7, or IE8, or both. As the tag is an http-equiv it should be possible to set this up using a .htaccess file or via server configuration, rather than putting in the meta tag. That at least is the least work option for those of us doing the right thing. cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] This IE8 controversy
I don't think they're ignoring the mess they created at all.. You're right there. They're not ignoring the problem, it's just that a lot of people don't agree with their solution. Is adding a meta tag really too much work to provide your users/visitors the viewing experience they should have? Consider it this way: is any other browser maker asking you to modify every single HTML document you publish, just to fix a problem *they* created? ...and not for the first time, given MS already expects us to load up our sites with conditional comments and extra stylesheets... It really wouldn't matter so much if they were making IE8 default to IE8, then letting people set it back to IE7 if they actually need it. This way around ticks people off for the same reason SPAM ticks them off - they didn't ask for it! cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Compatibility and IE8
crikey, that's some list. thanks Russ. It's disturbing how well lemurs can illustrate the issue, too: http://www.katemonkey.co.uk/article/48/x-ua-lemur-compatible (the Zeldman lemur cracked me up completely) On the issue... it's something MS simply won't back down on no matter what any of us think. So we may as well figure out how to deal with it. Standardistas can go for the edge option or they can let IE stagnate at IE7 or whatever version ends up being the easiest to develop for. Or they can seriously tag their documents according to tested documents. Implementation specifics aside (yes I still think it's spam), the version target feature offers us a chance to lock our sites to the most convenient version of IE. MS has invited us to ignore their newer products. We can opt to save our energy for standards-based browsers and not bother learning new versions of IE. Lazy? Pragmatic? Mercenary? Discuss? :) Surely this list has some opinions... cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Do we just throw out the img tag
Now that I have mastered putting an image in a site using CSS do we just throw out the img tag in standards based xhtml. Not at all - you should still use img for any image which forms part of the document's *content*. Only decorative images should be inserted via CSS. And how does the use of css compare with use of the object tag http://www.webstandards.org/learn/articles/askw3c/jun2004/ I found in my google searches on the issue. My opinion is that object is a superior element, but it's held back by terrible browser support. Eventually I hope we are able to throw out img in favour of object. cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Comment mark
For an HTML comment, you should use !-- ... -- (no ! in the closing tag). The reason it worked in Firefox is that it interprets *any* instance of -- as a closing comment tag. As far as I know, all other browsers will wait until they get the standard --. Firefox gets it right since these (--) are the comment delimeters. ! and are markup declaration delimiters. True, although I see it as one of those times that it's right in the strict technical sense rather than a practical sense :) In general usage I think it's reasonable to expect the closing delimiter. cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Comment mark
On 10/12/2007, Hayden's Harness Attachment [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I would like to appologize if I am off topic. I am not sure who to ask. I am using !-- ... --! to comment out a line in a PHP file. Firefox2.xwill use it to comment out a link and IE7 will not use. Am I doing the commenting a line out right? For an HTML comment, you should use !-- ... -- (no ! in the closing tag). The reason it worked in Firefox is that it interprets *any* instance of -- as a closing comment tag. As far as I know, all other browsers will wait until they get the standard --. cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Re: Alt text for purely aesthetic images
I have two questions regarding images added via CSS.
1) I added an image for each bullet via CSS .box ul li. How do I specify alt
text in this situation? Do I add alt text in the HTML...even though there
would be no image if CSS was disabled?
Since it adds no meaning/information, it doesn't need alt text.
Think of it this way: what would there be to include as alt text? Each
list item has already been identified by the markup as being a list
item. The bullet image is just a prettier version of the default
bullet. Adding alt text would just be annoying to anyone who really
needs it.
2) What is the implication (what do I need to do) for purely
presenation/aesthetic images?
Either insert them via CSS or use alt=.
WCAG Samurai Errata for WCAG 1.0 cover this too -
http://wcagsamurai.org/errata/errata.html
Corrections to Guideline 1.1
You can leave a text equivalent blank (e.g., null alt text, alt=) if
immediately-
preceding or -following text has the same function as a text equivalent.
...
If images must be used for list bullets, do so only using CSS, as with
ul { list-style: url(arrow.gif) disc }
cheers,
Ben
--
--- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/
--- The future has arrived; it's just not
--- evenly distributed. - William Gibson
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Re: [WSG] source order
Is there a prevailing wisdom in this matter? Content first? Or navigation first? This is a jury is still out issue since nobody has comprehensive data, just small studies and opinion informed by observation of a relatively small number of users. What I think we can say for sure: 1) No matter which way you go, be consistent across the site so users can learn how your site works and trust it to work the same way as they move through the site. 2a) Either way, include skip/jump links; but 2b) Include visible skip links where possible or use invisible-but-accessible skip links (ie. do not use display: none; to hide skip links as a very large number of users will never be able to access them). If they are hidden, try to make them visible on focus so sighted keyboard users can see them. 3) Use meaningful link text and a logical heading structure. Not only is this just good practice and good for SEO... the accessibility-oriented reason people say this is that some (many? most?) screen reader users don't actually read a page from top to bottom. They use features which extract all the headings or links into a list; read just that list then use that to jump around content. Once they identify that they're on the page they really need, then and only then will they read the whole page. I will no doubt be corrected for saying this - please note that I am not saying *all* screen reader users do this. Screen Reader users have habits which are just as varied as other web users. No two people use the web in precisely the same way - but overall trends and common approaches can be identified. Enough disclaimer? :) cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Cost of Accessibility
My thought exactly. If you were an architect, would you ask a shopping centre client: do you want wheelchair access? The difference in that scenario is that the client would generally not expect the architect to skip the ramps and lower their fees since it's only a few people (although I've no doubt it does happen at times). Building codes/laws currently have a higher level of respect than web accessibility legislation. Web accessibilty laws haven't been heavily enforced in most countries, hence the need for cases like Target - to make the laws into reality. -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: A: [WSG] Target Lawsuit - Please Make Yourself Heard
The question is, why should we force anyone to do it? Well the short answer is: because corporations won't do it without being forced. So if we want a non-discriminatory society, we have to force corporations to do good things. No one makes his site non-accessible out of discriminating motives. That doesn't help the people being discriminated against. They do it because they are either lazy or ignorant. Ignoring a request to fix the site is still not discrimination, it is simply not caring. Target's managers are dumb, but they didn't do anything illegal. I don't know American law well enough to be sure, but under .au law that would actually be classed as discrimination and hence illegal... because it is discriminating against a group of people based on disability. They are treating disabled people as second-class citizens. Australia has laws against that. They're not enforced all that effectively, but we have laws. Target are saying If you are blind, you are worthless. We only take money from people who aren't like you. In a physical environment the equivalent would be turning them away at the door. Would you tolerate that if it was based on gender, religion or race? cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] A list of images with text under each image
dl dta href= title=img src= alt=/a/dt dda href= title=View/a/dd dda href= title=Buy/a/dd /dl I'd be comfortable doing that, since I am happy to treat definition lists as the only available way to associate related information in this manner. Sure, it's a stretch of the semantics of definitions and terms but the element does still associate the DT and DDs. The UL+headers+nested lists option would also work, semantically speaking. Again it's not perfect but it does hammer together a way to associate the items. Realistically this one could be argued back and forth all day with no real way to resolve it - HTML4 just has a weakness in this area. HTML5 looks like it will have better elements for this sort of thing, but in the meantime - take your pick of the two options. IMHO, they're both ok. cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Where's the proper place for an accesskey?
Wow, that's surprising to me, but okay - less work to do! So, if I'm using label tags and their attendant id, is that all that everyone here would suggest is adequate to pass current accessibility standards? Is there anything else I'm missing? Probably worth mentioning one caveat: while you shouldn't use tabindex, you do have to ensure your form's *natural flow* makes sense. So it's not 100% less work :) cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] ABC News Online have a new website
http://abc.net.au/news/ Tags (MyTags), Unobtrusive, Semantic, Quick launch video and audio content, News by State, News by Postcode! And a great user preferences section where you can set your connection speed, preferred video format, page layout (fixed width/flexible) etc I didn't see a noticeable difference after setting it to dialup... And yes, it validates! (transitional) Surely there is something they have forgotten. Colour contrast checks. But otherwise a damn fine effort. -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] ABC News Online have a new website
On 18/06/07, Ben Buchanan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://abc.net.au/news/ Tags (MyTags), Unobtrusive, Semantic, Quick launch video and audio content, News by State, News by Postcode! And a great user preferences section where you can set your connection speed, preferred video format, page layout (fixed width/flexible) etc I didn't see a noticeable difference after setting it to dialup... And yes, it validates! (transitional) Surely there is something they have forgotten. Colour contrast checks. But otherwise a damn fine effort. -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Back to the Future
I've been asked to write a website that MUST work in Netscape 4.03 and IE 3 for Windows 3.1. When you've stopped laughing I'm afraid I have to say I'm serious, and there's no chance at all that the people connecting to the site will upgrade. I'm quite curious about this - do you genuinely have a client with a large user base on archaic machines, or is this a whim of the CEO who won't upgrade scenario? Anyway, the next question is does it need to work as in be functional or does it have to work as in look the same? If it just needs to be functional, use import filters and give raw content to the old browsers. But I'm guessing this isn't an option or you probably wouldn't be asking :) So, any tips to do this without reverting all the way back to 1996 tables and spacer gifs? Or am I doomed to non-standards hell? From memory NN4 could handle some basic CSS but I wouldn't attempt to do a modern float or fixed layout with it. Your best bet is probably to use a CSS/table hybrid - use the table to set columns etc then CSS for colours, etc. IE3... sorry I simply can't recall. It's probably a little less capable than NN4. Cheers, and wish me luck. Good luck, and charge appropriately - meaning charge extra ;) -Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] WCAG Samurai Errata
What is your opinion on the errata ? It's an excellent read. Certainly therapeutic, particularly with Joe Clarke's wonderfully acerbic wit showing in places. I think what it truly does is define the Best Practice accessibility which has evolved under WCAG 1.0, which made some assumptions which were proven incorrect over time. Realistically most developers stopped shooting for perfect compliance, since some of the rules conflict with feedback from real live users. Tabindex is a perfect example - if the logical flow is so busted that you have to override it, the page should be recreated in a clearer form. Entering default text into form inputs is another rule which the experts tell me no longer applies. Samurai corrects a lot of those problems and does so in language which is usually pretty clear. The only downside is that there are still plenty of points which could be misinterpreted or quoted out of context to support spurious practices. It's readable though - calls a spade a spade. cheers, Ben -- --- http://www.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] What does Semantic mean?
Late to the party, but since I was specifically mentioned it's only polite to reply ;) The issue here is about the meaning of the word semantic. Semantics refer to the *meaning* attached to something. What is the meaning of a div? It's *use* is structural, but it's *meaning* is ... well, it doesn't have a meaning. Only by attaching meaning via a class or id does a div or span acquire meaning. DIVs are an interesting one in that they are neutral, but they aren't really neutral. They just have a very light semantic meaning and it's mostly that their usage creates meaning for the page by adding structure. To me, the structure of a document is inextricably linked with the semantics of the contained elements. So together with headings they define the structure of the page. Although they themselves don't have specific significance, their usage is significant for the page. It gets a bit meta. They enclose semantically significant items. To approach this slightly differently, div+heading is the general non-form content equivalent of fieldset+legend. It seems to me that many people here have different ideas about what semantic means. It would be helpful it we shared a common understanding in our conversations. I welcome, and invite, a *polite and professional* debate about the use of the term semantic as it relates to our work on the web. The use of something, and its meaning are not necessarily the same. They're not necessarily different either :) To come back to the original discussion about fieldsets, everyone has made it very clear what the correct way to use them is, and I don't disagree with them. I'm not interested in their correct (as defined by the specifications) use. As far as I'm concerned, the use of a fieldset is to group form controls and labels. But the meaning is, as the w3schools site says, to group related content. The actual W3C spec says related form controls, it's only a confusingly-named third party that broadens the wording. Personally I discount W3Schools in favour of the actual W3C. [snip re testing in a screen reader] I too would love to see the results of this experiment. Interesting that the code you propose does render ok; but useful functionality is lost. So it's not directly harmful, but substantially detracts from other usage paradigms. fieldsetlegendstaff details/legend dl dtemail/dtdd[EMAIL PROTECTED]/dd dtphone/dtdd12345678/dd /dl /fieldset Is perfectly valid, semantic markup which a screen reader would render just fine. Changing the legend to a header (say an h2 just for discussion) and removing the fieldset also works just fine in a screen reader. In english-language documents the page order associates the H2 with the DL. If the content after the DL is totally unrelated, it would need another heading. But can I point out, Ben, that at no time did anyone ever suggest placing form elements in the middle of general content. I'm not sure where you got that one from. I consider fieldset and legend to be form elements, hence the comment. Admittedly that goes right back to the original point of discussion so I should have clarified a bit :) cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Use of PDFs - Accessibility issues
Anyway, to get to the point, the customer has now been advised by a marketing agency that the site should be reduced in size to approx 45 key pages, and that the majority of content for things such as conference room specification and rates, bedroom specs and rates, menus, events, golf rates, membership rates etc, should be made available in PDF form instead of the html pages that are on the current site. Out of curiosity, did they give a reason for this advice? I am aware that recent versions of Adobe allow more accessible PDF content to be created, but I would be grateful for thoughts on the use of PDF content instead of html content. PDFs *can be* accessible, but only if the people creating them are extremely well trained and motivated to do so. It is *not* a matter of buying the latest version of Acrobat and hitting export. The real world result is that PDFs *usually are not accessible*. Because usually they're produced by people who have absolutely no training in producing PDFs for on-screen use. Even if they were produced perfectly and they were all accessible, I still wouldn't recommend using PDFs instead of HTML. Fundamentally PDFs are not web documents! They can be delivered via the web but they are not web pages and should never be treated that way. PDFs introduce a huge range of usability issues and the short version is they really annoy the average user and confuse the heck out of less savvy users. I cannot see any logical reason for the advice to your client to go over to mostly-PDF. I would suggest finding out why they suggested it and address the underlying issue. eg. if they want the pages to print well, build a print stylesheet. If they want the page to be updated frequently, train someone to do the HTML/use the CMS. If they don't want prices getting indexed by search engines, use the appropriate meta tags. If they're desperate to control print, then they could *add* PDFs but they shouldn't ditch the HTML. cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Re: Use of Fieldsets other than in form?
The FIELDSET element allows authors to group thematically related controls and labels. Grouping controls makes it easier for users to understand their purpose while simultaneously facilitating tabbing navigation for visual user agents and speech navigation for speech-oriented user agents. The proper use of this element makes documents more accessible. I think the first and last sentence make it clear that the intention is for fieldset to be used in forms. Although it does not explicitly say ...and nowhere else it's pretty clear where the writers *did* mean it to be used. For a comparison, the w3schools site defines fieldset as The fieldset element draws a box around its containing elements. And that's the complete sentence. Note no mention of form controls. A third party's description of the spec is not the spec; in discussions about the spec we have to go to the real source, not an interpretation of the original. I realise that many of the people here take pleasure in the pedantic application of standards, and I'll state for the record that I agree with the concept of the semantic web. It's interesting to see where standards advocates call each other pedantic. Meanwhile the rest of the industry would consider pretty much everyone on this list to be pedants of the first degree because they care about standards at all. So realistically, application of standards has to be pedantic otherwise it's not application of standards at all - it's picking and choosing. Still, it cannot be denied that we get awfully bogged down in the minutiae sometimes :) But I am a pragmatic coder and if I wish to group thematically related elements (*not* necessarily form controls), then I'm free to use the fieldset if I wish to. My opinion is that you are not free to do so. Fieldsets were clearly intended to be used in forms and the spec does not suggest using them anywhere else. You're using the absence of an explicit prohibition as permission. Sure a DIV would work. But a DIV is void of semantic. It's the refuge of the unimaginative who want to wrap everything in excess tags with no semantic meaning just to hang CSS off. To me, a fieldset is obviously the correct semantic here. Well it has already been pointed out that DIV does have semantic significance - it adds structure by containing parts of the page. It's just used so heavily that we tend to forget it has a real, live meaning :) The only major difference between DIV and FIELDSET the way you propose is that FIELDSET renders a box by default. A key point that doesn't seem to have come up is that in the real world screen readers make use of fieldsets in a way which assumes they're in a form. The legend can be vocalised together with labels to provide full context. Unfortunately I don't have a screen reader handy to test what it does with a fieldset that's not in a form; but I would be concerned that it could get really confusing for form elements to crop up in the middle of general content. I won't speculate any further, but if anyone has a screen reader handy, perhaps they could shed some light on this? cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Re: Use of Fieldsets other than in form?
Can fieldsets only to be used in forms or can they be used to group any sort of related information together (ie: business name, short description, logo and link). The spec's wording is a little vague but by my reading of it, fieldset and legend are only intended for form controls. Beyond the spec, I would imagine that the average user's expectation is that fieldset+legend = form inputs, so purely from a usability point of view I'd keep fieldsets for forms. For general content, the heading structure should group information together; and don't forget that although we use them constantly, DIVs do actually add structure (http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/global.html#edef-DIV). When I really want to break up a page into chunks I also use HRs, although many people contest that usage I think it's valid. Lists also group related items together; although I do think it's an oversight of the spec that you can't explicitly associate a label or caption with lists. Still, a subheading + list is usually a pretty clear association. In some ways it depends if you're talking about page layout or actual content - ie. is your business name, logo etc being used in a header; or are you creating a page which lists a bunch of businesses? For the former I'd simply use a DIV, for the latter a list (maybe a definition list). Just my opinion, no doubt there will be plenty of others :) cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Semantics and small
What is the best way to show something is less important than the surrounding information (e.g. the date of a post or article, supplementary information at the bottom of a post or article)? Really there's no element other than small which comes close to helping out here; otherwise it really is just a case of using CSS and that's not adding semantics, just style. In typical western communication, people do refer to fine print for supplementary information. The implication of small text is often that it has to be there but nobody expects you to read it. In actual fact the small text is often extremely important but full of legal mumbling that the average reader won't understand anyway. I wouldn't expect that same implication for the date of a post though. So in my culture at least, small sort of does what you want. But I have no idea at all if the smaller text paradigm translates in the slightest for other cultures. So it's just a tad weak, semantically speaking :) HTML5 does add semantics for small but again the semantics described do not work for the date. -Ben -- --- http://www.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Semantics and small
We have strong, we should have weak Many a true word said in jest :) Trying to add semantics to small is driven by history rather than good semantics. Small text is a presentational result of de-emphasising text. We have: normal text emphasised text strongly emphasised text Maybe we should have de-em and de-strong to complete the set :) I also wonder why small gets a guernsey in HTML5 but not big (the only reference to big seems to be with regards to error handling - http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#formatting). Big text is often a way to indicate a lead/intro paragraph. It's not a heading, it's not em/strong; it's a whole section which is just slightly more important than the rest. cheers, Ben -- --- http://weblog.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] ive given up on css
Today i just told them to go back to using table based layouts and i will restrict my designs accordingly- i cant listen to the whining anymore. What would you have done in this situation? Well I'm not a designer so this is a bit speculative - but with that sort of situation I'd probably stop getting involved in implementation. If they're more interested in finger-pointing than solutions, all you can do is remove yourself from the chain of blame. If they're not training their staff properly you can't win that fight. Alternatively, start doing the HTML yourself - show them your rates and let them run cost/benefit versus hacking it together themselves. Of course they might not be good at maintaining it, so you're still at risk. cheers, Ben -- --- http://www.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] MS Smart Tags
Hi Elle, It might sound silly but I first found out about MS Smart Tags yesterday. I found an article on ALA about them from 2001. Just wanted to ask, does anyone know what happened with them since? And would the meta tag: meta name=MSSmartTagsPreventParsing content=true / work? or is it still necessary? Even MS eventually had to accept it was a bad idea and they removed it before releasing IE6. From http://support.microsoft.com/kb/835564/en-gb The most contentious part of IE6, Smart Tags, was removed just prior to its release. As far as I know they didn't sneak it back in later, either; so the tag shouldn't be necessary :) cheers, Ben -- --- http://www.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** 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?
Hi Tim, I'd say Universities are probably aware of the issues with their sites, they just don't have a magic wand to wave to get everything fixed. Universities have massive amounts of information to provide and generally a minimal budget to provide it. Despite that, they are held to very high standards and are a soft target for complaints. What about a page on Australian Universities similar to what I have done for aus.gov.au sites. Australian Universities have in fact been surveyed before (eg. http://ausweb.scu.edu.au/aw03/papers/alexander3/) and the results are an excellent bargaining chip to promote accessibility issues internally. It needs to be a dispassionate review though. Trust me, screaming at people over validation results won't get the results you want. The Griffith site that you so casually dismiss over some unescaped characters actually took a lot of work from a dedicated team. There was no big budget and no CMS to help, but there were some 100,000+ files to manage and transition (through several iterations) from tables+frames to semantic markup. In such situations priorities are set. Perfect validation comes in as a lower priority than, say, getting rid of framesets; adding visible skip links; and adding display preference settings. Wouldn't that be of practical value to shame Aust universities not up to scratch, rather than chatting and more sandwiches? Perhaps you're underestimating the value of knowledge sharing (chatting and sandwiches) to under-resourced university staff :) People may not have the budget to buy huge IT solutions, but they can go to WANAU and brainstorm with other people in the same boat. Frankly just having other people to talk to can make all the difference, keeps people enthused and working towards their goals. Were the outcomes of the WANAU forum concrete and measurable? Some were, some weren't. It's a valuable activity either way. cheers, Ben -- --- http://www.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** 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?
Hi Susie, Web Accessibility Network for Australian Universities ... http://www.wanau.org/site.html They are proposing running their annual forum on Accessibility in online teaching at UQ where I work, and we've been asked to help ... :) I expect I will be involved anyway, but would be interested in any feedback! WANAU has been around for a few years now and the forums are great. Of course I may be biased since I ran the 2005 forum at Griffith ;) Basically WANAU is there to connect university-based web professionals and allow knowledge sharing, events, etc. Universities have accessibility challenges which often require different approaches than those encountered in the commercial sector; so WANAU provides a great way to get people together to discuss the issues. Well worth being involved if you're a web professional at a uni! :) cheers, Ben -- --- http://www.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Markup for Poetry?
I'm working on a website that contains a number of poems. Are there any discussions or examples on strategies for marking up and styling poetry? I haven't started doing markup yet, but if it would help folks on the list, I could that and post the links. As is usually the case, the bare markup really guides things - ie. be careful of solutions using span + CSS to generate lines, since that disappears without CSS. Generally, p with br / is best where the lines are important but there's no special whitespace (the majority of poetry). It's one of the extremely rare situations where br / really is a part of the content. For unusual whitespace pre is generally the best solution. Then style accordingly. cheers, Ben -- --- http://www.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] web accessibility-some thoughts
How and why did the web get singled out from among all of the other publishing mediums to be by law accessible? I don't know that there's a definitive answer; but I would suggest that part of the picture is that the web was created from the start to be usable to everyone. To put it another way, it's entirely possible to make an accessible website; so it's reasonable to expect that people do so. Why aren't book, magazine, and newspaper publishers required to produce an audio or braille version of everything they publish? Because a lot of of it is tosh people can live happily without? :) But seriously folks... Organisations publishing critical information generally are required to make it accessible. Government departments for example - they must make information available to all constituents. If they don't do this, they can seriously disadvantage people. Laws generally say that everything should be accessible - it's just that total enforcement isn't possible yet. So, ultimately people are picking their fights - is it more important to chase governments or gossip magazines? Really it should all be accessible, but people are being a little pragmatic. Why aren't TV broadcasters and movie production companies required to sub-title all of their broadcasts or films, or have an off screen reader describing the scenes? They are in some countries... eg. the US http://captioning.robson.org/articles/law/ Not sure about the legalities here in .au (captioning is a bit outside my usual focus), but captions are certainly available for a lot of TV shows. They might not be great quality (another issue) but they're there Isn't saying one can't (shouldn't) use, for example, a popup window on a web site because screen readers have trouble with them, like telling Hollywood they can't (shouldn't) use certain special effects because the off screen reader would have trouble explaining them to a blind person? I would say a closer analogy would be telling them that since they *can* caption their product (and in most cases can afford it out of petty cash), then they should. cheers, Ben -- --- http://www.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Talking about tabular data...
I'm curious to know what members of this group think about this. Should this be considered tabular data or not? Do you consider a table the best tool to mark this up? Or at least as good as anything else? I think a definition list fits better, even though it's a slight abuse of DL it does basically define each title as the person in it (better than the other way around I guess ;)). That said, I can see it as a table too - just a really simple one. Tabular data with just one row of data, so to speak. I'd really lean towards setting it up with two headings: position and name. It does end up being a bit of a gut feel thing though. A bit like can a list have just one item? Sort of... not much of a list, but is it invalid? Probably not, particularly if there's an expectation of adding more items. cheers, Ben -- --- http://www.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] It's times like this you remember how far you've come
I have the task of writing the database/dynamic stuff behind an e-commerce site. The design work and static pages are done by a professional design web dev house in Brisbane, and yesterday I got hold of their work. My job now is to merge their stuff with the shopping cart and other components I've written. [snip] Heh, I feel your pain. I don't think it's city-related though, it's about the size and culture of the company. The really big shops are probably the worst (repeat) offenders since they are so well established their clients often don't question their work. This is especially the case for firms that started in print then tacked on web to their service list (usually by throwing the job at their junior staff). Some firms know their code is bad but they are quite happy to leave it that way since the client is stuck getting them to maintain it, slowly and at great expense. The client probably doesn't realise they're not getting the best possible result so it's an easy way to develop ongoing work. The vendors of major CMS/portal technology follow the pattern too - their clients can't/won't go elsewhere, so they don't care that their code is crap. Naturally not all large firms are crap, but the large size of some firms does seem to encourage complacency. -- --- http://www.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Content negotiated links: why so bad?
organisation). I have a penchant for short, usable URLs that don't show file names, and would like to link to /mydept/training/ rather than /mydept/training.htm. Sounds a lot like you'll get resistance, although I agree that not showing extensions has some benefits. I'd shoot for a middle of the road - make sure that all index pages are documented/distrubuted without the index.html and try to avoid promoting anything other than an index :) More of a social hack than a technical solution, but sometimes policy requires it. cheers, Ben -- --- http://www.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Re: [WSG] Website Directory Structure - Best Practice
When it comes to website directory structure, I'm curious to know how you gurus out there set up yours. Well, I can't speak for gurus, but the way I do it: Each site or sub-site gets its own set of standard sub-directories, forming a self-contained set of documents and support files. Common sub-dirs would be /img/ or /images/, /style/ (or /css/, although that's naming to technical details and not function) and /doc/ or /nonweb/ for things like .doc, .pdf, etc. I don't use flash so that hasn't really come up :) Realistically I don't think it matters what the names are so long as they're used consistent across the whole site. -Ben -- --- http://www.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Tag clouds spit /
[snip- tag clouds] Thoughts? Mild agreement? Sly refutations? For a simple tag cloud I'm not sure how a table would work - the cloud isn't really tabular, in the way I would describe tabular. If a second rating was applied; eg. popularity + freshness (ie. how many times does the tag appear, and how recently) then you could use a table to create a matrix. But for your garden variety tag cloud, this probably isn't applicable. Technorati's multiple-emphasis method is interesting, but I'm not sure if the semantics are entirely sound (can you really just keep adding more emphasis?). Given that current user agents don't really do anything with the tag combinations you are ultimately left with a visual-only cue to importance. I'm with Christian on this one - I'd go with an ordered list with the most popular tags first. You could use a nested list to group together bands or popularity levels; or use an ordered list for the bands with an unordered list for all the equal weight items in that band. cheers, Ben -- --- http://www.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] streaming video
can anyone give me some pointers for streaming video. I know nothing, but it looks like my client base will want it and I need to know about it in general and guidance in particular from a reliable source. Suggestions? We've done a little bit of video/streaming at work; not huge amounts but from that: 1) We found the least painful method of embedding a player into a page is to use Flash video or a Flash player. YMMV. 2) If you only need to do very small amounts of video, you may find putting up hinted video files will suffice. Hinted video can be opened off a garden-variety web server, the user's software will start playing the file before the download is finished. While it's not true streaming a lot of users won't know or care about the difference. I don't know how to actually hint the files since we generally work with video produced by other teams. 3) Streaming servers are good so long as they can handle the load you are likely to experience. For really big/expensive/high-profile events, you are probably better off outsourcing to streaming specialists. 4) If you need to stream live, ditto on outsourcing. Unless you *really* know what you're doing, you're better off hiring someone and letting them stress about it ;) cheers, Ben -- --- http://www.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] IE Reverse Indent ?
... is there a way to put that whole section in my Style sheet file? Or in a seperate file so I can maintain the rules centrally? That's pretty much the rub of it all, for me! :) If only Microsoft had created a proprietary comment system for CSS, at least it would have been useful without so many downsides. Ben -- --- http://www.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Styling Fieldset and Legend Elements
I would advise against * html hacks though - http://www.webstandards.org/buzz/archive/2005_12.html#a000598 Personally I think building/testing/making long-term strategy for a beta-version browser is not advisable. We will not know what IE7 can and can't do until it is actually released. Until then we are all just wasting our time speculating and arguing. The next beta could break things that work in the current beta. I certainly don't understand why so many people have been so willing to accept Microsoft's decree - stop using that simple hack which can be removed from your CSS anytime you like; bloat your content with our proprietary hack, you miserable ingrates!. Conditional comments are a hack - an ugly, inefficient hack at that. Planning for the future includes the thought hey, when IE6 becomes irrelevant, I'm going to have to edit every single HTML document I've got to remove this bloat!. Remember, not every site uses a CMS (and not every CMS has a decent template system). Or alternatively, some browser will come out which has a bug that makes it read the stylesheet that was only intended for IE6; only to render a complete mess as it tries to cope with conflicting CSS. We do know that the * html hack works right now and it's entirely plausible that it will work just fine when IE7 comes out. It's entirely plausible that some future browser will have a problem with * html but it's also likely that IE6 will be a footnote by then so the hacks can be removed. The sky is not falling! /soapbox ;) Ben -- --- http://www.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Question of CSS specificity
.module will apply to any element with class=module, table.module will only apply to table elements. That's about it :) No doubt there's some deeper meaning that I've not yet heard, of course... ;) -- --- http://www.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] IE7 - The Good the Bad and the Ugly
* More informative Error Pages. As a general usability feature, I thoroughly approve of the more friendly error pages in IE7. That way, when your site's server goes down, people won't just be dumped with a nasty pile of technical text. So long as these are restricted to server not available scenarios, that's fine. However when IE overrides informative errors sent out by the server, things become a real pain (does IE7 always respect server errors?). For example, at work we include a contact form in our 404 response; IE users don't always get it so they can't report the link nor get an email alerting them when the problem is fixed. I've also received quite a few emails from users who were clued in enough to take a screenshot of a problem, but unfortunately IE's friendly message put the server status code way down the bottom, below the fold and as a result not in the screenshot! We had to go back and ask them to send the details again - was it a 404? a 503? something else? Still, the friendly message is probably more reassuring to users *if they read it* :) Ben -- --- http://www.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Online Store Categories
I was planning on using a definition list: dl dta href=#Category/a/dt ddCategory Description./dd /dl but would a table be more appropriate? If that's all the info you need to include, I'd say a DL is perfect. cheers, Ben -- --- http://www.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Quick help please...
Hi, This is a simple question but I have not had the needed this functionality before. Is is possible to use CSS to insert text into HTML. While it is possible to use CSS to generate content (http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/generate.html), IE doesn't support it. Big surprise there! Unless the application is an intranet where IE is not supported, you're out of luck. cheers, Ben -- --- http://www.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Converting the heathen: never again
Hi, I hereby publicly declare that my days of complaining to website authors that I cannot view their site at 800x600, and then opening my big mouth about other dubious issues I notice on their site, are now over. [snip] I'm astonished at the tone - although not especially surprised by the content - of their reply. Even if they thought you were being the biggest pain in history, they should remain polite when replying. Their arguments don't hold water of course; but they're clearly not receptive to any suggestion that they might change. I find it particularly interesting that they justify heavy scripting to cater to the widest audience possible but they are quite willing to discount anyone with a screen resolution (or window size) below 800x600...! http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2006/January/res.php still shows 800x600 as 21% of the market. I doubt that's 21% of people actually running that resolution, instead I suspect it's a proportion of users with non-maximised screens as well as those with the actual resolution. Ben [sorry if this came through twice - trying to get Gmail to use a second email address...] -- --- http://www.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] Converting the heathen: never again
I think you have come across a key lesson for the standards community: techies know about standards, they are not ignorant, they just have their own reasons (however lame) for not following them. ...which is why they can be a tough group to pitch to. They can be far more set in their ways than management. There are plenty of ignorant techies though, they're not all aware of standards. I also think there are a lot of people who work in big organisations, companies and even universities, that know that to raise these issues is to put their job on the line. Some developers who have a good [snip] Even if you aren't at risk of losing your job, you can certainly make yourself unpopular if you speak the truth about tag soup/inaccessible systems. Particularly big, expensive enterprise applications which cost millions. Not to mention the fact that the people who implemented those bohemoths can't always separate standards advice from personal vilification - no matter how polite, rational, independently verfiable... Ben -- --- http://www.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
