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Re: Why do we need 'Scope' attribute?

for

From: Stephane Deschamps
Date: Jul 19, 2005 2:06AM

On 7/19/05, Jim Thatcher wrote:
>
> This is a very troubling question for me. Today screen readers assume the
> first row and the first column are headers with no markup whatsoever. Well,
> to be good citizens, we add TH's on those table cells that are headers even
> though the screen readers don't need them. But the scope attribute? I
> believe the ONLY cell that needs a scope attribute is the cell in the first
> row and first column, cell 1,1, because that corner cell could either be a
> row header or a column header (or neither). What scope could the TH in row
> 1, column 7 have besides scope="col".
>
>
>
> I advise clients to use TH and scope  but darn it, it is redundant and
> unnecessary  even silly!

I'm wondering how this would apply to headers-of-headers, namely
headers that span several columns. Would the screen reader understand
the structure as clearly without the attributes?

--
Stephane Deschamps
personal: http://nota-bene.org/
org: http://evolt.org/
french org: http://pompage.net/