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Re: Delimiting links...characters or use a DL?

for

From: Austin, Darrel
Date: Dec 16, 2004 10:26AM

> As an alternative, you could use a small image (maybe "|" shaped) with
> alt=", ".

It's one of those back and forth things in my head.

Does one need to separate links these days with some sort of physical
delimiter for screen readers?

The bar is nice for text browsers.

The image is nice for screen readers.

The DL is nice for semantics.

I'm probably overthinking this. ;o)

> That's not adequate use of definition list. A menu does not define
> what the term "Main Navigation" means. This has been discussed at
> length on different fora, but the bottom line is: is just a tag
> soup HTML used to achieve particular layout, except in the rare cases
> where you really have a list of definitions (typically, a glossary).
> Using adequate markup is part of WAI rules (violated by W3C itself,
> but I digress).

I've seen both sides of this debate. DLs should only be used for defining
terms vs. DLs are quite flexible and server all sorts of useful purposes.
The W3C seems ambigious at best on this...as you indicate with it viloating
its own WAI. Ugh. ;o)

> The most adequate markup for a list of links in current HTML is a
> element with element inside each element. This is good for
> accessibility too. If a checking tool complains (about lack of
> nonspace characters between links), blame the tool.

Oh. Well, this would be the easiest solution anyways. Perhaps I'll stick
with that. It doesn't offer the nice 'header' label that the DL does in a
text browser, but if I feel it is that necessary, I could certainly just
slap an actual H* tag before it.

Hmm...I reread the W3C's suggestion and their recipe example (
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/lists.html ) looks like yet another
option...a DL with a UL nested in the DD. Hmm...

-Darrel