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RE: .NET and accessible tables

for

From: Keith Patton
Date: Mar 6, 2004 4:21AM

Hi Chris,

For the datagrid control, there are workarounds:

http://weblogs.asp.net/datagridgirl/archive/2003/08/22/25042.aspx

However, we have recently updated our own system to be xhtml 1
transitional compliant and to be able to create AAA sites with asp.net.

Some of the things this meant for us included:

Using repeaters instead of datagrid controls. Use custom sorters and
pagers if required because you can't easily add captions, summaries and
other headers. We made our own and have avoided the use of datagrids
completely. www.ethicalmedia.com/stories for example (repeater with
custom sorting and paging). Repeaters allow complete control over the
outputted html.

Use html server controls for dynamic div and span areas rather than use
the panel area. The panel needlessly creates a table in Mozilla for some
reason.

One of the criticisms of asp.net has been the fact that you can't
sufficiently control or override the rendering of the core server
controls. In fact, you can't be sure how they will render on different
user agents (e.g. the panel example above). Datagrids and panels were
the two main ones for us that caused problems.

The good news is that ASP.NET 2 (Whidbey) is looking real good for
standards and accessibility features, check out
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2003/11/25/39620.aspx

Hopefully, this will out by end of year!

Keith Patton

Technical Director
Ethical Media
http://www.ethicalmedia.com