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Re: Table headers not behaving

for

From: Holly Marie
Date: Sep 10, 2002 11:10AM


From: "John Foliot - bytown internet"


| Which poses the question: do developers code to standards and leave
the
| implementation to the "interpreters (user agents)" or do we code to
software
| bugs such as the one documented below? As Paul notes, 2 major screen
| reading technologies get it right, one gets it wrong.

I say we code the tables for data when we need to do so. According to
the guidelines.
User agents have known about these items since there were tables back in
HTML3?
Two others get it right, yet, the leading and most widely used does not?
[not sure about the stats on that one?]


| Developing complex tables is work enough to ensure accessibility, do
we need
| to also work around software bugs? Everybody has their role to play,
| including Freedom Scientific.

I agree.

| While not everybody agreed with the WaSP
| stance (http://www.webstandards.org/) when they first emerged, two
years
| later we have (generally) compliant browsers. So who was right?

It is hard to say where to agree or disagree with WaSP, as it has made
some transformations of its own. They took a hard line for a while, yet
also understood the reality of that hard line. Even today people are
balking at using xhtml and css2, because clients want to understand why
their pages cannot look the same across every view. The targets at the
browsers a few years back, was good, and came out of this need to get
some sort of compliance, because it was very difficult to mark up a page
that could be presentable in the two major browsers without writing a
bunch of hacks and work arounds.[at times, it still can be.]

Tools, people, and also user agents[or devices], all need to address
these issues. And maybe IBM and others who comply ought to capitalize on
the fact they can offer the users a better working device at the basic
level, govenmental, public, and educational groups should toss those
contracts to those that are complying, and maybe hitting them where it
hurts most is the way to go... Sales. [then I bet some action gets done]

The unfortunate flip side to all of this is the reality that people who
have already invested in these expensive and broken tools, cannot afford
to make the change?

| I do not pose this question to antagonize, but by the same token I
| (personally) feel that it needs to be discussed.

Unfortunately, complicated data in tables works well and best for the
majority of the visiting audience when placed in such a layout. Data
will not work as well or may not be as usable in text or linear format.

holly



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