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Re: displaytag accessibility

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From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Feb 26, 2011 12:57PM

Chiara wrote:

> Usually this tool (displaytag) renders accessible tables, but when I
> use the option of grouping rows it produces an output not really
> standard... Instead of grouping rows it simply leaves some cells
> without text...

Such markup is technically "standard" in the sense of conforming to HTML
specifications, at least formally, and they are rather obscure as regards to
semantics of tables (like the meaning of leaving cells empty). But it is
nonstandard in the sense of being rather uncommon.

> Do you think this type of table is really not accessible?

The table looks rather confusing even in "normal" browsing, and it
apparently fails to associate all cells properly, therefore making it
virtually impossible to treat it well in assistive software. The problem is
that an empty cell has nothing in it saying that it "implicitly" contains
the same text as the cell above it. A ditto mark would in a sense say that,
but software can hardly be expected to understand that.

> Do you know
> other suites of custom tags that provide same features with a better
> output?

I'm not sure I understand what you mean... the site contains e.g. the
"Columns" page, which apparently exemplifies simple table generation without
grouping. I think it's the grouping here that is the problem, not the
techniques used for it.

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