Re: [WSG] Google Accessible Search Released

[Tim]

How do I rate in Google now that accessibility is a variable, I have  
about 60 pages ranked four, 30 ranked three.
I watched other sites acquire links by scheming and dealing while I did  
everything the google way. I will check my search engine rankings.


I just checked 100 pages (Validated XHTML and AAA accessible) they were  
ranked three or four by Google, now the fours are the same but almost  
all threes are now zero!  Can you check you page rank with the  
accessible search engine as you can with ordinary google search?


I tested page ranking years ago, around 100 outgoing links decreased a  
google page rank, incoming links are fine from many pages.


Tim
http://www.hereticpress.com

On 23/07/2006, at 2:48 PM, Chris Dimmock wrote:


[quote]General google page ranking is based on incoming links .
Link farms exploit the algorithm, so google downgrade sites with over
100 links.[/quote]

You need to read
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py? 
answer=40349&ctx=related


Google looks at 100 aspects of a page - and links and link anchor text
are part of the algorithm.

But stating that sites with over 100 inbound links are 'downgraded' -
that's clearly just not true. Check how many links there are to MSN;
Ebay; w3C.org; Adobe Acrobat reader download; Google itself etc.

The rate at which you acquire links is important - but nowhere has
Google ever said that sites with over 100 links are 'downgraded'...

FWIW - I'm seeing some very well coded pages ranking really well in
Google's accessible search.

Best

Chris
http://www.cogentis.com.au/


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The Editor
Heretic Press
http://www.hereticpress.com
Email [EMAIL PROTECTED]



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Re: [WSG] Google Accessible Search Released

[Chris Dimmock]

[quote]General google page ranking is based on incoming links .
Link farms exploit the algorithm, so google downgrade sites with over
100 links.[/quote]

You need to read
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=40349&ctx=related

Google looks at 100 aspects of a page - and links and link anchor text
are part of the algorithm.

But stating that sites with over 100 inbound links are 'downgraded' -
that's clearly just not true. Check how many links there are to MSN;
Ebay; w3C.org; Adobe Acrobat reader download; Google itself etc.

The rate at which you acquire links is important - but nowhere has
Google ever said that sites with over 100 links are 'downgraded'...

FWIW - I'm seeing some very well coded pages ranking really well in
Google's accessible search.

Best

Chris
http://www.cogentis.com.au/


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Re: [WSG] Hungarian notation for JavaScript and ActionScript?

[Carl Reynolds]

Paul Novitski wrote:

Stating that Hungarian Notation "should be avoided" sounds like you 
know of some deleterious effects it has on software development.  Is 
this the case or is it merely a matter of personal taste for you?  For 
a few pro & con arguments see 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_notation#Criticisms


Actually the part of the article you sited gives three very good reasons 
for not using Hungarian notation.


In addition, I have always felt that the name of the variable should 
reflect the use of the variable irrespective of the way the data is 
encoded internally within the variable. For example, if I create a 
variable 'num_fish', I shouldn't care whether the value in num_fish is 
stored as an integer, a float, or a string. I only really care that it 
accurately reflects the number of fish I have stored in my fish_tank. 
Now, of course, that view is theoretical and in practice, we often need 
to care whether num_fish is stored as an integer or a float. But, when 
programmers decide to use a mechanism such as Hungarian notation, there 
very quickly develops an over emphasis on the internal encoding used to 
store values rather than the purpose of the value itself. Many, if not 
most, programmers spend far too much time thinking about the internal 
representations of values and far too little time thinking about how the 
values relate to the user or the world outside the computer.


Finally, I will admit to having a prejudice against Hungarian notation, 
having worked on a project many years ago in FORTRAN (which allowed up 
to six characters in a variable name) on which the use of Hungarian 
notation mandated that the first four characters of each variable be 
used to specify the type and module of each variable, leaving only two 
characters to try to create any kind of meaningful name. The program was 
almost impossible to read. This ,of course, is an extreme example and 
not really a valid reason to avoid Hungarian notation as most languages 
today have essentially no limits on the length of variable names.


I still feel that the reasons given in the article you sited and the 
addition reasons I gave above are enough to cause Hungarian notation to 
be given a wide berth.




--
Carl.





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Re: [WSG] Dvorak talks when he doesn't know? (re: Why CSS Bugs Me)

[russ - maxdesign]

May not be answering your question, but relevant to the overall point...

There have been a number of responses to this "interesting" blog post by
Dvorak including:






Thanks
Russ



>> From Links for Light Reading, July 19:
> Why CSS Bugs Me
> 
> 
> I just realized that Dvorak's entire rant about CSS cascading rules
> might just be another example of a tech expert talking nonsense
> regarding an area he knows nothing about.
> 
> body>div { this does not cascade; }
> 
> Just another case of CSS getting the blame for something IE doesn't
> support, am I right?




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[WSG] Dvorak talks when he doesn't know? (re: Why CSS Bugs Me)

[Christian Montoya]

From Links for Light Reading, July 19:

Why CSS Bugs Me


I just realized that Dvorak's entire rant about CSS cascading rules
might just be another example of a tech expert talking nonsense
regarding an area he knows nothing about.

body>div { this does not cascade; }

Just another case of CSS getting the blame for something IE doesn't
support, am I right?

--
--
Christian Montoya
christianmontoya.com ... portfolio.christianmontoya.com


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Re: [WSG] site check and code review

[TuteC]

haha, that´s my solution! Using "em" is the way I was looking for.
Thank you for your help;
Eugenio.

On 7/22/06, Gunlaug Sørtun <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

TuteC wrote:
> Thank you very much, Georg. That´s exactly what I want: that the
> content overflows or the div expands but mantaining the same
> position. You say that if we "grow"enough the text, the sidebar will
> fall anyway down, but isn´t there a technique to make it "borrow"
> some of the space the container uses?

Yes, but there's always a limit - somewhere :-)

Defining some width and margins in 'em' will make those columns adjust
to each other when subjected to font-resizing.

The following...

#container {
width: 100%;
float: right;
margin-left: -15em /* corrected */;
}

#content {
margin-left: 11em /* corrected */;
margin-right: 20px;
position: relative;
}

#sidebar {
width: 10em /* corrected */;
padding: 0 0 1em 0;
margin-bottom: 1em;
padding: 0px;
color: #333;
float: left;
clear: left;
}

...will allow for at least 500% font-resizing in Firefox without
float-drop, but the end-User should then have at least a 1600px wide
window to avoid getting a very narrow main-column.

I tested it up to 1000% (100 steps) font-resizing in Firefox - just to
make sure it worked, on a 3800px wide window. Quite readable ;-)
You shouldn't push Firefox much further than that, as it may actually crash.

regards
   Georg
--
http://www.gunlaug.no



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Re: [WSG] site check and code review

[Gunlaug Sørtun]

TuteC wrote:
Thank you very much, Georg. That´s exactly what I want: that the 
content overflows or the div expands but mantaining the same 
position. You say that if we "grow"enough the text, the sidebar will 
fall anyway down, but isn´t there a technique to make it "borrow" 
some of the space the container uses?


Yes, but there's always a limit - somewhere :-)

Defining some width and margins in 'em' will make those columns adjust
to each other when subjected to font-resizing.

The following...

#container {
width: 100%;
float: right;
margin-left: -15em /* corrected */;
}

#content {
margin-left: 11em /* corrected */;
margin-right: 20px;
position: relative;
}

#sidebar {
width: 10em /* corrected */;
padding: 0 0 1em 0;
margin-bottom: 1em;
padding: 0px;
color: #333;
float: left;
clear: left;
}

...will allow for at least 500% font-resizing in Firefox without
float-drop, but the end-User should then have at least a 1600px wide
window to avoid getting a very narrow main-column.

I tested it up to 1000% (100 steps) font-resizing in Firefox - just to
make sure it worked, on a 3800px wide window. Quite readable ;-)
You shouldn't push Firefox much further than that, as it may actually crash.

regards
Georg
--
http://www.gunlaug.no


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Re: [WSG] site check and code review

[TuteC]

Thank you very much, Georg. That´s exactly what I want: that the
content overflows or the div expands but mantaining the same position.
You say that if we "grow"enough the text, the sidebar will fall anyway
down, but isn´t there a technique to make it "borrow" some of the
space the container uses?

Thank you again;
Eugenio.

On 7/22/06, Gunlaug Sørtun <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

TuteC wrote:
> Hello, I´ve got a similar problem with the left sidebar in
> http://www.fanus.com.ar/Dev/. When in Firefox I use big font size,
> the left bar falls under the right container. And I can not make this
>  right container occupy its 100% of possible width, don´t know why.

Use more suitable and stable values.

...but float-drops _will_ occur if font-size is bumped *high enough*,
since content on the left side will continue to grow in width. In
Firefox that means the content will overflow, and in IE/win the
containers will expand.

regards
Georg



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Re: [WSG] Rounded Corners

[Paul Novitski]

On 7/22/06, Al Kendall wrote:

try these   http://www.html.it/articoli/nifty/index.html


At 05:06 AM 7/22/2006, Janos Hardi wrote:

This solution has nothin to do with common semantics - not recommended.



Janos, may I assume that it's the use of the B tag you're objecting 
to, rather than the addition of DIVs to the markup to support the 
rounded corner effect?


Alessandro Fulciniti, the author of that technique, uses B tags 
simply for brevity of markup -- ironic, because while saving six 
characters for each element (using B instead of SPAN) he's adding a 
couple of dozen for inline styling.  He says, "A few words on the use 
of the  element. I needed an inline element to obtain the rounded 
corners, since it could be nested in almost every kind of tag 
mainting the markup valid. So the choice fell on b because it doesn't 
have semantical meaning and it's shorter than span, like Eric Meyer said."


We're currently using a different rounded corners technique on our 
site http://juniperwebcraft.com/ but similarly adding markup with 
JavaScript; we're adding classed DIVs to the markup and keeping all 
the styling in an external stylesheet.  (Look at the generated source 
with the Firefox webdev tool, not the simple page source, to see the 
resultant markup.)


I don't think Fulciniti's technique should be discarded simply 
because of his debatable tag choice when there are other neutral 
elements that can more innocuously substitute.


Regards,
Paul 




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Re: [WSG] Rounded Corners

[Gunlaug Sørtun]

Scott Swabey wrote:
Seems like the use of semantically neutral elements to create 
imageless rounded corners is more than acceptable. Am I missing 
something?


Apart from "bloated source-code"(?), no, I don't think you have missed
anything :-)

Personally, I think "bloated source-code" should be avoided, but it may
turn out reasonably well...

...even with a few "style-only" elements in there.

regards
Georg
--
http://www.gunlaug.no


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RE: [WSG] Rounded Corners

[Scott Swabey]

Janos Hardi wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> This solution has nothin to do with common semantics - not
> recommended. 
> 
> Janos
> 
> On 7/22/06, Al Kendall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> try these   http://www.html.it/articoli/nifty/index.html

Hey Janos

Care to elaborate on your adverse recommendation? Seems like the use of
semantically neutral elements to create imageless rounded corners is
more than acceptable. Am I missing something?


Regards

Scott Swabey
Design & Development Director - Lafinboy Productions
www.lafinboy.com | www.thought-after.com





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[WSG] Accessible Search by google

[Tee G. Peng]

Thougth some of you will be interested!

http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/index.blog?entry_id=1525429

---

Yesterday, Google Labs began testing a new search service for the  
blind and visually impaired. Simply called Accessible Search, the  
product analyses search results for readability and design  
complexity, and then places the sites which are the easiest to read  
at the top of the results page. Accessible Search also slightly  
improves the accessibility of the results pages themselves, making it  
easier for searchers using screen readers to parse the search  
results. For example, a typical results page in Accessible Search has  
no images and employs much simpler page formatting than a standard  
Google page.


The Accessible Search product was developed by T.V. Raman, a Google  
employee who is blind. In an interview with BetaNews, Raman said that  
the secret to accessibility is code that degrades easily. The search  
tool sniffs the HTML of the returned page and decides how usable the  
page would be with the fancy design elements stripped out, images  
turned off and the mouse pointer absent. Some visually impaired users  
only use the keyboard or specialized keyboard shortcut devices for  
navigation.


While this isn't exactly news to designers and user experience  
experts, the fact that Google is pursuing the accessible search  
market means that page designers using antiquated layout techniques  
and deprecated code will be pressured to bring their site's  
infrastructure up to current accessibility standards, lest they lose  
out on higher rankings.


AOL is also taking a step towards accessibility, but in a different  
arena. They have started offering closed captioned versions of their  
streaming news videos from CNN.


While both of these advancements bode well for the growth of web  
accessibility, We should also applaud the role that Web 2.0  
folksonomies are playing in improving the usability of search.  
Tagging, clustering and semantic search tools are especially helpful,  
not because they simplify the search process for physically impaired  
users, but also because they offer an advantage to users who are  
searching for information in a non-native language. It could also be  
argued that relational searches and recommendation engines are moving  
search and accessibility closer together.


--

tee


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Re: [WSG] Rounded Corners

[Janos Hardi]

Hi,

This solution has nothin to do with common semantics - not recommended.

Janos

On 7/22/06, Al Kendall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

try these   http://www.html.it/articoli/nifty/index.html

Cheers!!!
Al





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Re: [WSG] PDF link in XHTML???

[Michael Persson]

Well i prefer to use strict because otherwise i am not pleased for the 
validation..


Sorry for my habbit

Michael
Shlomi Asaf wrote:


i must say michael, that i havent read any answer, just a statement.

On 7/22/06, *Michael Persson* <[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> wrote:


HI steve,
You didnt read my own answer to my post, I found the correct XHTML
strict
javascript and its working fine, 

 
On 7/20/06, *Michael Persson* <[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> wrote:


Sorry,
I found the way to make it... just a javascript
Michael


what was your problem, you havent explained that once.
and what about what Patrick said, that "You can use the "target" 
attribute in XHTML, just not with Strict Doctypes" ?


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--


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Re: [WSG] PDF link in XHTML???

[Shlomi Asaf]

i must say michael, that i havent read any answer, just a statement.
On 7/22/06, Michael Persson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
HI steve,You didnt read my own answer to my post, I found the correct XHTML strict_javascript_ and its working fine,

 
On 7/20/06, Michael Persson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
Sorry,I found the way to make it... just a _javascript_Michaelwhat was your problem, you havent explained that once.

and what about what Patrick said, that "You can use the "target" attribute in XHTML, just not with Strict Doctypes" 
?

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Re: [WSG] site check and code review

[Gunlaug Sørtun]

TuteC wrote:
Hello, I´ve got a similar problem with the left sidebar in 
http://www.fanus.com.ar/Dev/. When in Firefox I use big font size, 
the left bar falls under the right container. And I can not make this

 right container occupy its 100% of possible width, don´t know why.


Use more suitable and stable values.

Replacing relevant CSS rules with the following will make your page work...

#container {
width: 100% /* corrected */;
float: right;
margin-left: -300px /* corrected */;
}

#content {
margin-left: 130px;
margin-right: 20px;
position: relative /* added */;
}

#sidebar {
width: 125px;
padding: 0 0 1em 0;
margin-bottom: 1em;
padding: 0px;
color: #333;
float: left;
clear: left /* added */;
}

#LeftTop div {
background-image:url("LeftTop0.gif");
background-repeat:no-repeat /* corrected */;
height:103px;
}

...but float-drops _will_ occur if font-size is bumped *high enough*,
since content on the left side will continue to grow in width. In
Firefox that means the content will overflow, and in IE/win the
containers will expand.
All I have done above is to give more "play-room" for the elements on
the left, and base the width of the main column on full page-width. I've
also made sure the main column stays on top.

regards
Georg
--
http://www.gunlaug.no


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Re: [WSG] site check and code review

[TuteC]

Hello, I´ve got a similar problem with the left sidebar in
http://www.fanus.com.ar/Dev/. When in Firefox I use big font size, the
left bar falls under the right container. And I can not make this
right container occupy its 100% of possible width, don´t know why.

Where Is my error?

Thank you in advance;

Eugenio.


On 7/22/06, David Laakso <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Elle Meredith wrote:
>
> I have a problem with my vertical main navlist.
> It has a margin on the top that shouldn't be there. But when I add
> {margin-top:0;}, Safari seems to remember where the original position
> is and only on the first link I will get an hover effect only when my
> mouse hovers at the bottom of the link. If I hover on the top of the
> link, nothing happens.
>
> I added border to it temporarily for debugging.
> http://waznelle.com/td
>
>
I understand your need to correct the vertical nav.. I think, though,
that there is just a general need to give the page a little more freedom
:-) . And it would be good to provide the user with the ability to scale
the fonts without breaking the layout so easily. This is in part due to
the use of absolute positioning. Additionally, the text is extremely
tiny for users at 1280 and up. It is sometimes easier to put something
up, than explain what might be done...so fwiw, this is one way you might
resolve some of this stuff. It is not an attempt to reproduce your
layout :-P , but rather to provide some alternative approaches
(/cursory/ tested in xp ie6, ff, and opera)
 .
>
> Elle
> waznelle.com 
Best,
~dL



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Re: [WSG] how to create nested links in a side-navigation

[Soeren Mordhorst]

Thanks everybody!

The Y'sUI is an excellent option; to style it with CSS also.
Choosing Javascript makes it difficult if the user has it turned off.

I think it was one of the WSG members who choosed also a good way, using 
CSS. It is the portableApps site on

http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/browsers/portable_firefox
I like the left-site-navigation. But therefor you normally have to make 
a compromise: using small letters.

I am going to measure it :)

All the best

Soeren



Ted Drake schrieb:

Hi All

As everyone knows, there are a million ways of coding the nested navigation
schemes. The Son of Suckerfish is one method. Thierry K. has a more
accessible version on tjkdesign:
http://tjkdesign.com/articles/dropdown/default.asp . The latest version of
the Yahoo User Interface Library also comes with a menu function that is
worth looking at: http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/menu/ . Personally, I think
it is too heavy and a bit clunky for a simple navigation with possibly one
dropdown. But if you are working with something like the below list, it is a
good idea.

It was developed with keyboard and screen-reader users in mind. It's easy to
use and can generate the lists dynamically or take static content. It also
has the built in iframe hack for those dealing with IE6 z-index issues
(scream!)

You can see the libraries here: http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/ . If you are
currently using the libraries, you should update your links to use the
latest versions. They crew is constantly working to make it leaner, faster,
and better. 


Ted Drake
Yahoo! Tech  - Tech Made Easy


Member of the Yahoo! Accessibility Stakeholders Group
Did you know: Fully justified text alignment is an accessibility problem for
dyslexia. The random width word spacing makes it difficult to read.


-Original Message-
From: listdad@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of Martin Heiden
Sent: Friday, July 21, 2006 5:15 AM
To: Soeren Mordhorst
Subject: Re: [WSG] how to create nested links in a side-navigation

Soeren,

on Friday, July 21, 2006 at 10:20 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

  

For navigation on the right site I like to use a nested list.
What is the best way to produce a nested list?
Did I do the list below correct?



Yes, your list is valid, but I think you intend it a bit different:

Departments-Overview

 1
  
 1.1
  
 1.1.1
  
 1.1.1.1 
 1.1.1.2 
 1.1.1.3 
 1.1.1.4 
  

 1.1.2 
 1.1.3 
 1.1.4 
  

 1.2 
 1.3 
 1.4 
  

 2 
 3 
 4 


  

Does anybody has a suggestion of what style to use, so that it will be
still usable and accessible, of course without JavaScript?






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