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RE: Semantically pointless?

for

From: Kilcommons,Cath
Date: Mar 14, 2006 7:50PM

Snip
I'm working on some forums templates and was interested to know if the
following is semantic garbage, were it to be viewed by a screen reader:

<p><b><img src="/images/icons/topic-new.gif" alt="New topic"/></b>:
indicates that topics have been created in this forum since your last
visit.</p>
<p><b><img src="/images/icons/topic- frozen.gif" alt="Frozen
topic"/></b>: indicates that the topic is no longer accepting new posts
- it has been effectively 'frozen'.</p>

Ideally, I'd think something like a definition list would be best suited
to what I'm trying to convey. But, as definition term elements cannot
contain markup, I'm opting for this simpler alternative. snip

Semantically speaking, doesn't it seem a bit odd to be defining a
picture? Don't you really want to be defining two catagories? How about
using the icon as a bullet replacement with a css class and make it a ul
or an ol ? If there are more than two forums, this might work for your
purposes.....
<div class="available">
<ul>
<li id="C">C Forum - Unread Items Available </li>
<li id="K">K Forum - Unread Items Available</li>
</ul>

<div class="not available">
<ul>
<li id="X">X Forum - Not accepting new items</li>
<li id="Y">Y Forum - Not accepting new items</li>
</ul>

then define your two classes in your style sheet, and you can use the id
tags to help organize your forum.

Regards,
Cath

Cath Stager-Kilcommons
ACCESS Project
Assistive Technology Resource Center (ATRC)
Colorado State University
970-491-0788
http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/ATRC/
<http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/ATRC/>;
<EMAIL REMOVED>