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Number of posts in this thread: 11 (In chronological order)

From: Dona Patrick
Date: Fri, Oct 23 2015 1:54PM
Subject: Complex tables: Scope AND id and header attributes
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I recall being told by someone or reading somewhere that one should not use
both Scope AND id and header attributes in complex tables. I don't recall
if this was HTML or PDF.

Has anyone else heard this? Is it true or was it misinformation?

Thanks,

Dona

From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Fri, Oct 23 2015 3:01PM
Subject: Re: Complex tables: Scope AND id and header attributes
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Hi

I would avoid headers/id by now (in html), it is being sunsetted and
its support by assistive technologies is no better than that of the
replacement techniques.
Also, you can no longer use the scope attribute on td cells, you must
use them on header (th or td with role="columnheader" or "rowheader")
cells.
If you want to indicate that a single row- or column header spans
multiple rows or columns, sue the rowspan or colspan attribute with
scope="rowgroup" or "colgroup".
E.g.
This header cel is header for two columns:
<th colspan="2" scope="colgroup">Phone numbers</th>

and this is a header for two rows:
<th rowspan="2" scope="rowgroup">My contact info</th>

Colgroup is decently supported on Windows, but support for rowgroup is
somewhat buggy, though getting better.
Voiceover (ioS 9.1) does not yet support colgroup properly. It will
announce the multi-column header, but does not announce the individual
column headers.
if you had this:
<table>
<tr>
<th colspan="2" scope="colgroup">Phone numbers</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="col">Personal</th>
<th scope="col">Business</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>919 999 9999</td>
<td>919777 8797</td>
</tr>
</table>

If you go into the first td cell using table navigation in Jaws or
NVDA, they would read:
Phone numbers, personal, 919 999 9999
Voiceover (on iOS) reads:
Phone numbers 919 999 9999.
hth
-Birkir



On 10/23/15, Dona Patrick < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> I recall being told by someone or reading somewhere that one should not use
> both Scope AND id and header attributes in complex tables. I don't recall
> if this was HTML or PDF.
>
> Has anyone else heard this? Is it true or was it misinformation?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Dona
> > > > >


--
Work hard. Have fun. Make history.

From: Moore,Michael (Accessibility) (HHSC)
Date: Fri, Oct 23 2015 3:07PM
Subject: Re: Complex tables: Scope AND id and header attributes
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On the PDF side you only need to use header and id in the following circumstances.

1. You have headers on the diagonal.
2. You have headers that span multiple rows. - Row span and scope does not seem to get you what it should.

Mike Moore
Accessibility Coordinator
Texas Health and Human Services Commission
Civil Rights Office
(512) 438-3431 (Office)

From: Dona Patrick
Date: Mon, Oct 26 2015 9:18AM
Subject: Re: Complex tables: Scope AND id and header attributes
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Thanks for your responses. My question stemmed from being required to use
both scope AND id and header attributes/arrays in complex tables on a PDF
file. The PDF files have tables that have headers two-levels of headers,
one of which spans multiple columns. The resource used was from the VA (
http://www.section508.va.gov/support/tutorials/pdf/Creating_Accessible_PDF_Tutorials_with_Acrobat_XI.pdf)
(page 47 - 51).

I'm going to follow the directions they gave and not argue, but I wanted
the opinion of the group and wanted to make sure that when I DON'T use both
I am still doing it correctly.

Thanks again!

Dona



On Fri, Oct 23, 2015 at 5:07 PM, Moore,Michael (Accessibility) (HHSC) <
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> On the PDF side you only need to use header and id in the following
> circumstances.
>
> 1. You have headers on the diagonal.
> 2. You have headers that span multiple rows. - Row span and scope does not
> seem to get you what it should.
>
> Mike Moore
> Accessibility Coordinator
> Texas Health and Human Services Commission
> Civil Rights Office
> (512) 438-3431 (Office)
>
>
>

From: Sailesh Panchang
Date: Mon, Oct 26 2015 10:28AM
Subject: Re: Complex tables: Scope AND id and header attributes
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In my experience, if headers-id is used, the scope is redundant and
serves no real purpose. Every data cell clearly conveys which header
cells are associated with it when one uses headers-id.
Skip the step for scope and try reading a table tagged only with
headers-id with a screen reader. It should work fine.
Thanks and regards,
Sailesh Panchang


On 10/26/15, Dona Patrick < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Thanks for your responses. My question stemmed from being required to use
> both scope AND id and header attributes/arrays in complex tables on a PDF
> file. The PDF files have tables that have headers two-levels of headers,
> one of which spans multiple columns. The resource used was from the VA (
> http://www.section508.va.gov/support/tutorials/pdf/Creating_Accessible_PDF_Tutorials_with_Acrobat_XI.pdf)
> (page 47 - 51).
>
> I'm going to follow the directions they gave and not argue, but I wanted
> the opinion of the group and wanted to make sure that when I DON'T use both
> I am still doing it correctly.
>
> Thanks again!
>
> Dona
>
>
>
> On Fri, Oct 23, 2015 at 5:07 PM, Moore,Michael (Accessibility) (HHSC) <
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
>> On the PDF side you only need to use header and id in the following
>> circumstances.
>>
>> 1. You have headers on the diagonal.
>> 2. You have headers that span multiple rows. - Row span and scope does not
>> seem to get you what it should.
>>
>> Mike Moore
>> Accessibility Coordinator
>> Texas Health and Human Services Commission
>> Civil Rights Office
>> (512) 438-3431 (Office)
>>
>>
>>

From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Mon, Oct 26 2015 2:52PM
Subject: Re: Complex tables: Scope AND id and header attributes
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>Has anyone else heard this? Is it true or was it misinformation?

If you use Ids and headers it's my understanding that you would be overriding he scope attributes and thus you could not rely on them. That is if you use Ids and headers they must be complete.

Jon

> On Oct 23, 2015, at 3:54 PM, Dona Patrick < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> Has anyone else heard this? Is it true or was it misinformation?

From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Tue, Oct 27 2015 8:25AM
Subject: Re: Complex tables: Scope AND id and header attributes
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> I would avoid headers/id by now (in html), it is being sunsetted

Birkir, can you please provide a link(s) indicating where this technique is being sunsetted?

> Also, you can no longer use the scope attribute on td cells, you must use them on header (th or td with role="columnheader" or "rowheader") cells.

While this may be true for HTML conformance -- I have not seen these as a documented failure under WCAg.

> and its support by assistive technologies is no better than that of the replacement techniques.

I'm not sure I agree. There are many situations where a table contains multiple column headers but only certain column headers apply to a cell in that column -- not all column headers. In these examples colgroup is not sufficient IMO. In these cases you need id and headers -- that's why the practice could not be sunsetted AFAIK. Examples are in the WCAG table tutorial.

http://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/tables/multi-level/

Jonathan

-- 
Jonathan Avila 
Chief Accessibility Officer
SSB BART Group 
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Phone 703.637.8957  
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From: Chagnon | PubCom.com
Date: Tue, Oct 27 2015 4:33PM
Subject: Re: Complex tables: Scope AND id and header attributes
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And when will be get solutions that real people can actually produce in a normal workday using basic Word, Acrobat, and HTML editors?

So many of these requirements require painful hand coding by code jockeys. That starts to make accessibility more expensive to implement and more likely that it will be downplayed by those who control the purse strings.

We need better solutions.
We need better software tools that let us put these solutions into play right from the beginning, such as when the author is writing in MS Word. Not later in the workflow. Right from the beginning.

--BJC

From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Tue, Oct 27 2015 4:44PM
Subject: Re: Complex tables: Scope AND id and header attributes
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> We need better software tools that let us put these solutions into play right from the beginning, such as when the author is writing in MS Word. Not later in the workflow. Right from the beginning.

For complex tables, I envision a tool where you click/select the data cell you want to assign headers too and then you click/select each cell in order that you want to "label" that cell. Then you click "associate" and the tool adds the appropriate header attribute (and applies ids as needed). The tool could also predict cells that you might want headers and pre-select them for you. The tool could learn as you go -- to better predict what you might do for the next data cell.

Such a tool would be invaluable in PDF work and very useful in HTML.

For Word -- well we'd have to come to an agreed up attribute in the DOM/XML -- something I have not researched in a while. Header association in Word and Excel is something that needs to be taken seriously.

Jonathan

--
Jonathan Avila
Chief Accessibility Officer
SSB BART Group
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =

703-637-8957 (o)
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From: Olaf Drümmer
Date: Tue, Oct 27 2015 5:03PM
Subject: Re: Complex tables: Scope AND id and header attributes
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At least those who use Adobe InDesign for creation of accessible tagged PDF, may consider the problems solved: the MadeToTag plug-in from axaio software offers this type of table organization. It's available for InDesign CS 5.5 through InDesign CC 2015 on Mac and Windows. More info and fully functional trial versions at www.axaio.com.

We did stay away from making the tool too smart and thus do not let it auto-guesstimate table structures, and instead focused on making the use of it highly efficient.

(Apologies for the shameless plug.)

Olaf Drümmer
CEO of axaio software (the maker of MadeToTag)

> On 27.10.2015, at 23:44, Jonathan Avila < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
>> We need better software tools that let us put these solutions into play right from the beginning, such as when the author is writing in MS Word. Not later in the workflow. Right from the beginning.
>
> For complex tables, I envision a tool where you click/select the data cell you want to assign headers too and then you click/select each cell in order that you want to "label" that cell. Then you click "associate" and the tool adds the appropriate header attribute (and applies ids as needed). The tool could also predict cells that you might want headers and pre-select them for you. The tool could learn as you go -- to better predict what you might do for the next data cell.

From: _mallory
Date: Wed, Oct 28 2015 1:29AM
Subject: Re: Complex tables: Scope AND id and header attributes
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On Tue, Oct 27, 2015 at 02:25:14PM +0000, Jonathan Avila wrote:
> > I would avoid headers/id by now (in html), it is being sunsetted
>
> Birkir, can you please provide a link(s) indicating where this technique is being sunsetted?

I remembered hearing this too a while back, yet had trouble finding
it. I had to look hard, but it seems headers attrs were being left
out of the HTML5 spec at some point and accessibility folks had to
bend over backwards to prove that there really were such things as
"complex tables."
http://www.w3.org/html/wg/wiki/IssueTableHeaders

Basically a group of people thought that either complex tables don't
exist (enough) to need headers attrs, or so what let's make a Scooby
Doo type algorithm (or a "magic cell") to replace headers.
The algorithm either never surfaced or was prone to failure too much
and as far as I can see HTML5 does now include headers attrs in both
w3c and whatwg versions.
http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/tabular-data.html#attributes-common-to-td-and-th-elements
https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/tables.html#attributes-common-to-td-and-th-elements

I think they're here to stay and ok to use.
_mallory