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Thread: is this table linearizable?

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From: Shrirang Sahasrabudhe
Date: Tue, Nov 28 2006 3:10AM
Subject: is this table linearizable?
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Hi,
Can anyone tell me whether the following table is linearizable or not?
I feel it is not, correct me if wrong.

<table>
<tr><td>country0</td><td>country1</td><td>country2</td></tr>
<tr><td>capital0</td><td>capital1</td><td>capital2</td></tr>
</table>

Thanks
Shri


***********************************************************
If you try, you risk failure. If you don't, you ensure it....I try.
Shrirang Sahasrabudhe,
Pune, India.
Phone: 0091-020-4227558.
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From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Tue, Nov 28 2006 3:20AM
Subject: Re: is this table linearizable?
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Quoting Shrirang Sahasrabudhe < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >:

> Can anyone tell me whether the following table is linearizable or not?
> I feel it is not, correct me if wrong.

Just to clarify: in general terms, the concept of linearisation only
applies to *layout* tables. Data tables, as in your example, are a
different matter altogether...it's not the linearisation that needs to
be looked at there, but the actual structure.

> <table>
> <tr><td>country0</td><td>country1</td><td>country2</td></tr>
> <tr><td>capital0</td><td>capital1</td><td>capital2</td></tr>
> </table>

Just from that, I'd say it should really be redefined as

<table>
<thead>
<tr><th>country0</th><th>country1</th><th>country2</th></tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr><td>capital0</td><td>capital1</td><td>capital2</td></tr>
</tbody>
</table>

P
--
Patrick H. Lauke
___________
re

From: ben morrison
Date: Tue, Nov 28 2006 3:30AM
Subject: Re: is this table linearizable?
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On 11/28/06, Patrick H. Lauke < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Quoting Shrirang Sahasrabudhe < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >:
>
> > Can anyone tell me whether the following table is linearizable or not?
> > I feel it is not, correct me if wrong.
>
> Just to clarify: in general terms, the concept of linearisation only
> applies to *layout* tables. Data tables, as in your example, are a
> different matter altogether...it's not the linearisation that needs to
> be looked at there, but the actual structure.
>
> > <table>
> > <tr><td>country0</td><td>country1</td><td>country2</td></tr>
> > <tr><td>capital0</td><td>capital1</td><td>capital2</td></tr>
> > </table>
>
> Just from that, I'd say it should really be redefined as
>
> <table>
> <thead>
> <tr><th>country0</th><th>country1</th><th>country2</th></tr>
> </thead>
> <tbody>
> <tr><td>capital0</td><td>capital1</td><td>capital2</td></tr>
> </tbody>
> </table>


Should scope be used as well?

<table>
<thead>
<tr><th scope="col">country0</th><th scope="col">country1</th><th
scope="col">country2</th></tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr><td>capital0</td><td>capital1</td><td>capital2</td></tr>
</tbody>
</table>

ben
--
Ben Morrison




From: Alastair Campbell
Date: Tue, Nov 28 2006 4:30AM
Subject: Re: is this table linearizable?
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Ben Morrison wrote:
> Should scope be used as well?

In simple cases (where only one heading applies to each data cell), I
would say not.

Simple tables with headings across the top are fine with just using
<th>s, but if you have more than one heading per data cell then yes, you
need to use a whole heap of extra markup.

I'm sure there's a tutorial on webaim about that?
http://www.webaim.org/techniques/tables/data.php

It did make me think though, I'm only really considering of screen
reader users (non-visual access) as the people that benefit from the
underlying markup, does anyone else?

Kind regards,

-Alastair

--
Alastair Campbell | Director of User Experience

Nomensa Email Disclaimer:
http://www.nomensa.com/email-disclaimer.html




From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Tue, Nov 28 2006 5:40AM
Subject: Re: is this table linearizable?
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On Tue, 28 Nov 2006, Patrick H. Lauke wrote:

> Quoting Shrirang Sahasrabudhe < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >:
>
>> Can anyone tell me whether the following table is linearizable or not?
>> I feel it is not, correct me if wrong.
>
> Just to clarify: in general terms, the concept of linearisation only
> applies to *layout* tables. Data tables, as in your example, are a
> different matter altogether...it's not the linearisation that needs to
> be looked at there, but the actual structure.

The concept of linearization can be defined in a manner that makes sense
for all tables: is the table understandable and useable if it is rendered
in a linearized manner, rowwise, much like the <table> were not present at
all (or, let us say more fairly, as if the rendering presented just the
contents of cells sequentially, with some markers between cells and
different markers between rows)?

Such a definition is relevant and useful, and linearizability of all
tables is a good goal, though not at any cost. In this case, the original
table is not linearized, since we get a sequence of countries and a
sequence of capitals. The user would have to count the items to keep track
so that he can know which of the names in the list of capitals is the
capital of Syldavia, which he was looking for.

Besides, there is a simple cure that makes the table linearizable:
transpose the matrix, i.e. make each row contain one country and her
capital. Sometimes this wastes space too much, but normally not. And it is
a more flexible and more extendible approach. You can present _all_
countries that way - something that you definitely don't want to do when
using a two-row approach with all countries on one row.

> Just from that, I'd say it should really be redefined as
>
> <table>
> <thead>
> <tr><th>country0</th><th>country1</th><th>country2</th></tr>
> </thead>
> <tbody>
> <tr><td>capital0</td><td>capital1</td><td>capital2</td></tr>
> </tbody>
> </table>

According to HTML specifications, the <th> markup should be used when a
cell _only_ contains header information, which I interpret as
metainformation _about_ data in the table, as opposite to actual data _in_
the table. For example, in a table of countries and capitals, cells with
words like "Country" and "Capital" should be marked up as <th>. In this
case, the cells contain actual data, even though it can also be seen as
being in a header/data relationship to the capital. Thus, <td scope="col">
would be more logical than <th>.

I would transpose the matrix:

<table>
<thead>
<tr> <th scope="col">Country</th> <th scope="col">Capital</th> </tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr> <td scope="row>country0</td> <td>capital0</td> </tr>
...
</tbody>

In practice, I would probably be so lazy that I would omit the scope
attributes, since I fail to see their practical usefulness here.

--
Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/





From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Tue, Nov 28 2006 7:00AM
Subject: Re: is this table linearizable?
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Shri,

If you want to know what the content looks like linearized, it would be:

country country1 country2 capital capital1 capital2

Listening to this example, I might know which country matches which
capital because of the numbering. IN the live interface, I might know
what the relationships are because I might know the relationship between
a country and a specific city. However, I would not be able to figure
it out based on the way the table linearizes.

If this is intended to be used as a data table, I would suggest using
one of the other options mentioned by other people here.

Tim
>-----Original Message-----
>From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
>[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of
>Shrirang Sahasrabudhe
>Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 4:05 AM
>To: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
>Subject: [WebAIM] is this table linearizable?
>
>Hi,
> Can anyone tell me whether the following table is
>linearizable or not?
> I feel it is not, correct me if wrong.
>
> <table>
> <tr><td>country0</td><td>country1</td><td>country2</td></tr>
> <tr><td>capital0</td><td>capital1</td><td>capital2</td></tr>
> </table>
>
> Thanks
> Shri
>
>
>***********************************************************
>If you try, you risk failure. If you don't, you ensure it....I try.
>Shrirang Sahasrabudhe,
>Pune, India.
>Phone: 0091-020-4227558.
> ___
>Do You Yahoo!?
>Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection
>around http://mail.yahoo.com
>
>
>
>