Re: [WSG] good coding app

[David]

Can I ask what people use as their coding app? I'm demoing BBEdit but 
there are some things I find annoying about it. Sometimes I use GoLive 
in source view, and for CSS I'm using John's Style Master more and 
more. But are there any other good options? (I'm on a Mac).

You could also try SubEthaEdit (which used to be called HydraEdit, I 
think) which is free, and excellent -- very lightweight, good syntax 
colouring, and so on.

-- David.

*
The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/
* 

Re: [WSG] Guidelines reminder - attachments/caps

[David]

Hello,

Yes I agree to the no-attachments/all caps policy but
I object to the use of my country of birth Nigeria as an (bad)
example viz
>You may also end up getting weighted towards
> Nigerian bank 
> spam by some types of filtering packages :D

"You may end up getting weighed towards spam by some filtering
packages" would have sufficed without hurting anyone's feelings.

I love web standards, CSS, WSG and this very helpful and
informative list and I know there are people out there who are
giving my country a bad name but do we have to rub it in? We
have a lot of nice honest folks in Nigeria including yours truly
you know.

...Sorry everyone if this is offpoint just had to get that off
my chest! 

David.

--- James Ellis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi all
> 
> Just a quick reminder that the guidelines for the list are at 
> http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm - one of
> these includes 
> a no attachments policy. If you want to send a screenshot to
> someone 
> please do it off list - I'm pretty sure Peter doesn't want to
> send out a 
> 345 kb email to 500 people. It's also a kludge to download for
> those on 
> dial-up.
> 
> Also, using all CAPS to write a subject line can lead to
> readability 
> problems for some -  try writing the subject as a normal
> descriptive 
> sentence. You may also end up getting weighted towards
> Nigerian bank 
> spam by some types of filtering packages :D
> 
> Cheers
> James
> 
> 
> *
> The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/
> See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
> for some hints on posting to the list & getting help
> * 
> 


__
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Small Business $15K Web Design Giveaway 
http://promotions.yahoo.com/design_giveaway/
*
The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/
See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
for some hints on posting to the list & getting help
* 

Re: [WSG] feedback and question

[David]

Hi,

The links mouse-over (and the site) works well in Opera 7 and
Mozilla Firefox 0.8 as well as IE 6.Well these are newer browser
versions anyway.

David.

--- The Snider's Web <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> -I just did a site redesign and wanted to get feedback. This
> site was tough 
> as it had to be fully bilingual on each page and the fourth
> biggest group 
> of users use Netscape 3!!! How did I get so lucky?
> http://www.c-l-c.ca/mainpage.html
> Does the navigation work okay on the left side nav? Do you see
> any bugs? Do 
> you see anything problematic with the css? Any suggestions,
> comments?
> 
> -In N6 on Win ME the left side nav is only white text on blue
> with no 
> formatting. When I go to mouseover the links, all I get is a
> white bar over 
> the link area-so you can't see it. Anyone have any idea why? I
> found it 
> weird, as I used similar code on another site and it worked
> over in N6.
> 
> Any help/feedback would be much appreciated,
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Lisa
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *
> The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/
> See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
> for some hints on posting to the list & getting help
> * 
> 


__
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Small Business $15K Web Design Giveaway 
http://promotions.yahoo.com/design_giveaway/
*
The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/
See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
for some hints on posting to the list & getting help
* 

[WSG] Preventing flash of unstyled content

[David]

Hello everyone,

Does anybody know how to prevent the "flash of (CSS)unstyled
content" that appears when a page is loading and the browser is
yet to download and apply the stylesheet to the web page?

I know I read about a technique for preventing this somewhere
(maybe o on this list) but I can't remember. So can someone
point me in the right direction?

Thanks

David



___
Do you Yahoo!?
Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today!
http://vote.yahoo.com
**
The discussion list for  http://webstandardsgroup.org/

Proud presenters of Web Essentials 04 http://we04.com/
 Web standards, accessibility, inspiration, knowledge
To be held in Sydney, September 30 and October 1, 2004

 See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
 for some hints on posting to the list & getting help
**

Re: [WSG] simple javascript question

[David]

Hi Ted,
I think it really depends on the doctype (i.e (X)HTML Strict or Transitional) of the document. In Strict Doctypes the attribute "language" is deprecated in script elements. See this quick guide:
 
http://www.zvon.org/xxl/xhtmlReference/Output/comparison.html
 
However in transitional/ loose doctypes the attribute is allowed.
 
The "type" attribute is the only required attribute for the script element
 
Check this:
 
http://www.zvon.org/xxl/xhtmlReference/Standard/interact/scripts.html#edef-SCRIPTTed Drake <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Is this validlanguage="_javascript_" type="text/_javascript_"or should I just have type only. I'm afraid of breaking any functions that might require the language.Ted**The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfmfor some hints on posting to the list & getting help**__Do You Yahoo!?Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com 

Re: [WSG] Standards & Macromedia Contribute

[david]

Hi Sam

Whilsts not completely off-topic, this is relevant:

It depends on the complexity of the CSS code for layout

Macromedia's Contribute uses the same page-render engine as Dreamweaver, and we 
all know what that's like to work with ;)

Well, provided your design doesn't use floats, different display: properties, 
and relative positioning, you should be fine (with the latest version, of 
course)

As for pre-written templates?

Contribute wasn't built with "pre-designed" templates in mind, moreather, so 
satisfy pre-built websites by professional developers (read: us). Developing a 
working template for Contribute is trial and error, unfortunatly... not only do 
you have the issues I've described above to contend with, but also browser 
incompatibilities too.

Untill Macromedia get their act together about standards-compliant rendering 
(preferably without bugs too), then Contribute can only really be considered 
for use with tabular layouts.

Regards
-David
-- Original Message --
From: "Sam Hutchinson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date:  Wed, 15 Dec 2004 14:15:19 -

>
>Anyone out there got any experience of adding a fully devised compliant
>template to Contribute to let the content owners manage their own pages ?
>Is it simply a case of defining the editable regions or should you build the
>site and then define the content that can be changed?
>
>Was planning on implementing along with:
>http://www.sammyco.co.uk/acttrwebpre/company.php
>
>...would be interested to hear of any results good and bad - off list of you
>feel your reply isn't wide enough for everyone to be interested...
>
>Cheers
>
>SH
>
>
>**
>The discussion list for  http://webstandardsgroup.org/
>
> See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
> for some hints on posting to the list & getting help
>**
>
>
**
The discussion list for  http://webstandardsgroup.org/

 See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
 for some hints on posting to the list & getting help
**

[WSG] Modular XHTML with iFrames, eh?

[david]

>From about 10 minutes worth of internet research and Googling, one can come to 
>the conclusion that despite the  tag being depreciated (read: 
>"invalid"), you can quite easily bring back the functionality with the 
> tag

Well, we all know that said method simply doesn't work :) (Once again, another 
round of applause to Microsoft!)

Then with a few more minutes of Googling, I found that using the iframe XHTML 
1.1 module, you can bring it back _and_ keep the page valid XHTML

Now here's the question *how*

Nowhere on teh intarweb, does it give details on how to import the iframe 
module into an XHTML 1.1 document.

Any suggestions?

Regards
-David
**
The discussion list for  http://webstandardsgroup.org/

 See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
 for some hints on posting to the list & getting help
**

[WSG] Popups

[david]

Here's the situation:

I've got a form that users fill out in order to add something to a database...

Under each , there's the  element for each of the input 
elements, and that works fine

But because of the layout of the page, the  values are kept short, 
yes... there are title="" attributes, but IE and FF don't show the whole text

So I was thinking about doing what other sites do... and thats to put a "more 
info on this field" link, people click on it, and a popup appears with the 
minimum of browser UI chrome and jumps to the right section in the code

Ordinarily, this would be achieved with the help of JavaScript and 
Window.Open(), so much for cross-browser compatibility.

Then there's the target="_blank" anchor attribute, but this is disallowed by 
the DTD I'm using (XHTML1.1 w/ IFrame), that... plus it doesn't offer a way to 
get rid of browser UI elements.

Does anyone have any alternatives?

I was thinking of having a JavaScript "show/hide" function with the 
instructions and extra detail contained in a 
**
The discussion list for  http://webstandardsgroup.org/

 See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
 for some hints on posting to the list & getting help
**

Re: [WSG] Any Safari 1.0 users out there?

[David]

It's definitely not nearly as bad. Very few people still have safari 
1.0. I do but that's because up until lately I've been too broke to 
upgrade to 10.3 (which is required for safari 1.2). Plus, the problems 
in the differences between Safari versions isnt nearly as bad as they 
are with ie pc.


Probably off topic, but...why does this situation on the Mac so 
strongly remind me of the "multiple IE" problem on Windows? ;-)

**
The discussion list for  http://webstandardsgroup.org/
See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
for some hints on posting to the list & getting help
**

Re: [WSG] Two images on the one line

[David]

It's late, I could be wrong and only looked at the doctype...The doctype 
is not xhtml..It's html - You dont have to have closing  tags in 
regular html.

Interesting, no?
http://www.w3.org/Style/Examples/007/figures.html
   

What I find interesting/puzzling is that there are no closing paragraph tags
 :
 



 height="200" alt="Eiffel tower">
Scale model of the
 Eiffel tower in Parc Mini-France

   

Can someone explain?
Hope Stewart
**
The discussion list for  http://webstandardsgroup.org/
See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
for some hints on posting to the list & getting help
**
 

**
The discussion list for  http://webstandardsgroup.org/
See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
for some hints on posting to the list & getting help
**

Re: [WSG] Two-column lists aligned side-by-side

[David]

Google search always brings up results on info you might need.
Here's what I found:
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/layeredfudge/
http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=27F87&print=true
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Good evening all,
I've tried researching this question online, and reviewing the following
books in my library, "Web Standards Solutions," and "The CSS Anthology:
101 Essential Tips, Tricks and Hacks," but to no avail. Is there an
accepted method of laying out two unordered lists, side-by-side (a
two-column look), within the same content area?
Any suggestions are always appreciated.
Respectfully,
Mario S. Cisneros
 

**
The discussion list for  http://webstandardsgroup.org/
See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
for some hints on posting to the list & getting help
**

Re: [WSG] Opening links in new window with XHTML

[David]

Somewhat off topic but wonder if any javascript could get a window to 
open up in a new tab? I know only maybe 30% of people have a tabbed 
browsing capable browser but I just think it would be cool. lol.

Patrick H. Lauke wrote:
tee wrote:
Whenever I surf the internet, I like to open a new window if link to
external site because I simple hate using 'back' button, reason: many 
ill
designed sites force user to reload entire page again and again once a
'back' button  is clicked.
Many web standards compliant site don¹t' have this option and my 
solution is
to use right click. This has work pretty well for me.

Exactly. The point is that these sites leave the choice of whether or 
not a link should be openend in a new window to the user, rather than 
deciding for them.

**
The discussion list for  http://webstandardsgroup.org/
See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
for some hints on posting to the list & getting help
**

[WSG] Looking for some nicely designed web apps...

[David]

Been asked to do the front end visual design of a web app a local 
company is doing. Just looking for some great designs to get ideas from. 
Any links appreciated.

Thanks,
David
**
The discussion list for  http://webstandardsgroup.org/
See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
for some hints on posting to the list & getting help
**

Re: [WSG] Looking for some nicely designed web apps...

[David]

They mentioned basecamphq as something nice - Web apps like that ...
I know about stylegala and css vault , etc, etc...
More stuff like basecamphq is what Im after...
Thanks

Would help to know what type of web app you mean.
http://www.basecamphq.com/ is nice; http://www.blogger.com/ can be 
classed as a web app ...

**
The discussion list for  http://webstandardsgroup.org/
See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
for some hints on posting to the list & getting help
**

Re: [WSG] Problem with floating heights

[David]

Check out Faux Columns:
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/fauxcolumns/
Do a google search on "faux columns" for more info..but a list apart 
article is a good place to start.

-David

I want the #left floating bar to be 100% of the browser window, also when
you scroll down !!
 

**
The discussion list for  http://webstandardsgroup.org/
See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
for some hints on posting to the list & getting help
**

Re: [WSG] multiple columns and 100% height

[David]

Also a case for faux columns...
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/fauxcolumns/


A short while ago somebody wrote an article about achieving 100% 
height divs when using multiple columns.  Their solution was something 
really simple but for the life of me I can't remember the trick - it 
was some kind of one line rule...height: ???.  But I'm not sure.


**
The discussion list for  http://webstandardsgroup.org/
See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
for some hints on posting to the list & getting help
**

Re: [WSG] site check please - Rowing History

[David]

Seems fine on this end, although I  can't for the life of  me figure 
out  what the b&w image is that appears to be a grasshopper?


Haha - It's a grasshopper wearing a jail bird stripy outfit- haha..
Actually, looks like people rowing - like they're supposed to be in 
motion. ( I think)

-David
**
The discussion list for  http://webstandardsgroup.org/
See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
for some hints on posting to the list & getting help
**

Re: [WSG] Dreamweaver templates and CSS

[David]

Yep,
Dreamweaver MX04's design view shows a lot of css layout incorrectly. 
(especially floats).
Sometimes it gets pretty close but normally doesnt.
I've always wondered why they dont just make the design view render like 
that of a good browser. e.g firefox.

Has anyone else seen this kind of mess before?  Aside from "browser
testing" Dreamweaver as though it were another user agent, is there
anything that can be easily done to fix it?
 

**
The discussion list for  http://webstandardsgroup.org/
See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
for some hints on posting to the list & getting help
**

RE: [WSG] Acronym tag usage

[David Dorward]

> -Original Message-
> Just how extensive should our use of the  tag be?
> 
> For example, if I have a page devoted to explaining what a
> Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) is, should I tag MSA with the
>  tag every single time it's mentioned?

Isn't it just an abbreviation rather then an acronym? If not, how do you
pronounce it? Mesa?

The HTML spec is, sadly, unclear on this point. WCAG suggests:
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-HTML-TECHS/#text-abbr

-- 
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk/
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

RE: [WSG] Acronym tag usage

[David Dorward]

Craig Bailey:
> Quoting David Dorward <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:


> > Isn't it just an abbreviation rather then an acronym? If not, how do you
> > pronounce it? Mesa?


> Good question. We pronounce it "M-S-A." Should I be using the
> abbreviation tag?

Traditionally an acronym is an abbreviation that is also a word (and thus
pronounceable). The terms have become blurred together somewhat over the
past few years ... and even the W3C specs have a couple of instances where
they use an abbreviation as an example of acronym tag usage.

-- 
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk/
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

RE: [WSG] Acronym tag usage

[David Dorward]

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
> Behalf Of Thierry Koblentz


> Then I think it is a screen-reader issue as I believe there is no point to
> have this as default setting since documents are supposed to contain the
> expansion in plain text already...
> "Specify the expansion of each abbreviation or acronym in a document where
> it first occurs. [Priority 3]"
> http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-TECHS/#tech-expand-abbr

Well ...

(a) Those are guidelines which are designed (among other things) to work
around limitations in user agents

And

(b) It doesn't say "in plain text", and the example given uses the title
attribute:

   Welcome to the WWW!

(and its another initilism mislabelled as an acronym)

-- 
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk/
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Acronym tag usage

[David Hucklesby]

On Fri, 11 May 2007 09:54:47 -0600, Dan Dorman wrote:
> On 5/11/07, Nick Fitzsimons <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> The OED seems pretty clear on the issue:
>>
>> abbreviation, noun:
>> a shortened form of a word or phrase
>> <http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/abbreviation>
>>
>> acronym, noun:
>> a word formed from the initial letters of other words (e.g. laser, Aids)
>> <http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/acronym>
>>
>> initialism, noun:
>> an abbreviation consisting of initial letters pronounced separately (e.g. 
>> BBC)
>> <http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/initialism>
>>
> Fantastic!  This is exactly the sort of reference I was looking for--but I 
> was unable
> to find a version of the OED through which I could search.
>
> If the OED says it, I'll buy it.  Thanks, Nick!
>

But be aware that common U.S. practice employs "acronym" for initialisms[1].
I must agree with the Yanks that "inititalism" does not roll easily off 
the tongue!

[1] 
<http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=acronym>

Cordially,
David
--



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

RE: [WSG] IE6 problem - more general

[David Hucklesby]

On Tue, 15 May 2007 10:36:17 -0400, Kepler Gelotte wrote:
>
> 1) put a border around the problem area and surrounding or enclosing blocks 
> using
> “border: solid red 1px;”
>

But be aware that a border can alter the layout. (By "trapping" margins
that normally "escape" for example.)

My preference is to add colored backgrounds to the main blocks.
Viz:
#content {background: #ccf;}
#header {background: #fcf;}
#sidebar {background: #ffc;}

I put these at the end of the main style sheet where I can delete
them easily when done.

Of course, this is just for IE, which I test last. When developing
the layout I find Firebug invaluable. It is the only tool I know that
shows you where the margins are. (Negative margins excepted.)

Cordially,
David
--



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

RE: [WSG] IE6 problem - more general

[David Hucklesby]

On Tue, 15 May 2007 10:36:17 -0400, Kepler Gelotte wrote:
>
> 1) put a border around the problem area and surrounding or enclosing blocks 
> using
> “border: solid red 1px;”
>

But be aware that a border can alter the layout. (By "trapping" margins
that normally "escape" for example.)

My preference is to add colored backgrounds to the main blocks.
Viz:
#content {background: #ccf;}
#header {background: #fcf;}
#sidebar {background: #ffc;}

I put these at the end of the main style sheet where I can delete
them easily when done.

Of course, this is just for IE, which I test last. When developing
the layout I find Firebug invaluable. It is the only tool I know that
shows you where the margins are. (Negative margins excepted.)

Cordially,
David
--



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

RE: [WSG] Semantics and

[David Dorward]

From: Jixor - Stephen I:

> To me small would imply of less importance,
> like a side note. if you just want text to
> be smaller for design purposes it shouldn't
> be in a small

... well since the specification says exactly the opposite of that ...

'Renders text in a "small" font.'
   -- http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/present/graphics.html#h-15.2.1

-- 
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk/
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/




***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] ive given up on css

[David Hucklesby]

On Wed, 16 May 2007 10:28:41 +0100, kevin mcmonagle wrote:
>
> Today i just told them to go back to using table based layouts and i will 
> restrict my
> designs accordingly- i cant listen to the whining anymore.
>
> What would you have done in this situation?
>

I just tell clients I have no knowledge of using tables for layout.
But then, I am retired and can afford to choose what I work on.

I suggest that you keep your identity off those sites if you want
to protect your reputation, though.

Cordially,
David
--



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] ive given up on css

[David Hucklesby]

On Wed, 16 May 2007 10:28:41 +0100, kevin mcmonagle wrote:
>
> Today i just told them to go back to using table based layouts and i will 
> restrict my
> designs accordingly- i cant listen to the whining anymore.
>
> What would you have done in this situation?
>

I just tell clients I have no knowledge of using tables for layout.
But then, I am retired and can afford to choose what I work on.

I suggest that you keep your identity off those sites if you want
to protect your reputation, though.

Cordially,
David
--



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Hack for all IE versions including 7

[David Dixon]

The problem is though, that these browser never actually "go", they 
simply evolve a little which doesn't always make the hack redundant, 
just altered slightly. Therefore, for me, having the "hacked" styles 
alongside the valid css styles makes things infinitely easier to see 
what is actually happening.


There certainly isn't a right answer here, but consistency is key. 
@imports and conditional comments etc can be useful in terms of absolute 
validation, but present problems (especially for very large, complex 
projects) where you always have 2+ versions of a style sheet to 
maintain, and in real world web projects, there is rarely enough 
"thinking" time to fully plan css changes, let alone work out the 
nuances of different browsers separately. Hacks are very useful, but 
only if the context of the hack is obvious (putting a */_ hack 50 lines 
away from the original declaration is of no use to anyone). Its very 
easy to maintain, with experience, the targets of the hack are very 
obvious, and i find it does a much better job at highlighting the 
actually differences between the browsers than separate style sheets 
would ever provide. Validation is often a problem, yes, but then no 2 
browsers actually obey the CSS2.1 spec in the same way (if at all), so 
personally i find trying to obey a spec which isn't adhered to in the 
first place is pretty fruitless.


Cheers,

David.

Thierry Koblentz wrote:

I agree on the amount of hacks that should be needed, if you need to serve a
5Kb styles sheet to fix IE then you have a problem... 


But don't you think that once these browsers (the ones that rely on these
hacks) are gone, it'll be easier to remove an "@import" directive or a
"link" element than to go through CSS files hunting for "*", "_", ",",
"voice-family", ">", "/*\*//*/", etc.?

Also, regarding maintenance (other authors working on your styles sheets), I
think it'll be easier for many people to maintain browser specific
*hack-free* styles sheets rather than having to learn about CSS "filters" to
be able to maintain those files.

---
Regards,
Thierry | www.TJKDesign.com



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] border vs outline

[David Hucklesby]

On Sat, 19 May 2007 11:18:04 +0100, Designer wrote:
> On 18/05/07, Stephen Kelly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>>> I find this invaluable,
>>>
>>> http://www.webdevout.net/css-hacks
>>>
> The most valuable part (for me) was introducing me to 'outline' instead of 
> border. I
> confess, I'd never come across it before. I've had a quick play and it does 
> validate
> OK. The interesting thing (I think, anyway) is that whereas border applies an 
> extra
> width/height, outline does not. This can be useful sometimes, esp when 
> testing [ as in *
> {outline : red dashed thin}, for example].
>
> The big question of course, is whether there is anything undesirable about 
> the use of
> 'outline'?
>

While "border" affects layout, adding to size and "trapping" margins,
for example, AFAIK "outline" does not, acting in a similar manner to
"background".

As you noted, this is valuable when testing. As you also say, not
for IE, where I resort to background-color instead.

Incidentally, have you tried Firebug? It's the only thing I know
that indicates where your margins are (and lets you change them
dynamically).

Cordially,
David
--



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

RE: [WSG] css type loop

[David Hucklesby]

On Mon, 21 May 2007 18:46:33 -0700, Thierry Koblentz wrote:
>> But at the end of the day, this will only piss of the people on this mailing 
>> list,
>> and the next developer to work on your web site. The users
>> will still see a nice bold heading. The semantics are meanlingless to them.
>>
>
> Actually with your example, I believe there are more users who would be 
> bothered;
> screen-reader users for example who can navigate (cycle) through headings.
[...]

Count me in on that, Thierry. I use Opera by default, and find it very
useful to be able to "tab" through the headings on a long page.

Cordially,
David
--



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] dl v table for form layout

[David Hucklesby]

On Tue, 22 May 2007 14:28:02 +1000, Joshua Street wrote:
> My vote generally goes in for tables. Use th cells appropriately and there's 
> a clear
> relationship there. Definition lists are semantically on par, but often 
> harder to
> implement/require effort to make them *look like a table* (which is what 
> people expect
> when filling out forms, on paper or on the web).
>
I'm not sure about that assertion, Josh,

I have seen studies that suggest forms showing labels above the input
field are easier to complete. Personally, I would use labels above the
input for short forms, and a "table-like" layout for longer forms in
order to reduce the need to scroll.

As well as being advantageous for the visitor (?) this design allows
me to use the full line on the LABEL to add error messages. Viz:

Before validation looks like this:
Name: (required)
||

After validation looks like this:
Name: Please enter your full name
|____|

Cordially,
David
--



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] dl v table for form layout

[David Dixon]

Personally I think that form elements lend themselves to practically all 
the semantic meaning you need. Labels and input elements are either 
implicity or explicity linked (ie either labelname.../> or ), 
and then you have fieldsets as the basic method for containing groups of 
form elements.


I never use tables or lists (definition or otherwise) for form elements 
as their structure is typically far more complex than a basic list would 
account for without lists of lists (which gets a little silly), and i 
prefer to use semantic-neutral elements such as  and  eg.



   
  text
   
   
  textaddition text, errors 
etc

   


Ive never found a situation where this kind of structure has ever let me 
down using any kind of layout (text above, beside etc) with the help of 
"float-fixing" styles etc, and its infinitely more flexible than a table 
(i cant begin to describe how many table-based forms ive had to convert 
simply because someone wanted an additional info column to look like it 
covered 2 or more input areas (help text etc)).


Cheers,

David.

Benedict Wyss wrote:

Hi all,

I am having a discussion with colleagues here at work (won't mention 
our site as it stinks) about the best way forward for form layouts.


I have one person saying he will continue to use tables till otherwise 
informed.


I have another who uses none of the above, which you can imaging is 
not that good to look at with everything butting up against each 
other. His other suggestion was to add  's to move things 
about.


I like to use the definition list with Labels.

Now I know the dl I am using is not being used exactly as it was 
originally used (good point), but I say it is 100 times better than 
tables.


Can I get a WSG response on the best format to layout a form.

Cheers,

Ben

***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
*** 



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Suggestions rquired on my web portfolio

[David Laakso]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

Hi All:
My name is Puneet, web designer based in Dubai.

Recently I have revamped my website with tableless design and xhtml, 
keeping the web standards in mind.
I would really appreciate, if you guys can take a look at : 
www.puneetsakhuja.com, and send me your comments/suggestions.


Also if someone can tell me more about making my website accessible, 
having AAA standard or someting.


Thanks a lot.

regards
Puneet



I had a momentary block on understanding the visual when I first opened 
the site (could not figure out what the image on the right had to do 
with the content on the left). The site looks fine on a Mac. The tiny 
content type and light color for same gets a bit hard to read on a PC.

IE6 and 7 appear to be working as intended.
The horizontal nav and lowercase headings are breaking a little early (+1).

A message from the friendly w3c validator (outline).

   * Puneet Sakhuja Website Designer Dubai
 o A level 2 heading is missing!
   + graphic design
   * website design
 o A level 2 heading is missing!
   + A level 3 heading is missing!
 # dubai
   *

Best,
~dL


***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] RE: Error help

[David Dixon]

I cant say that I've been experiencing any crashes while testing the 
site in FF2, IE7/6/5.5 or Opera 9. I would hassle a guess that the 
majority of clients would be using IE6, so I would potentially focus my 
testing in that browser on as low spec system as you can get your hands 
on. Its entirely possible that the crashes are being caused my the 
combination of javascript animation/ajax, flash and the loading of 
movies (there is a lot going on in one page).


On a fairly high spec system (AMD 64 Proc, 1GB Ram) my processor usage 
does tend to peak at around 40-50% at times, so on slower systems its 
entirely possible that it could be crashing out. I would also possibly 
test against an older windows media player (version 10/9/8 etc), as it 
could be a codec issue?


To bring the topic slightly on track with web standards, have you 
thought about converting your video to flash and using some unobtrusive 
/ cross platform technique to load the flash (such as SWFObject etc)? As 
your ActiveX extension only covers Firefox, leaving browsers such as 
Safari, Opera etc out of the loop entirely. WMV, while delivering very 
good compression rates is also a lot more processor intensive (not to 
mention quite platform restrictive) than other video types.


Thanks,

David.

Hassan Schroeder wrote:

Paul Bennett wrote:

  
In Firefox and Opera - the flash video shows the message 'a 
required component is missing from your system! Click here to

add component'
(no js errors in either browser)



Unless you consider it a logic error to prompt the user to download
an ActiveX DLL to a Linux system  :-)

Thanks for pointing out that message, though -- I totally overlooked
it, as that area seemed merely decorative.

"You can't use our web site!" might oughta be a little bolder...

To the original question -- have all the people complaining about
crashing browsers downloaded and installed this extension? Or are
they all using IE? Or _ ? I'd isolate common threads first.

FWIW,
  



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Mocking up web interfaces

[David Laakso]

Douglas Reith wrote:

Hi there,
Just a quick one - what do people most commonly mock up web site 
designs in? (Photoshop?)

Also, if possible, Linux and GPL or similar would be great!!
Cheers,
Doug




Notepad.
Best,
~dL


***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] dl v table for form layout

[David Hucklesby]

On Fri, 25 May 2007 02:22:19 +0200, Sander Aarts wrote
(responding to Mike at Green-Beast.com) :
>
> Your demo form is a wonderful example of a web standards compliant and 
> accessible form
> (although I think that placing the label text before the field instead of 
> above makes
> it even more accessible for the avarage visitor, especcially if the form 
> tends to be
> long), [...]

You may be interested in this usability study[1] that concluded:

"Placing a label above an input field works better in most cases, because 
users aren’t forced to look separately at the label and the input field."

- and -

"In most cases, when placing labels to the left of input fields, using 
left-aligned labels imposes a heavy cognitive workload on users. Placing 
labels above input fields is preferable, but if you choose to place them 
to the left of input fields, at least make them right aligned."

[1] <http://www.uxmatters.com/MT/archives/000107.php>

Cordially,
David
--



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Mocking up web interfaces

[David Laakso]

Michael MD wrote:



On Behalf Of Nick Fitzsimons
Being "Just a Coder", my usual workflow is:

1. Receive Photoshop files created by client's graphic designer, who
has no knowledge of web technologies, no understanding of usability,
no interest in accessibility, and thinks everything is the same as
print media;

2. Tear my hair out whilst ranting and raving about the ignorance and
incompetence of these people;

3. Decide that I'm not going to be beaten by these b4st4rd5;

4. Rack my brains for days or weeks working out how to achieve the
impossible;

5. Achieve the impossible;

6. Realise that I've learnt or invented a whole load of useful CSS
and HTML techniques;

7. GOTO 1.





love it ... couldn't have said it better myself! :-)








/I love it, too. /

Designers can't walk and chew gum at the same time.

And "coding" is a pimp's profession.


***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

[WSG] A CMS for POSH sites?

[David Hucklesby]

Following up on Lisa McLaughlin's recent query about blogging software,
I wonder if anyone can help me find a CMS that lets me use Plain Old
Semantic HTML?

I'm not convinced XHTML is "the wave of the future" for web sites, but
cannot find a version of TextPattern or WordPress or the like that
does not use XHTML markup (and sends it as HTML !)

(FWIW - I love Textile, but that, too, creates XHTML.)

Cordially,
David
--



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] A CMS for POSH sites?

[David Dorward]

On 25 May 2007, at 11:54, Alastair Campbell wrote:

Wordpress will, however, you might have to dig around to prevent it
putting in closing slashes on head elements. (Closing slashes on
content items such as images are fine, they are within the body and do
not cause validation issues.)


Not causing validation issues does not make them "fine"; even if the  
vast majority of user agents don't respect it,  in an HTML  
document means "An image element followed by a greater than sign".  
The HTML specification explicitly advises authors to avoid them:  
http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/appendix/notes.html#h-B.3.7


--
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk/
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/




***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] dl v table for form layout

[David Dorward]

On 25 May 2007, at 15:40, Stuart Foulstone wrote:

The "for" attribute should NOT be used when the label tag encloses the
label text.


Why not?

The specification doesn't appear to forbid it. Does it cause problems  
in any user agents?


--
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk/
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/




***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] A CMS for POSH sites?

[David Hucklesby]

On Fri, 25 May 2007 08:56:31 -0400, Christian Montoya wrote:
>
> Getting Wordpress to use HTML 4.01 as opposed to XHTML is something I do all 
> the time,
> and it's not hard at all. Read my article:
> http://www.christianmontoya.com/2006/02/13/serve-your-weblog-as-html-401/
>

Thank you all for your feedback. The article Christian wrote is particularly
useful.

Cordially,
David
--



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Converting font size from pt to % or em

[David Hucklesby]

On Fri, 25 May 2007 10:48:29 +0530, Sagnik Dey wrote:
> Hi Guys,
>
> I'm developing a website that have some standards defined. The font size 
> specified is
> 9pt. But due to accessibility standards I wanted to  convert that in % or em. 
> Can
> anybody tell what do i need to use to view the same size in different 
> browsers?

Experimenting in IE7, Opera 9, FF2, and NS 7.2 on a Win xp PC running at 
120 DPI shows all of them display text specified as 9pt to be 15px in size.
I think this will be the same at 96 DPI.

Same size in different browsers is not really achievable. But you do raise
an interesting question, as I have been reading Richard Rutter's ideas
on "composing to a rhythm".[1]. He employs a "scale" of font sizes that
are measured in points.

It occurred to me that a "base" of ten points would make it easy to use
percents or ems - along the lines of the (problematic) idea of using 62.5%
as a base font size to represent ten pixels. 10pt translates to 17px if
my browsers interpretation of "points" is to be trusted.

Now comes the tricky bit that I need help with. We could use 17px as the
base font size, but IE Win will not resize the results. We could use a base
of 104.2% to help IE users, but at 120 DPI the results are 25% bigger in
both IE and Opera.

The bigger text may not affect the "scale" I am attempting - I need to
do more experiments.


[1] <http://24ways.org/2006/compose-to-a-vertical-rhythm>

Cordially,
David
--




***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Site Review (www.richardson.co.nz)

[David Laakso]

Samuel Richardson wrote:

G'day all,

I've decided to make the jump from full time web development to
freelance work. Mostly front end development, (X)HTML/CSS/JavaScript
development etc.

Anyway, to support myself, I've created a portfolio here:

www.richardson.co.nz

I just want to make sure I haven't missed anything obvious with the
build phase of things. If you've all got time to have a look at the
code/design and give me some feedback that would be fantastic.

It's somewhat off topic but I don't think my copy writing is too hot,
if anyone has some suggestions on how to present myself better then
I'd love to hear them. I'm going to be dealing strictly with design
companies rather then the public so I've tried to keep thing short.

Thanks heaps!




I only looked at the home page.

A piece of the browser scrollbar (very strange) is covering the last 
numeral of what I assume is your phone number in Safari and Mac FF and 
Opera.

The page is ok in XP FF, Opera, and IE7 and IE6.

The start point(before scaling the fonts) of the content text in Mac 
Opera is almost unreadable for me (I am at 1680).



Best,
~dL



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: self-closing tags in HTML, was: [WSG] A CMS for POSH sites?

[David Dorward]

On 29 May 2007, at 12:50, Alastair Campbell wrote:


On 5/25/07, David Dorward <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Not causing validation issues does not make them "fine"; even if the
vast majority of user agents don't respect it,  in an HTML
document means "An image element followed by a greater than sign".
The HTML specification explicitly advises authors to avoid them:
http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/appendix/notes.html#h-B.3.7


Interesting, but I don't understand how that section applies?

How do you get from "these constructs technically introduce no
ambiguity" in that section, to a self-closed image being "An image
element followed by a greater than sign"?


Because, in an HTML document, an XHTML style img tag unambiguously  
means "An image element followed by a greater than sign".




Especially since this case is explicitly shown in the compatibility
guidelines (http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#C_2).



... because most browsers don't support  correctly in HTML  
documents, you can write XHTML documents that are compatible with  
most HTML user agents (this is not the same as being compatible with  
HTML).



Is Vlad from Xstandard wrong when he said: "if an authoring tool
generates XHTML in a backwards compatible way, then there is no need
to have a "configuration to produce either HTML or XHTML". The
backwards compatible XHTML will work in HTML and XHTML templates."
(http://alastairc.ac/2007/02/wysiwyg-editor-spec-checklist/ 
#comment-12741 )


Depends on your definition of "work". It renders as the author  
intends in most HTML user agents. It doesn't mean what the author  
intends in anything that parses the HTML correctly.



Or is this a case of it doesn't quite comply to part of a spec but


No. The spec allows , it just means something different.


doesn't make any difference in practice?


W3 used to parse the construct correctly under HTML rules (when I  
used it from time to time). Since then, I think they have crippled  
its HTML handling to cope with the amount of bad markup out there.



If it isn't, perhaps the
W3C's HTML validator should be updated?


Anywhere an img element is allowed in an HTML document, a greater  
than sign is also allowed. So the construct is valid and the  
validator should not claim otherwise. It just doesn't mean what the  
author intends.


--
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk/
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/




***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: self-closing tags in HTML, was: [WSG] A CMS for POSH sites?

[David Dorward]

On 29 May 2007, at 14:55, Andrew Maben wrote:


On May 29, 2007, at 9:26 AM, David Dorward wrote:
Because, in an HTML document, an XHTML style img tag unambiguously  
means "An image element followed by a greater than sign".


Sorry to be dense, I'm trying to grasp this concept. Does (at least  
strictly speaking) the inclusion of a forward slash within the tag  
of any element prevent the tag in question from being terminated?


No. A forward slash terminates the tag (so the > character is outside  
the tag, so its character data).


In HTML all these mean the same thing:


>
>

(and  foo )



... because most browsers don't support  correctly in HTML  
documents


How is  (or presumably ) correctly supported? And  
which browsers do correctly support it?


An image (or line break) followed by a > character.  So Hello>World should be rendered:


Hello
>World

(in HTML).

The only browser I know of, off the top of my head, that gets it  
right is W3 (and as mentioned, I believe it was intentionally  
crippled to cope with fallout from Appendix C). Of course nsgmls and  
related programs also get it right.



--
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk/
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/




***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Mobiles and standards

[David Storey]

At least for the top mobile browsers such as Nokia S60, the Safari  
version for iPhone and Opera's mobile browsers, they can cope with  
full HTML and XHTML and CSS, so they can handle the regular desktop  
site.  Some render the page in desktop mode, and some reformat the  
page to fit in one column.  Opera mobile can do both.  This solution  
can give quite good results.  If you want to optimise the site then  
you can use handheld stylesheets and/or CSS Media Queries.   
Unfortunately it doesn't seem like Nokia or Apple will be supporting  
handheld, but they will most likely support Media Queries (they are  
included in the latest WebKit builds).  Opera Mobile supports both  
and Opera Mini will fully support handheld stylesheets in Opera Mini  
4 (and Media Queries I believe).


 Using media queries to give a different stylesheet  to devices  
under a certain resolution will work well except in less modern  
mobile browsers that are still WAP based or have poor standards  
support.  These should be marginalised as carriers and handset makers  
look for better browsers to include in their phones after seeing what  
full html browsers can do.  Opera is certainly seeing this, with  
having deals in place with many major handset makers like  
SonyEriksson, Nokia, Palm, HTC, Samsung, Motorla, Toshiba etc and  
Carriers such as T-Mobile, Telefonica (number 1 in Spain), TMN  
(number 1 in Portugal) shipping Opera Mobile (smartphones) or Opera  
Mini (any phone with Java)  and more announcements in the pipeline.   
The other browser makers with poor standards support will have to  
improve their products, especially if sites take advantage of the  
more interesting technologies such as Media Queries.


The third option is to make a mobile specific site, which is often  
done in XHTML Basic or Mobile Profile (be careful here as a well  
formness error in XML will likely make the page not render at all).   
This is often the best option if you either have a very heavy regular  
site that will be difficult to navigate on mobile and take a lot of  
bandwidth and time to download (Kb often equals money for many mobile  
web users), or you want to give mobile specific content that fits the  
context of using a mobile.  The down side to this approach is that  
you will have two sites to maintain instead of one, while with media  
queries or handheld style you only have one extra stylesheet, so this  
approach should only be taken if you need to and have the resources.   
This kind of site will work better on older style mobile browsers  
however.


One of the biggest issues with mobile web design is actually the  
fonts.  Many phones, especially feature phones are limited to one  
font in limited sizes and no italic fontface.  This can make Opera  
Mini 3 look different one one phone than it does on another, so don't  
expect pixel perfect layouts.


David

On 31 May 2007, at 12:02, Nick Cowie wrote:


Hi Katrina

I have not done enough research on this, but:

If I creating a site that I expected mobile browsers to visit (ie  
every site I create from now) I would use XHTML 1.0 transitional  
DTD, mime type of text/html and restrict my XHTML to the XHTML-MP  
subset and my CSS to the WCSS subset


If I was building a mobile only site (and I have not done that  
yet), I would have to be  convinced  of the advantages of moving to  
a XHTML-MP dtd and associated mime type. In other words XHTML 1.0  
transitional works with most browsers, computer or mobile based.


I have done no research of redirecting mobile users to a different  
URL,  .Apparently the WP-PDA plugin http://imthi.com/wp-pda  does  
this and works with the major mobile browsers, so time to play with  
it.



Nick




--
Nick Cowie
http://nickcowie.com
***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
*******


David Storey
Chief Web Opener
Opera Software
Oslo, Norway

W: http://my.opera.com/dstorey
✉ : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
✆ : +47 24 16 42 26





***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Re: Use of Fieldsets other than in form?

[David Dorward]

On 5 Jun 2007, at 19:22, Paul Novitski wrote:

The FIELDSET definition could easily have included:

(INPUT|SELECT|TEXTAREA|BUTTON)+
or:
(%formctrl)+

But it doesn't.


And if it did then the fieldset couldn't contain elements that add  
extra semantic information about the form controls, their labels, and  
their relationships to each other.


The DTD almost always errs towards the liberal, it is expected that  
documents be written according to the prose of the specification and  
not just the machine readable components of it.



--
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk/
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/




***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] WCAG Samurai Errata

[David Dorward]

On 8 Jun 2007, at 16:22, Thierry Koblentz wrote:
The idea is not to parse the tree looking for an element to hide,  
but rather
use document.write() to write CSS declaration(s) that'll hide that  
element

right from the start.



http://www.tjkdesign.com/articles/toggle_elements.asp


Despite the claims of the article, using document.write() will not  
work in XHTML[1] documents. Browsers don't support it in XHTML mode.



[1] XHTML served as text/html doesn't count, and using this technique  
with such documents is inviting trouble if the document is ever  
served with the correct content type


--
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk/
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/




***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] resizing text via graphics/text?

[David Hucklesby]

On Mon, 11 Jun 2007 11:36:11 +0100, Designer wrote:
> Good Morning/afternoon/evening,
>
> Further to recent discussions on text size, and in particular, using graphics 
> sized in
> ems so that they resize, I've pondered the use of graphical text when wanting 
> to use  
> an uncommon font.  So, I put a heading into a simple graphic (using the 
> required text),
> but I've noticed that when the font is a thin, light font (sometimes called 
> 'spidery'),
> the quality falls through the floor on enlargement when sized in ems.
>
> However, if the heading using the font is produced in Flash, the quality is 
> maintained
> when resizing.  You can see an example, comparing  3 approaches ( flash, 
> graphics in
> ems and graphics in pixels) here:
>
> http://www.marscovista.fsnet.co.uk/newtemplate/flashtext.htm
>

Sweet. It falls back to an image if Flash is disabled, even in IE!  8-O

Now if only it increased with font size in IE...

Cordially,
David
--



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Back to the Future

[David Dorward]

On 12 Jun 2007, at 17:04, Chris Taylor wrote:

I've been asked to write a website that MUST work in Netscape 4.03 and
IE 3 for Windows 3.1. When you've stopped laughing I'm afraid I  
have to
say I'm serious, and there's no chance at all that the people  
connecting

to the site will upgrade.

So, any tips to do this without reverting all the way back to 1996
tables and spacer gifs? Or am I doomed to non-standards hell?


Does 'work' really mean 'look the same'?


--
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk/
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/




***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] why is this text not resizable,?

[David Hucklesby]

On Sat, 16 Jun 2007 19:36:06 -0700, Tee G. Peng wrote:
> I was at Media Temple reading mySQL stuff, and one thing caught my eyes. 
> First I saw
> the h3 text seems to have shadow effect so I tried to select it to see if 
> it's graphic.
> It's not and then I notice the font isn't enlarged when I resize the fontsize.
>
> http://www.mediatemple.net/webhosting/gs/mysql-pool.htm
>
> Look for blue heading under the 'Notable features'.
>

Hi Tee,

You have had your answer, but thought that you may be interested in
an alternative method[1] mentioned in an earlier thread[2].

The example (still being worked on) uses plain text in a Flash
image, but there's no reason why it could not have an effect
applied. The point is, this experimental method uses EM sizing
for the Flash. I found the demo quite convincing.

[1] <http://www.rhh.myzen.co.uk/gam/sandbox/flashtext.php>

[2] <http://tinyurl.com/29aohk>

Cordially,
David
--






***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] site check please

[David Laakso]

Jermayn Parker wrote:

just wondering if people can have a quick look at the following website
for any major errors, suggestions etc

http://www.phillipwrayracing.com

  


It is a little slow to load. I regret that font-scaling drops the floats 
and/or breaks the layout.

Best,
~dL

--
http://chelseacreekstudio.com/



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] 1 pixel gap

[David Hucklesby]

On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 17:33:34 +0100, Paul Collins wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Just got a 1 pixel gap at the left of my image here that is baffling me. It is
> happening in Firefox and Safari on Mac - the only browsers I have tested in 
> so far. you
> can see there is space below the image to the right where it sticks out a bit 
> too.
>
> http://method.com.au/test.html
>
> I have changed the doctype to HTML 4.0, I have made the image inline,
> position:relative, but nothing I can do seems to work. Any ideas?
>
> The 1 pixel gap does go away when the scrollbar apears on the browser window, 
> so when
> there is enough content to go below the fold.
>
~
Hi Paul,
Your background image (white) is 710 pixels wide. I think that reducing
this to 709 pixels to match the header image may fix it.

BTW - Opera is putting the inline image - well - inline. It appears
to the right of the text, jutting out to the right of the page.
Putting it in a block element helps. I used a DIV to fix it.

Adding "display: block;" for the image works also.

Cordially,
David
--



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] 1 pixel gap

[David Hucklesby]

On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 17:33:34 +0100, Paul Collins wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Just got a 1 pixel gap at the left of my image here that is baffling me. It is
> happening in Firefox and Safari on Mac - the only browsers I have tested in 
> so far. you
> can see there is space below the image to the right where it sticks out a bit 
> too.
>
> http://method.com.au/test.html
>
> I have changed the doctype to HTML 4.0, I have made the image inline,
> position:relative, but nothing I can do seems to work. Any ideas?
>
> The 1 pixel gap does go away when the scrollbar apears on the browser window, 
> so when
> there is enough content to go below the fold.
>
~
Hi Paul,
Your background image (white) is 710 pixels wide. I think that reducing
this to 709 pixels to match the header image may fix it.

BTW - Opera is putting the inline image - well - inline. It appears
to the right of the text, jutting out to the right of the page.
Putting it in a block element helps. I used a DIV to fix it.

Adding "display: block;" for the image works also.

Cordially,
David
--



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Accessibility and "fly out" menus

[David Dorward]

On 21 Jun 2007, at 07:35, [EMAIL PROTECTED]  
wrote:
I was wondering how members here feel about the accessibility of  
"Fly Out" menus. The type I'm talking about are CSS based, ie no  
JavaScript but I'd be interested to hear what people think about  
those that utilise JavaScript.


I'm yet to see a JavaScript-free menu that:

* Can be used without a pointing device (e.g. by keyboard or breath  
switch users)
* Doesn't vanish the moment that the mouse drifts outside the menu  
(thus requiring fine motor control that users with, for instance,  
arthritis are unlikely to have)


--
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk/
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/




***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Opera and Decimal Percentage Widths

[David Laakso]

Christian Montoya wrote:

Hello list,

I have a test page set up at
http://lab.christianmontoya.com/point-nine-nine-percent/

and on this page the 3rd and 4th rows have divs with 49.6% and 49.99%
widths, respectively. These behave as expected in Firefox, Safari, and
IE, but in Opera 9+ their widths are the same as 49%. It seems that
Opera 9+ just doesn't do fractional sizes. Is this a bug in Opera?



I do not know if it is considered a bug or simply a browser difference. 
And I am not sure I care. Either way, Opera will round fractional sizes. 
It is these individual software differences and idiosyncrasies that 
those of us who are in this merely for the fun of it cherish.

Best,
~dL

--
http://chelseacreekstudio.com/



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

[WSG] Best practice embedding a Quicktime/Flash video

[David Little]

Hi,

I'm looking for some advice on best practice methods of embedding a
QT/Flash movie in a page in a standards compliant way, so any ideas
would be very gratefully received!

At the moment my page embeds a video using the standards compliant
method for QT videos as described by Elizabeth Castro in her A List
Apart article "Bye Bye Embed":

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/byebyeembed

I then use some unobstrusive javascript to add a show/hide control and
to hide the video on load. This means that non-Javascript-enabled
browsers will simply get the video without the show / hide controls.

This is all fine until you try it in a browser without Quicktime (we
may opt for Flash in the end, but the principles I guess will be the
same). Then, in IE you get the rather unhelpful "Security warning" /
install software message (well at least that's what you get on the IE6
install running on my virtual PC). Obviously this is not so bad in
Firefox where you get the "Install missing plugins message".

Using a detection script would probably by-pass these issues, but that
would then not be in the spirit of progressive enhancement I'm going
for.

I'd be interested to know how others have approached this kind of
issue. As usual I may be missing something blindingly obvious -- this
is one of the areas in which my experience is a little limited!

Many thanks,
David
--
David Little


***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Best practice embedding a Quicktime/Flash video

[David Little]

Hi,

Thanks for your replies on this. I'd embedded the movie in the way Tim
described -- I was thinking more along the lines of what you would do
when you use this method to deal with the inevitable messages you get
when you don't have the plugin installed. You'd get round this with a
detection script like swfobject which Tom mentions, but this is too JS
reliant for me.

I'm thinking it will be best to go down the route of embedding Flash
(and not QT) using the standards-compliant/conditional comment path.
The "you need an additional plugin blah blah" message isn't as
alarming for Flash as it is for Quicktime on some platforms. Plus, the
Flash player's a lot more lightweight, so people won't have to worry
about also downloading iTunes and other nonsense as they do with QT.

I think the answer here may lie in descriptive help text about which
plugin you may need rather than anything more complex

Thanks again,
David

On 27/06/07, Tom Livingston <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

On 6/27/07, David Little <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm looking for some advice on best practice methods of embedding a
> QT/Flash movie in a page in a standards compliant way, so any ideas
> would be very gratefully received!
>

I use this:

http://blog.deconcept.com/swfobject/

Not sure about "best practice" but it's served us well. There is a
couple issues, but really what method doesn't have it's issues. I am
particularly fond of the way it handles alt-content.


***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***





--
David Little

-e: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-w: www.littled.net


***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Skip to Content?

[David Little]

Hi,

I'd still include the link (as the first link on the page) as I
imagine you're still going to have other browser content before you
get to your page's main content (headers, logos etc.) -- unless you
want users of screenreaders to have to sit through that for every
page.

I'd say anything that adds to the usability of a site for any group is
worth including. Also, it's very easy to hide these links from other
"standard" browsers if you so wish, so it's not really much of an
overhead to include them.

Hope this helps,
David

On 28/06/07, Frank Palinkas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Hi All,

Just a quick question and please pardon my ignorance..

If the global site navigation on a page is marked up below the content, and
then floated left (or right) to bring it visually next to the content in a
two column manner, is it good practice to include a "Skip to Content" link as
part of the navigation markup for users with assistive technologies?

More simply put, given that the global nav is structurally situated below the
content, will this preclude the use of a skip to content link?

Looking forward to your comments,

Kind regards,

Frank



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***





--
David Little

-m: 077 6596 5655
-e: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-w: www.littled.net


***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Skip to Content?

[David Dorward]

On 28 Jun 2007, at 10:34, Frank Palinkas wrote:
As you mention, I'm experimenting with moving the "skip to content"  
link off
screen with a margin-left of -em, leaving its markup intact  
just above

the floated global nav div.


... where keyboard users can focus it, but not see it.

If you feel you must hide content from users who can see, then please  
bring it back into view when they point at it.


--
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk/
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/




***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Skip to Content?

[David Little]

On 28 Jun 2007, at 6:50 PM, Frank Palinkas wrote:

> If the global site navigation on a page is marked up below the
> content...

Hang on - if your nav is *below* the content, wouldn't the link be
better as 'skip to navigation'?



I think in this case it would be a good idea to have both links, e.g.
something like:


Skip to content | Skip
to navigation


Hiding the links as suggested via positioning.

David



--
David Little

-e: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-w: www.littled.net


***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Best practice embedding a Quicktime/Flash video

[David Little]

I see your point here. The only thing I wonder about, and forgive me
if I am just in need of more coffee here, but what does a user get if
they *choose* not use Flash? Is alt-content handled?


It shows my limited knowledge of this area that I wasn't aware that
you could put your alternative content within the  tag --
that's going to be very useful. This seems to be the best way forward
for me at present with my limited time frame without relying on
Javascript libraries.

In terms of alternate content, this is unlikely to be anything much
beyond an invitation to download Flash (tho' if you believe the stats,
c.97% of users have it installed anyway). I think it  may be worth
investing more time in looking at captioning the Flash movies.

Thanks again,
David


***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Best practice embedding a Quicktime/Flash video

[David Little]

These solutions are interesting, but I'm only willing to spend time
looking at them if:

* Users without Javascript but with Flash can still view the movies
* I can integrate them with my CMS (Plone) -- I'll need to generate
the code dynamically
* I don't have to litter the  with Javascript snippets
* My page validation doesn't break as a result.

I've only given them a cursory glance so far, so with any luck they
will fulfil these criteria, although I notice that UFO injects 
tags via Javascript.

Thanks for the heads up about these -- if I had the time I'd love to
compare all the different methods. Maybe I can after this project's
finished ;-)

David



On 30/06/07, Tate Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

On 29/06/2007, at 6:52 PM, David Little wrote:

>> I see your point here. The only thing I wonder about, and forgive me
>> if I am just in need of more coffee here, but what does a user get if
>> they *choose* not use Flash? Is alt-content handled?
>
> It shows my limited knowledge of this area that I wasn't aware that
> you could put your alternative content within the  tag --
> that's going to be very useful. This seems to be the best way forward
> for me at present with my limited time frame without relying on
> Javascript libraries.
>

The problem with using the  tag to embed content such as
flash presents some problems in IE7. By default, these controls are
"disabled" and users must click the object to "activate" it. This is
the result of a company that held a patent on embedding content, and
took MS to court over it. However, the patent doesn't include
embedding inline objects (Such as using javascript to embed flash).

I'd strongly encourage you to check out SWFObject. It's quick and
easy to implement. You can also provide alternate content for users
without flash or javascript. That said, the object tag *does* support
alternate content as well.

SWFobject --> http://blog.deconcept.com/swfobject/

- Tate


***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***





--
David Little

-e: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-w: www.littled.net


***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Footer Problem IE5.x

[David Little]

Seconded -- compared to all the other hacks you'll need to make when
coding for IE browsers, conditional comments are the least of your
worries; in fact they are your friend!

On 02/07/07, Nick Gleitzman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


On 2 Jul 2007, at 6:09 PM, Sarah Peeke (XERT) wrote:

> I guess I was hoping to fix the problem(s), rather than just rely on a
> hack. Other suggestions appreciated.

Fair enough, but I'd say your chances of getting the one set of css
rules to display correctly in all browsers are pretty slim - especially
if you want to include browsers as flawed as Exploder 5.x. Even MS
themselves accept how hard this is - hence CCs.

I routinely serve as many as three alternative stylesheets vis CCs for
different versions of IE. They only need to contain a handful of rules
necessary to override the correct values served to compliant browsers.

Whether you consider CCs a hack is, I guess, subjective. But your code
will validate, and they're easy to remove with a global search and
replace if and when the time comes that you don't need them any more.

Why beat your head against the wall of buggy browsers when the
manufacturer themselves supplies a workaround?

N
___
omnivision. websight.
http://www.omnivision.com.au/



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***





--
David Little

-e: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-w: www.littled.net


***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Robot meta tags

[David Dorward]

On 4 Jul 2007, at 10:42, Mark Harris wrote:
Not to pick on you, James, because Bruce already used it, but the  
word is "deprecated" not "depreciated".


And before someone picks on me for being a spelling-nazi, the words  
have significantly different meanings, and it's important to use  
the right one.


Well. Meta tags are depreciated too - their value has been reduced  
from 'some' to 'almost nothing'. ;)


--
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk/
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/




***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Creative Yeti Has Left The Building (Temporarily)

[David Laakso]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

Hello,

I am attending an animation course until July 23rd (not a holiday!).  I will be 
checking my mails in the evening and can be contacted on my mobile, 07740 
342188 if you urgently need some colouring in.

Jilly
__
Walt Tovey
Creative Yeti
10 Yetis Ltd

T: 01452 527898 | M: 07740 342188 | W: www.10yetis.co.uk

10 Yetis is a Limited Company, registration number 5542316. Our address is 10 
Yetis, Robinswood Suite A, Spread Eagle Court Gloucester GL1 1SL.

NOTICE: This email is intended solely for the named recipient only. It may 
contain privileged and/or confidential information. If you are not one of the 
intended recipients, please notify the sender immediately, and destroy the 
email; you must not copy, distribute or take any action in reliance upon it. 
Whilst all efforts are made to safeguard Inbound and Outbound emails, 10 Yetis 
cannot guarantee that attachments are Virus-free or compatible with your 
systems and does not accept any liability in respect of viruses or computer 
problems experienced.

Any creative ideas or pitch documents are owned by 10 Yetis until any campaign or project is signed off. 10 Yetis retains the right to recycle and/or re-use any suggested campaign ideas that are not used by our lovely clients. 






***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***


  





Ask me if I give shit.

--
http://chelseacreekstudio.com/



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Background image problem

[David Hucklesby]

On Fri, 6 Jul 2007 16:46:52 -0400, Dean Matthews wrote:
>
> I have a page with 3 divs in a wrapper div, essentially top, middle, bottom.
>
> The repeating background for the "middle" div is showing about 5 pixels below 
> the
> bottom div (which has it's own background).
>
> This is only happening on IE 6 Windows.
>
> <http://www.madisonFH.com/new>
>
~~

Hi Dean,

Try adding "background-position: bottom left;" to your rule for 
#bottomBevel.

Cordially,
David
--



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Background image problem

[David Hucklesby]

On Fri, 6 Jul 2007 16:46:52 -0400, Dean Matthews wrote:
>
> I have a page with 3 divs in a wrapper div, essentially top, middle, bottom.
>
> The repeating background for the "middle" div is showing about 5 pixels below 
> the
> bottom div (which has it's own background).
>
> This is only happening on IE 6 Windows.
>
> <http://www.madisonFH.com/new>
>
~~

Hi Dean,

Try adding "background-position: bottom left;" to your rule for 
#bottomBevel.

Cordially,
David
--



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Fieldset background

[David Laakso]

Dean Matthews wrote:
IE6 doesn't appear to render the background correctly in a fieldset 
with a legend (extends beyond top border).


Is there a fix or alternatively how would you hide the 
background-color from IE6 only.


Thanks,

Dean

Georg Sortun, who is on vacation and unable to reply to the list 
directly, asked me to pass this alternative solution to the problem on 
to you:




Regards,

~dL

--
http://chelseacreekstudio.com/



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Shadow validation

[David Dorward]

On 10 Jul 2007, at 04:20, Dean Matthews wrote:

On Jul 9, 2007, at 10:23 PM, Philippe Wittenbergh wrote:
Not really, just chose the appropriate options (advanced...) when  
you try to validate a file.


Yes I see, but how do you link a "Valid CSS" icon to an advanced  
search?


Validate it, then copy/paste the URL (don't forget to convert  
ampersands to entities).


Or see http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/html/validation.html#icon

--
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk/
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/




***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] H1 font not set in IE

[David Hucklesby]

On Tue, 17 Jul 2007 14:25:00 +0100, Nick Roper wrote:
> Hi James,
>
> Yup, as I say, it works fine for both headers and menus on FF/MAc, but only 
> for the
> menus on FF/Win.
>
> What I'm trying to figure out is why the menus render in Garamamond but the 
> headings
> don't on FF/Win
>

Interesting. I'm on a pretty basic Win XP Pro setup. Opera shows both
the menu and headings in Garamond; Firefox 2 shows Times, I think,
for *both* here, as does IE. Hmm.

Cordially,
David
--



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] H1 font not set in IE

[David Hucklesby]

On Tue, 17 Jul 2007 14:25:00 +0100, Nick Roper wrote:
> Hi James,
>
> Yup, as I say, it works fine for both headers and menus on FF/MAc, but only 
> for the
> menus on FF/Win.
>
> What I'm trying to figure out is why the menus render in Garamamond but the 
> headings
> don't on FF/Win
>

Interesting. I'm on a pretty basic Win XP Pro setup. Opera shows both
the menu and headings in Garamond; Firefox 2 shows Times, I think,
for *both* here, as does IE. Hmm.

Cordially,
David
--



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] H1 font not set in IE

[David Hucklesby]

On Tue, 17 Jul 2007 14:25:00 +0100, Nick Roper wrote:
> Hi James,
>
> Yup, as I say, it works fine for both headers and menus on FF/MAc, but only 
> for the
> menus on FF/Win.
>
> What I'm trying to figure out is why the menus render in Garamamond but the 
> headings
> don't on FF/Win
>

Correction to my previous post. Garamond is not installed on my computer.
I don't know what Opera substitutes, but it is certainly not the default
Times New Roman defined in my preferences.

Sorry for the noise.

Cordially,
David
--



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] H1 font not set in IE

[David Hucklesby]

On Tue, 17 Jul 2007 14:25:00 +0100, Nick Roper wrote:
> Hi James,
>
> Yup, as I say, it works fine for both headers and menus on FF/MAc, but only 
> for the
> menus on FF/Win.
>
> What I'm trying to figure out is why the menus render in Garamamond but the 
> headings
> don't on FF/Win
>

Correction to my previous post. Garamond is not installed on my computer.
I don't know what Opera substitutes, but it is certainly not the default
Times New Roman defined in my preferences.

Sorry for the noise.

Cordially,
David
--



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Using target="_blank"

[David Hucklesby]

On Tue, 24 Jul 2007 13:19:21 -0400 (EDT), [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>> Personally I prefer links to open in the same Window. But that's me. And I 
>> don't want
>> to force my preference on anyone. That's why it's nicer to leave it to the 
>> user to
>> decide. The only way to let users decide is to open links in the same window 
>> by
>> default and teach said users a function of their browser they may not be 
>> aware of. Or
>> to provide some "preference" control widget.
>>
>
> Sorry but I don't agree...to a point. As a web designer and user myself, I 
> prefer
> opening another window IF it is to a different website that I am referring 
> them to.
> That way the customer doesn't go wondering thru the other website and forget 
> to come
> back to mine. Mine will always be open in the background to remind them (kind 
> of like
> I'm the one they came to the dance with).
> Now if the link is in my own website, then of course I prefer them to be in 
> the same
> window. I co not believe you have to TEACH a potential consumer/buyer to use 
> your site.
> It should have a natural flow and be easy to use.
>

Hmm. What's "easy to use" when you wind up with a bunch of spawned
windows that must be closed one by one? What's easy about watching out
for warnings from my pop-up blocker that I'm trying to open a new window?
What's easy about new windows compared to the convenience of tabbed 
browsing?

What's wrong with indicating external links in some way? Why not add
a short note to your page: "right-click on a link to open a new tab or
window"?

Just asking.

Cordially,
David
--



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Center Align an Unorder List

[David Laakso]

Ryan Moore wrote:

Looking to Center Text on an unordered list.




css:
ul
{text-align: center;}
li
{
display: inline;
list-style-type: none;
padding-right: 20px;
}
markup:

Item one
Item two
Item three
Item four
Item five


Best,
~dL


--
http://chelseacreekstudio.com/



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] an inline element (inside a block element) sibling of another block element

[David Dorward]

On 26 Jul 2007, at 11:14, Micky Hulse wrote:


Rimantas Liubertas wrote:

Why not to check it? From HTML 4.01 Strict DTD:
..
Woohoo, A is here. Case closed.


Well, that went over my head... Mind explaining?


http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/intro/sgmltut.html#h-3.3

--
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk/
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/




***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Target 1st item in list

[David Dorward]

On 27 Jul 2007, at 00:08, Nick Roper wrote:


I need to target the 1st item in a list.


http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/selector.html#first-child
But: http://www.webdevout.net/browser-support-css#css2pseudoclasses

--
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk/
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/




***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: RES: [WSG] HELP with CSS

[David Hucklesby]

On Fri, 27 Jul 2007 21:36:38 -0300, SosCpdGMail wrote:
> Hello Ted
>
> There is, somewhere, a reference or tutorial of how can we read and learn 
> about the
> structural way and css? I have look around many and many approaches to this 
> subject, in
> many and many different ways like books, googling and sources. Its hard to 
> pick one.
> Any of them always have a catch, and it is much more difficult if you write 
> code from
> interpreted scripts like I do.
>
Hi Rafael,
Well, I'd say that the rules for writing structural (X)HTML are the
same as those for writing formal documents of any kind. I imagine
any text that teaches such writing skills would do.

I don't think this is a matter of HTML skills, but one of how a
document is put together. I don't know, but I imagine this would
be much the same in any language, at least as far as writing for
the global marketplace is concerned.

The use of headings, lists, paragraphs, quotations, and so on
are a matter of writing style, rather than code. For me, having
an unstyled HTML page "make sense" as a document I would write
using any word processor for submission to any group of peers
is where I usually start. The "decoration" (CSS) comes later, I think.

Cordially,
David
--



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: RES: [WSG] HELP with CSS

[David Hucklesby]

On Fri, 27 Jul 2007 21:36:38 -0300, SosCpdGMail wrote:
> Hello Ted
>
> There is, somewhere, a reference or tutorial of how can we read and learn 
> about the
> structural way and css? I have look around many and many approaches to this 
> subject, in
> many and many different ways like books, googling and sources. Its hard to 
> pick one.
> Any of them always have a catch, and it is much more difficult if you write 
> code from
> interpreted scripts like I do.
>
Hi Rafael,
Well, I'd say that the rules for writing structural (X)HTML are the
same as those for writing formal documents of any kind. I imagine
any text that teaches such writing skills would do.

I don't think this is a matter of HTML skills, but one of how a
document is put together. I don't know, but I imagine this would
be much the same in any language, at least as far as writing for
the global marketplace is concerned.

The use of headings, lists, paragraphs, quotations, and so on
are a matter of writing style, rather than code. For me, having
an unstyled HTML page "make sense" as a document I would write
using any word processor for submission to any group of peers
is where I usually start. The "decoration" (CSS) comes later, I think.

Cordially,
David
--



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Auto scaling within a table's background image

[David Dorward]

On 1 Aug 2007, at 09:34, lisa herrod wrote:

On 01/08/07, Stuart Foulstone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Web Standards say only use tables for tabular data - not  
presentation.


Stuart, I think you're referring to WGAG 1.


Lets look at HTML 4.01 instead, which is somewhat clearer on the  
subject:


Tables should not be used purely as a means to layout document  
content as this may present problems when rendering to non-visual  
media. Additionally, when used with graphics, these tables may force  
users to scroll horizontally to view a table designed on a system  
with a larger display. To minimize these problems, authors should use  
style sheets to control layout rather than tables.


 -- http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/tables.html


I'm not at all advocating the use of tables for layout, but where it
is absolutely necessary:


I don't think I've ever encountered a situation where it was  
"absolutely necessary" to use tables for layout. It might be the only  
way to achieve a given presentation, but is that presentation really  
"absolutely necessary"?


--
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk/
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/




***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Auto scaling within a table's background image

[David Dorward]

On 2 Aug 2007, at 16:10, Kepler Gelotte wrote:

One thing to remember is that absolute
positioning is from the next higher block element.


No. Positioned element, not block element.

Doctype?

Re: [WSG] setting fontsize in body

[David Dorward]

On 7 Aug 2007, at 11:37, Rick Lecoat wrote:

However, I always get a nagging doubt whenever this issue is raised.
Because whilst the argument for leaving default text sizing at 100% of
the browser's default size, and for not making assumptions about the
user's settings, is a good one, it does /itself/ make the assumption
that the default has been chosen /proactively/ by the user.


No, it assumes that the user has either chosen the size they like or  
isn't sufficiently dissatisfied with the vendor supplied (after much  
usability testing) default to find out how it can be changed.



And I always wonder how many people, particularly the older generation
who (without wanting to generalise too much) may not be quite as tech-
savvy as their kids, actually have no idea that the default text size
can even be adjusted, and possibly look at browser-default text and
think "That text looks a bit big and clunking. But I assume that  
there's

nothing I can do about except use the text resizing control in IE."


This would be the older generation who tend towards having poor  
eyesight and needing larger font sizes?


I've never seen a designer make body text bigger then the vendor  
default, only smaller and harder to read.



--
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk/
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/




***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] setting fontsize in body

[David Hucklesby]

On Tue, 7 Aug 2007 12:01:04 +0100, David Dorward wrote:

> This would be the older generation who tend towards having poor eyesight and 
> needing
> larger font sizes?
>

Sorry, David,

Your comment makes me smile.

Being retired, I assist at a computer training lab where students of
all adult ages learn computer skills - web design; MS Office; 
Photoshop etc.

I use a 15" notebook with 1400 x 1050 resolution at home. The lab has
just installed 19" LCD monitors, native resolution 1280 x 1024. To me,
text on the lab computers looks huge by comparison.

Invariably, when I turn on my workstation, I find the monitor resolution
reset to a lower resolution by someone from the morning class. I also
observe that a significant number of students also reset their monitors
- some of them to 800 x 600. (!)

This phenomenon seems unrelated to age.

(FWIW - I am 71 1/2. And, yes, I need glasses.)

Cordially,
David
--



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Internet Explorer and XHTML support (was: (X)HTML Best Practice Sheet goes live - correct link)

[David Dorward]

On 10 Aug 2007, at 09:48, Dean Edridge wrote:
David. "New features added". Really? I don't think I'm asking too  
much to be able to use features that have been W3C recommendations  
for 8 years.


It would be nice, but I don't think that it should be a priority just  
because its been a recommendation for a long time.


Nor was I suggesting that bug fixing be overlooked as these "new  
features" be added.


Given limited resources, only so much can be done. I think a complete  
and less buggy implementation of HTML 4.x, CSS 2.x would be more  
useful then XHTML support.


It's not for you or anyone else to decide that XHTML has little  
benefits and then push for the deprecation of it.


I'm not. I just don't think the benefits of it as a target language  
for authoring web pages are significant when compared to other  
technologies that support could be improved for, and I'd rather see  
those worked on first.


Pretending that Internet Explorer has not held back the progress of  
the web is not in the best interest of Web Standards in general.


I'm not doing that, though, but IE 6 was pretty good (compared to the  
competition at the time) when it came out. It fell behind because  
development work ceased on it for over half a decade. Complaining  
about that now that work has resumed on it isn't particularly  
productive.



It's 2007, surely people should be able to use XHTML and SVG by now.


HTML 4.01 and CSS 2 are older standards then either of those. Surely  
people should be able to use all their features by now?


And aren't there several third party plugins that add support for SVG  
to IE anyway?


--
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk/
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/




***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] (X)HTML Best Practice Sheet goes live - correct link

[David Dorward]

On 10 Aug 2007, at 09:34, Tee G. Peng wrote:
I think bottom posting (is this how it's called?) is equally bad  
when one needs to scroll all the way down to read a few line of  
message.


The solution to this problem is not top posting (digest users still  
have to scroll past the entire repeated messages), it is limiting  
quotes to only relevant material.



--
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk/
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/




***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] (X)HTML Best Practice Sheet goes live - correct link

[David Dorward]

On 10 Aug 2007, at 08:53, Dean Edridge wrote:

But it's not supposed to work in ie5, 6 or 7. It's a XHTML document.


But why? I can't see anything that could not be expressed in HTML in  
that document.



Internet Explorer is rubbish


Its improving.


does not support Web Standards


Nor does anything else, at least not completely. IE might be lagging  
behind, but its catching up.



and has zero support for XHTML.


I'd far rather see bugs fixed then new features added. Client side  
XHTML support would bring benefits to far fewer authors then fixing  
all the interesting CSS bugs would.


--
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk/
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/




***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Cross platform line-height?

[David Hucklesby]

On Fri, 17 Aug 2007 14:07:26 +0100, Paul Collins wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Just wondering if anyone here has ever found a way of achieving a consistent 
> line-
> height for Windows and OS X? Been searching for a while and can't seem to 
> find the
> answer...
>
> Can it be done?
>
My guess would be: No.

Even on a single platform, there are so many variables that affect
font sizes that no equivalence between font size and pixels can be
assumed - even if you specify font size in pixels!

I'm thinking: user settings (minimum font size; ignore specified font
sizes; zoom; or text size change); OS settings (DPI); and differences
between fonts themselves. (Not sure about this one.)

Then there are rounding differences, especially if a computer has not
got every singe font-size available in the font they wind up using.

But I did say I'm guessing.

Cordially,
David
--



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] IE, alpha transparency and sliding doors...

[David Hucklesby]

> On 21/8/07 (04:02) Joseph said:
>
>> Safari will sometimes show a different hue of your color than other browsers 
>> will
>> when .png images set as backgrounds.
>>
On Wed, 22 Aug 2007 1, Rick Lecoat replied:
> /Slightly/ off-thread, but...
> >
> I believe that this is a product of PNGs containing a built-in gamma profile; 
> many
> browsers ignore it (as they ignore other colour profile info) but Safari (and 
> maybe
> some others?) adjust the colour render accordingly, meaning that the image is 
> displayed
> with a slightly different gamma to 'non-gamma' elements (eg. GIFs and 
> background
> colours set in HTML/CSS).
>
> A solution to this is reported to be GammaSlamma <http://tinyurl.com/ yuchvh> 
> which
> strips out the gamma information. I say 'reportedly' because although I've 
> downloaded
> it and plan to give it a whirl, I have not, as yet, had opportunity to try it 
> out.
>
> But just thought in case it helps anybody.

In the same spirit, I can tell you that PNGOUTWin also removes this
gamma information. Out of the box, it also safely removes all the gunk
with which Adobe products infest PNG files.

Cordially,
David
--



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] IE, alpha transparency and sliding doors...

[David Hucklesby]

> On 21/8/07 (04:02) Joseph said:
>
>> Safari will sometimes show a different hue of your color than other browsers 
>> will
>> when .png images set as backgrounds.
>>
On Wed, 22 Aug 2007 1, Rick Lecoat replied:
> /Slightly/ off-thread, but...
> >
> I believe that this is a product of PNGs containing a built-in gamma profile; 
> many
> browsers ignore it (as they ignore other colour profile info) but Safari (and 
> maybe
> some others?) adjust the colour render accordingly, meaning that the image is 
> displayed
> with a slightly different gamma to 'non-gamma' elements (eg. GIFs and 
> background
> colours set in HTML/CSS).
>
> A solution to this is reported to be GammaSlamma <http://tinyurl.com/ yuchvh> 
> which
> strips out the gamma information. I say 'reportedly' because although I've 
> downloaded
> it and plan to give it a whirl, I have not, as yet, had opportunity to try it 
> out.
>
> But just thought in case it helps anybody.

In the same spirit, I can tell you that PNGOUTWin also removes this
gamma information. Out of the box, it also safely removes all the gunk
with which Adobe products infest PNG files.

Cordially,
David
--



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] When is invalid CSS okay?

[David Hucklesby]

On Wed, 22 Aug 2007 11:27:11 +0100, Rick Lecoat wrote:
[...]
>
> So, is it considered 'okay', in a web standards sense, to have a non- valid 
> "bug-fixes"
> stylesheet working alongside your perfect, pristine, uiber-valid main 
> stylesheet?
>
Personally, after working with separate style sheets for IE, I found
them difficult to maintain. I am now experimenting with a single style
sheet for everything (including print styles). So far I like it.

My view on validation is that it is as essential as a spell checker.
Like a spell check, I think you need to use common sense with it.
After all, if I write about the Sheraton Centre in Manhattan, my
U.S. spell checker tells me I misspelled "Centre". So do I change
the spelling? I think not.

Cordially,
David
--



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] IE & help

[David Pietersen]

Works fine for me...

IE 7.0.6000.16512 on Vista Ultimate




On 8/23/07, Bob Schwartz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Some users have complained that when they go to this page
>
> http://www.fifeweb.org/wp/lib/lib_current.html
>
> and try to download the linked files with IE 7 they get a message
> stating something like "Explorer is unable to download the requested
> file"
>
> My Windows (server 2000) testing computer has IE 6 on it and all
> works fine.
>
> The links to the files are absolute, so my guess is these users
> either have some funny settings in thier IE 7, anti-virus programs,
> or some Norton firewall-like application.
>
> However if someone could have a look in IE 7 I would appreciate it.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Bob
>
>
>
> ***
> List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
> Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
> Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> ***
>
>


***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Investigating the proposed alt attribute recommendations in HTML 5

[David Dorward]

On 30 Aug 2007, at 17:51, Designer wrote:
If a user is unfortunate enough to have eyesight which dictates  
that he/she has to use a screenreader, it is unlikey that he/she  
will get much out of flickr anyway. Even with alt tags, reading  
that he/she is 'looking' at a picture of 'my cat' or 'my birthday  
party' would be singularly dull, I'd have thought!


On the other hand, if I'm looking at Flickr with images turned off  
because (a) my service provider charges me per megabyte of data that  
I use and (b) my connection is very very slow, then its quite useful  
to be able to tell if a picture is of "my car" or "my birthday party"  
before telling my browser to load the thumbnail.


Lots of people seem to be hung up on the idea that alt text is for  
blind people, but there are quite a few other use cases for the  
attribute.


--
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk/
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/




***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Font sizing: top down or bottom up

[David Laakso]

There is typography and there is the science of typography: they are not 
necessarily the same. Sooner rather than later one of you is going to 
actually have to break down and commit to something on the screen. 
Preferably something of your own making that proves a point (or at least 
attempts to make a point). Go ahead. Put a page or some pages on the 
Web.  Prove your form of whatever form of control you happen to believe 
everyone else should adhere to on the screen. You can thrash all this 
stuff out in writing from now until forever: that is a useful and 
meaningful exercise, but only if accompanied by an example you've made 
that the majority agree proves your point.


Best,
~dL

--
http://chelseacreekstudio.com/



***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Investigating the proposed alt attribute recommendations in HTML 5

[David Dorward]

On 9 Sep 2007, at 16:33, Michael Yeaney wrote:
I find it interesting that everyone responding to this thread has  
failed to
mention one very important aspect of any design-for-accessibility  
debate:
Until you actually test it with a target audience/persona (i.e.,  
someone who

actually **is** blind),


People seem to be rather hung up on the idea that alt text is for  
blind people. Some sighted people do use text browsers. Some sighted  
people do disable images in their browsers (I'm one of them and my  
last cellphone bill still had £20 of data charges on it). Then there  
are search engine indexing bots, and probably a host of other use cases.



--
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk/
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/




***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Speaking of alt tags . . .

[David Dorward]

On 11 Sep 2007, at 10:00, Mohamed Jama wrote:

First of all isn't ALT an attribute not a TAG?


Yes, it is.

(but see Part 5 of "NOT the comp.text.sgml FAQ" http:// 
www.flightlab.com/~joe/sgml/faq-not.txt :)



1.  When should one use an empty tag?


I don't think you should empty attribute to start with, its all noted
down in your DTD if you open it up for example the strict.dtd and  
search

through you'll find this paragraph

Re: [WSG] Accessible Open Source CMS

[David Little]

Hi,

>> No takers? I'll answer the question: Plone.

I'll second that. We've been using Zope for some time in my current
workplace and are now moving to Plone.

Plone comes "out of the box" with good standards support, although you'll
naturally want to customise the look and feel -- you can give a site its own
skin without too much trouble. Plone's templating language uses custom
name-spaced attributes (tal: and metal:) embedded within html tags. Python
is very powerful, and due to its syntax can be relatively easy to pick up.

Plone's very extensible -- you can either write your own add-ons
("Products") or install any of the freely available ones from the
plone.orgwebsite. There's a very active community behind Plone, so
there are always
new products being released.

However, I would stress that there is a steep learning curve with Plone when
you first come to it, especially if you've been used to using PHP/MySQL etc.
solutions but it's worth sticking with. The plone.org site has got a lot of
useful tutorials, so you should check that out.

>From an end user's point of view, Plone is very easy to use. The inbuilt
text editor (Kupu) is also XHTML compliant, so your users are going to be
creating good, clean, standards-compliant code.

So, I'd definitely recommend Plone, but would stress you do need to spend
some time getting up to speed with it.

Thanks,
David

On 12/09/2007, Barney Carroll <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Web Dandy Design wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Can anyone advise on the most accessible, open-source CMS between
> Joomla,
> > Drupal or Plone?
>
> No takers? I'll answer the question: Plone.
>
> You'll need Python (pretty rare on servers as a whole) as opposed to the
> far more widespread PHP to run the shebang, but I find it to be far more
> customisable with far more power. Plus, Python Tal and Metal are
> extremely easy to understand and manipulate in the templates (should you
> ever need to).
>
> Drupal and Joomla seem to be far easier to install and get running, but
> after that you're stuck in absolute hell if you want anything other than
> an elaborate blog (granted, that is all people seem to want these days):
> Crucially, there are no link libraries.
>
> Plone (indeed, the Zope beneath it) simulates folders perfectly so you
> basically have a file system logic – and keeps a catalogue of all files,
> pages and sub-elements that can easily be mashed, concatenated or
> referenced from anywhere else.
>
> Plus the number of incredibly advanced products (including such
> wonderful things as TextIndexNG, which can index MS office files and
> make them searchable)... It's hands down to me.
>
> I'd recommend setting up a virginal Plone and installing the
> DIYPloneStyle product to get on your way.
>
>
> Regards,
> Barney
>
>
> ***
> List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
> Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
> Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> ***
>
>


-- 
David Little

-e: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-w: www.littled.net


***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Accessible - Standard Compliant - Club Membership System

[David Dorward]

On 13 Sep 2007, at 23:09, S.R. Emerson wrote:


Is there a particular reason you have specified XHTML?


So it is upgradeable for the future.


Well ... HTML 5 is being developed so XHTML is likely not the future,  
converting from HTML 4.01 to XHTML 1.0 isn't difficult anyway, and  
Appendix C is something of a pain. I wouldn't look so far to a  
possible (and increasingly unlikely) future at the expense of the  
present.


--
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk/
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/




***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Accessible - Standard Compliant - Club Membership System

[David Dorward]

On 14 Sep 2007, at 10:37, David Little wrote:


Well ... HTML 5 is being developed so XHTML is likely not the future,

I was under the impression that you'll also be able to write HTML 5  
in XHTML syntax (as XHTML 5, obviously different from XHTML 2 which  
is a different concept?).


They are still planning this, but the point is that HTML is not dead,  
(real) XHTML is still badly supported among user agents, and support  
for other namespaces mixed with XHTML (which is the only major  
benefit for it on the client side) is even worse.


--
David Dorward
http://dorward.me.uk/
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/




***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***

Re: [WSG] Accessible - Standard Compliant - Club Membership System

[David Little]

Well ... HTML 5 is being developed so XHTML is likely not the future,

I was under the impression that you'll also be able to write HTML 5 in XHTML
syntax (as XHTML 5, obviously different from XHTML 2 which is a different
concept?). This might not be the case of course -- could anyone shed any
light on this, or is this still an unknown?

Cheers,
David

On 14/09/2007, David Dorward <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> On 13 Sep 2007, at 23:09, S.R. Emerson wrote:
>
> >> Is there a particular reason you have specified XHTML?
> >
> > So it is upgradeable for the future.
>
> Well ... HTML 5 is being developed so XHTML is likely not the future,
> converting from HTML 4.01 to XHTML 1.0 isn't difficult anyway, and
> Appendix C is something of a pain. I wouldn't look so far to a
> possible (and increasingly unlikely) future at the expense of the
> present.
>
> --
> David Dorward
> http://dorward.me.uk/
> http://blog.dorward.me.uk/
>
>
>
>
> ***
> List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
> Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
> Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> ***
>
>


-- 
David Little

-e: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-w: www.littled.net


***
List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm
Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
***