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Table headers not behaving

for

From: Ian.Lloyd
Date: Sep 10, 2002 6:24AM


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I've been advising colleagues to use headers and ids in tables for more
complicated tables where scope doesn't cut it.

I've just come back from holiday to find out that some relatively simple
tables (with just one colspan and rowspan) are not behaving when using the
CTRL + ALT to navigate around (I would expect it to announce the headers,
but it is doing so inconsistently). And because I've just returned from
holiday, brain has yet to kick in to action, so all help greatly appreciated
...

FYI, I am using IE5 and Connect Outloud.

Here is a snippet of an example table - can anyone tell me if this is
incorrect coding? Or is it the screen readers themselves that are not yet up
to the job of referencing multiple headers?

Many thanks, here's the table code:

<table cellspacing="2" cellpadding="3" border="0" width="95%" summary="Table
detailing the Classic Card Rates">
<thead>
<tr>
<th rowspan="2">&nbsp;</th>
<th colspan="2" id="product_title"><a href="#top"><img
src="../_credit-card_images/arrow-up.gif" alt="To top button" border="0"
align="right"></a>Classic Card</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th id="annual" headers="product_title">Annual Rate</th>
<th id="monthly" headers="product_title">Monthly Rate</th
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td class="data" scope="row">Rate for first 6 months</td>
<td class="NBSdata" headers="product_title annual">0% p.a.</td>
<td class="NBSdata" headers="product_title monthly">0% </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="data" scope="row">Ongoing Rate</td>
<td class="NBSdata" headers="product_title annual">13.9% p.a.</td>
<td class="NBSdata" headers="product_title monthly">1.09%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="data" scope="row">APR for Purchases & Balance Transfers</td>
<td class="NBSdata" headers="product_title annual">11.5% APR</td>
<td class="NBSdata" headers="product_title monthly">N/A</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Ian Lloyd, Electronic Channels
Nationwide Building Society

e-mail: <EMAIL REMOVED>
tel: 01793-655260
fax: 01793-656368


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