Walt Smith, How would you like talking browsers or screen readers to read items in an "indented list" of the sort you suggest? How would users of such software know that they are equal items in a list, where the list begins and ends, where sub-lists begin and end, and so forth?
I'm just trying to get a clearer idea of what you mean. Technically speaking, most the bullet lists you find on the web are not implied by the HTML itself. HTML includes ordered lists and unordered lists. Graphical browsers have tended to apply a default styling of numbering ordered lists with 1, 2, 3 etc. and itemizing unordered lists with bullets. This styling was not required by the HTML specification. Legacy varieties of HTML included a technique for specifying to visual user agents the type of ordered and unordered lists, choosing from disc, circle, square for different shapes of bullet, and arabic numbers, lowercase alphabetic, uppercase alphabetic, lowercase Roman numerals, and uppercase Roman numerals for different types of numbering. Such presentational hints are not in wide use, and new versions relegate such information to styleSheets, implying they are part of optional presentation not an essential part of content. I have long viewed the relegation of the styles for ordered lists to styleSheets as impractical, since authors may use these numbering systems to refer back to list items later in a text. If your talking browser or screen reader were to read an ordered list as 1, 2, 3, 4 but then the author were to refer back to the third item as Item C it would be confusing. I think most standards-aware authors would currently assume that replacing the bullets with no announcement would be a matter for the speech stylesheet, not for a new HTML element, so I'm interested in your suggestion. There are current at least three new versions of HTML in concurrent development: a version of XHTML 1.1 adapted for accessibility, the second version of XHTML, and a rival spec being created by WHATWG. If there is an as yet unperceived need for new type of list, now would be a good time to introduce it. What would be particularly useful is an explanation of when an author should use a bulleted list and when an unbulleted list. -- Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Visit the JAWS Users List home page at: http://www.jaws-users.com Address for the list archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/jaws-users-list%40googlegroups.com/ Address to contact the management team: [EMAIL PROTECTED] You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "JAWS Users List" group. To post to this group, send email to jaws-users-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/jaws-users-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
