Janina,
Ian Hickson On 09-06-04 07.19:
On Wed, 3 Jun 2009, Janina Sajka:
We request the table summary tag be restored in HTML 5
Rationale:
Summary serves a need
HTML5 attempts to solve the problem using the <caption> element. I
understand that PF may not have the bandwidth to review this proposal, but
I do not believe that we should let PF's limited resources prevent
potential progress in the development of accessible HTML.
I hope that PF will review Ian's proposal in order to help the
HTML working group in assessing it. (Saying that we should look at
<canvas> rather than solving @summary really doesn't help.)
To perhaps kickstart a response: Our wikipage SummaryForTabe[1]
identifies as primary problem the fact that Ian hasn't proposed a
_programmatically-determined_ summary mechanism. The wiki points
to WCAG 2.0 a definition of "programmatically-determined":[2]
"Content that can be "programmatically determined" can be
transformed (by user agents including AT) into different sensory
formats (e.g., visual, auditory) or styles of presentation need by
individual users. If existing assistive technologies cannot do
this, then the information cannot be said to be programmatically
determined."
Simply put, this means that the table summary has to be
semantically marked up as separate from the table caption. And
since Ian's proposal only lumps everything into <caption> without
separating between what is captioning content and what is
summarizing content, his proposal falls through on this point.
I think it would be quite beneficial to focus on this particular
point to bring the debate forward.
[1] http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/SummaryForTABLE
[2]
http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/conformance#uc-programmatically-determined-head
--
leif halvard silli
