Re: [WSG] Accessible Image Map Editors

[Martin Heiden]

Marvin,

I doubt that there is any accessible image map editor out there in the
wild. This editor must be able to interpret the image. For this exercise
you'll definitely need help by someone who is able to draw the areas.
When this part is done, you can put the alt-attributes at the img and
area tags to make the map accessible to the rest of the world.

Good luck!

Martin

Marvin Hunkin schrieb:
> hi.
> is image map accessible with jaws?
> i need to create a image map for a web page i am developing for one of my 
> online programming classes with http://www.johnsmiley.com
> any recommendations would be appreciated.
> cheers Marvin. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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Re[2]: [WSG] elasticity and floats

[Martin Heiden]

Hi Bob!

  May I add another wrapper div? Try the following. Probably you want
  to tweak some withs and margins.

Regards,

  Martin.

http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd";>
http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml";>


Test

#outer {
border: 1px solid red;
width: 50%;
}
#inner {
margin-left: 250px;
margin-right: 100px;
}
#adleft1 {
float: left; 
width: 100px;
height: 100px;
margin-left: -250px;
background: #c00;
}
#adleft2 {
float: left;
width: 100px;
height: 100px;
margin-left: -100px;
background: #0c0;
}
#adcenter {
height: 100px;
background: #00c;
margin: 0 -1px;
}
#adright {
float: right;
width: 100px;
height: 100px;
margin-right: -100px;
background: #c00;
}
















Wednesday, October 7, 2009, 7:28:33 PM, you wrote:

d> HI Lesley,

d> re: http://www.rspcacornwall.org.uk/testbed/floatdivs_cjapplied.html

d> I wonder why IE is the only one that gets it right?  Fascinating.

d> Bob
d> - Original Message - 
d> From: "Lesley Lutomski" 
d> To: 
d> Sent: Wednesday, October 07, 2009 12:22 PM
d> Subject: Re: [WSG] elasticity and floats


>> 
>> Hi Bob,
>> 
>> I think it must be something odd about IE7.  I've just tried your link 
>> in FF3 and Galeon on Linux, and FF3, IE8, Safari 4 and Opera 10 on 
>> Windows.  In every case the border appears around the entire masthead, 
>> not just the third div.
>> 
>> Lesley
>> 





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Ciao,
 Martin



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Re[2]: [WSG] E649 The default scripting language must be specified for an intrinsic event:

[Martin Heiden]

Tee,

Wednesday, December 31, 2008, 8:52:02 AM, you wrote:

t> OK, finally got it working this time. All I needed is adding this :
t> 

Do you really use TCL in your page? I guess you want to change it to



Happy New Year!

Martin



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Re: [WSG] Advice on design

[Martin Heiden]

Elaine,

on Friday, July 25, 2008 at 11:42 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

> I'm looking for some advice on the best way to put together the navigation
> for the following design:
> http://www.webdandy.co.uk/navigation-slice.jpg, so
> that it's standards compliant and accessible (and if at all possible avoids
> using images for the text under the nav buttons).

I'd use an unordered list with background images for the graphics and
normal text. For this, you must slice the navigation. The decorative
part of the image may remain one single slice.

Problem: Text-Sizing.

If the user increases the text size, the layout will break.
It may be possible to avoid this by absolute positioning with em
sizing:


Home
[...]


ul#navigation li {
  float:left;
}

ul#navigation li a {
  display: block;
  height: 100%;
  width: 100%;
}

li#home {
  position: relative;
  width: n px;
  height: m px;
}

li#home a span {
  position: absolute;
  top: y em;
  left: n/2 px;
  width: z em;
  margin-left: -z/2 em;
}

I didn't test this, but it may be a starting point.

regards

  Martin

 





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Re: [WSG] How to make diagonal lines change color?

[Martin Heiden]

Kane,

on Friday, April 11, 2008 at 03:03 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

> If I HAD to do something like this, I would create a Gif image that had a
> transparency where you wanted the colour change.

Yes, but you should use a PNG with alpha-transparency. The lines are
diagonal, so you need some anti-aliasing effects to make it smooth.
GIF-transparency doesn't allow that.

With a PNG you get a problem in IE6 though, 'cause you can't simply
scale it (the diagonal line would be thicker than intended an of cause
you just get one...). And tiling isn't supported by the filter.

regards,

  Martin.



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Re: [WSG] a a:hover

[Martin Heiden]

Olá!

on Thursday, March 20, 2008 at 15:38 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

> and the html where the word "launch" should have another a a:hover

> 
> 
> Bittencourt Lopes
> Role.Website design
> Agency. href="http://www.220i.com.br";
target="_blank">>220i
> http://www.bittencourtlopes.com.br/";
> target="_blank" title="Launch">Launch
> 
> 

> How do I apply a different a ahover to this link?

If this hover should apply to all links under div.menu try:

div.menu a:hover {}

or give the link a class and define:

a.newclass:hover {}

regards

  Martin

 





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Re: [WSG] background images in HTML emails..

[Martin Heiden]

Naveen,

on Thursday, March 20, 2008 at 06:53 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

> anybody can tell me.. how to use background images  in html emails.
> I have a div with background image and text above that... the background
> image is not displaying :-(

I didn't find anything about background images, but do you know that
page: http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=StyleInEmail

I hope it helps!

regards

  Martin

 





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Re[2]: [WSG] Proxy HTTPS to HTTP

[Martin Heiden]

Kevin,

  well, I think it ist completely off topic, but anyway:

  You mean that http://my.server.com/folder/file.html shows the same
  HTML document as https://my.server.com/folder/file.html ?

  Make sure you use only relative links in the .html so that the
  secure connection is used for all linked files/pictures/css...

  Configure your server to use the same document root for the https
  and http virtual hosts.

  http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/ssl/ssl_faq.html#parallel
  http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/vhosts/

  If you have more questions, feel free to contact me off list!

regards,

  Martin

Tuesday, March 11, 2008, 6:11:57 PM, you wrote:

kcn> What I meant is that an HTTP URL I have come up with is going to
kcn> go to the HTTPS pages seamlessly within the browser. I am not
kcn> misleading the users by any means.

kcn> I am not 100% sure this is on topic as well but I believe it should be.

kcn> Thank you for your thoughts.

kcn> kevin





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Re: [WSG] Experience with Adobe Contribute

[Martin Heiden]

Elizabeth,

Saturday, March 1, 2008, 11:08:47 PM, you wrote:

ES> I understand that Contribute would allow them to make changes to content
ES> without messing with the coding/navigation.  Does anyone have experience
ES> with this product?  Is it possible/easy to set up to maintain
ES> standards-compliance?

I once did some testing with Contribute 1.0 and didn't experience any
problems with standard conformance. Contribute is a cut down
Dreamweaver which only allows to change content in
Dreamweaver-Templates. Adobe lately put a lot of work into
Dreamweaver to make at easy to develop standards-based sites, so I
guess that you won't have any problems if you change the templates.

regards

  Martin.



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Re[2]: [WSG] multiple css style sheets

[Martin Heiden]

dwain,









from: http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/dtds.html#a_dtd_XHTML-1.0-Strict


  

  
  
  
  
  

  


from: http://www.w3.org/2002/08/xhtml/xhtml1-strict.xsd

and last but not least:

"14.3.1 Preferred and alternate style sheets

HTML allows authors to associate any number of external style sheets
with a document. The style sheet language defines how multiple
external style sheets interact (for example, the CSS "cascade"
rules)."
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/present/styles.html#style-external

Convinced?

best regards,

Martin


Saturday, March 1, 2008, 1:47:16 PM, you wrote:

d> On 3/1/08, Melissa Forrest <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>> aaah no, there is nothing invalid about more than one stylesheet
>>  tag in the markup


d> do you have a link for your side?
d> dwain









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Re: [WSG] Where did I come from?

[Martin Heiden]

Simon,

on Friday, January 18, 2008 at 15:24 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

> I am on a webpage...how do I know what page the browser was previously
> showing.

> I think Javascript History object is the ticket...but STRICT mode in Firefox
> seems to tell me that I don't have permission to access it.

> NOTE: I don't want to use the History object to go back or forward...I just
> want to know what the previous page was...so I can create a button to go
> back to it...

You can't!

There are some properties that hold the value you are looking for, but
these aren't reliable:

1. javascript:history.back() - only works if JS is turned on.
2. HTTP-Header Referrer - may be supressed by proxies/firewalls or the user
   You can access it via (PHP|Java|ASP|...) or by JS document.referrer


regards

  Martin

 





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Re: [WSG] Styling Submit buttons with JavaScript by making them anchors

[Martin Heiden]

James,

  I guess that you have to count down in your for-loop. You modify the
  DOM while iterating over the nodes, so the model changes while you
  are working at it. If you start with the last element, you don't
  mess up the references.

  for(var j=inputs.length-1; j>=0; j--) { ... }

regards

  Martin

 





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Re: [WSG] Idiot's guide to JavaScript

[Martin Heiden]

Rick,

on Tuesday, November 27, 2007 at 13:50 Web Standards Group wrote:

> On 15/11/07 (11:15) Ross said:

>>
>>document.write
>>inline event handlers (like onclick)
>>browser sniffing
>>
> In summary, then, does anyone recommend me hanging onto Visual
> Quickstart Guide: JavaScript and Ajax (6th Ed.) or should I just ditch
> it and buy Jeremy Keith's Dom Scripting book instead?

If you are just starting, you should read a book for beginners that
introduces you to to language and it's structure. Learn about objects,
functions, "datatypes", control structures ...

If you find one of the keywords, that Russ listed before, your
alarm bells should ring. Keep on reading, but start thinking why this
is bad. (You can always return to the list and ask...)

Once you feel familiar with the language, switch to Jeremy's book.
It's very well written, but you should have an idea how JS works. You
will find the answers to your questions in this book.

When you know about JS and DomScripting it's time to jump on the
AJAX-train, but not before you know the basics.

Good luck!

  Martin

 





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Re: [WSG] Re: Microformats was [ Is this a good use of dl ]

[Martin Heiden]

Hi!

Serdar Kilic schrieb:
> 
> The address element is a perfect candidate to be marked up using hCard.
> 
> 
>   
> Name: Serdar Kiliç
> Location: Sydney
> Web: http://weblog.kilic.net"; class="url"
> rel="me">http://weblog.kilic.net   
>   
> 
> 

No, it isn't!

1. The address element may not contain block elements, so your code
example is invalid HTML.

2. The address element may be used to markup the address of
author/editor of a page.



7.5.6 The ADDRESS element




The ADDRESS element may be used by authors to supply contact information
for a document or a major part of a document such as a form. This
element often appears at the beginning or end of a document.


http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/global.html#h-7.5.6




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Re: [WSG] style sheets - best practices

[Martin Heiden]

Bob,

on Thursday, March 15, 2007 at 15:59 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

> I've been modularizing like this for years:

> >
> >
> >

> Am I doing something wrong?

> Is there an advantage to importing over linking, or a limit to the  
> links (ie. should only one be linked, the rest imported and if so, why?

That depends on your environment. If you use an template based
approach to create your HTML (like Dreamweaver templates or any CMS)
there is no difference but the exclusion of older browsers when using
@import rules. But if you'd have to change every single HTML page when
adding or removing a reference to a CSS file... that would be much
easier to change if you only link one stylesheet which imports the
others.

It's just a question of how you want to organize your site.

I prefer to only link one stylesheet to have it separated from the
HTML. But that is personal preference.

regards

  Martin

 





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Re: [WSG] Styling of

[Martin Heiden]

Soeren,

on Thursday, March 9, 2006 at 18:42 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

> for an  we like to design the button and, if
> possible, the background-color for focus.
> Does anybody know how to do that?

> The link in the fieldset 'Upload a file to the W3C Validator.':
> http://www.webnauts.net/redesign/check.html

You could do it by using some JavaScript and a technique by PPK:

http://www.quirksmode.org/dom/inputfile.html

But do consider if it's worth to do so, or if you better stick with
the default controls for usability reasons.

regards

  Martin

 



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Re: Solution! RE: [WSG] form button css

[Martin Heiden]

Ted,

Tuesday, February 28, 2006, 3:13:42 AM, you wrote:

TD> I'm using button with an image per Thierry's suggestion. I didn't want to
TD> use background image on an input because there are some browser
TD> inconsistencies and I didn't want to use an image in the input due to some
TD> accessibility concerns.

Did you test if the button works? AFAIR IE has serious problems with
the button tag. If there are more than one button on a page, it's
impossible to detect which one had been clicked.

I only use the button tag for buttons that trigger JavaScript. For
everything else I use inputs.

regards,

  Martin

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Re[2]: [WSG] Fluid layout

[Martin Heiden]

Georg,

Saturday, February 25, 2006, 9:47:58 AM, you wrote:

GS> Adam Morris wrote:
>> Ok. I added a  "min-width" to the #content which seems to stop the 
>> page breaking up under 1000px. I also used the javascript fix for IE 
>> but... now then it seemed that IE dropped apart at widths OVER 
>> 1200px! So.. I added 'position:relative' to the #content - seems to 
>> always fix most IE probs! - but no joy. THEN tried 
>> 'position:ABSOLUTE'... bingo! Why on earth does this work??

GS> Probably because 'position: absolute' adds 'Layout' to that
GS> container[1]. It's an IE-bug that is often used to "fix" things in that
GS> browser, although that bug most often creates more problems than it solves.

Are you sure? He wrote that he tried position: relative as well and
that it didn't work for him. This should have added Layout as well. I
didn't take a closer look to the site, but I bet that (as you
mentioned) position: absolute took the container out of the flow and
solved the problem. And of course created some new ones...

Adam: Have you tried to adjust the width of the container? Probably
the problem is a rounding bug or a bug in the min-width javascript?

regards,

  Martin

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Re: [WSG] Flash as background (Was: CSS and Flash)

[Martin Heiden]

Nic,

Saturday, February 25, 2006, 4:36:34 AM, you wrote:

ns> On 2/24/06, kvnmcwebn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>> your prob right but what about that flash as a css background someone was
>> posting about here a while back??

ns> does anyone know about the possibility of using a flash
ns> object as a background (if it is even possible/worthwhile)?  thanks!

Like I mentioned in the other thread, I don't think that this is
possible with means of CSS.

But you can achieve a similar effect with absolute positioning. The
only thing you have to do is adding a parameter to the object:

 

This will make it possible to place other content above the flash in
most modern browsers.

regards,

  Martin

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Re[2]: [WSG] CSS and Flash

[Martin Heiden]

Sean,

Friday, February 24, 2006, 8:08:57 PM, you wrote:

SJ> scroll down to the section on embed multimedia, it has info on how to embed
SJ> flash using CSS.

I really doubt that it is possible to embed flash by CSS. All these
methods use the (X)HTML object tag. And this is mandatory to embed
flash or other multimedia content into HTML pages. (Ok, you could also
use the non standard embed tag for Netscape and Co., but there is
really no need to do so.)

Coming back to Mark's question, my answer is no, you can't use CSS for
your needs. The best thing you can do is using the UFO method that Jesse
already proposed, if you want to manage all your pages from one single
maintenance point. (There are other options like CMS, , or simple Dreamweaver
templates to do so.)

If you don't want to use JavaScript for that, you can use conditional
comments for showing/hiding the right/wrong object attributes to the
specific browsers:


  

 
 
 
 
 
  

This will validate, but it uses IE proprietary conditional comments.
IMHO it is a valid and safe method, but there are other opinions about
that.

I hope, I could help you.

Martin.

PS: If anyone want to try to convince me, that it is possible to embed
flash by using CSS, I'm very interested in that solution. But I can't
imagine that.

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Re: [WSG] Min-Width, IE, Fluid Content and Hair Loss

[Martin Heiden]

Joseph,

Friday, February 24, 2006, 5:06:39 PM, you wrote:

JRBT> I have a min-width applied to my wrapper div of 842px, and a width set
JRBT> to 95%.  That way it doesn't squish up (in small resolutions) too much
JRBT> and force floats downward.

You can try the javascript-solution that Al Sparber promotes on his
page:

http://www.projectseven.com/tutorials/css/minwidth/

Download the Dreamweaver Extension or extract the JS from the
Demo-Page.

You could also fix it by feeding IE a expression in a speacial
stylesheet hidden from the good browsers by a conditional comment.

regards

  Martin

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Re: [WSG] Font Sizes - Best practice

[Martin Heiden]

Tom,

on Wednesday, February 22, 2006 at 16:23 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

> On 2/20/06 5:14 AM, "Martin Heiden" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>> I read a lot of threads about font-sizing lately, but I still did
>>   not catch the point of best practice yet.

> Not to beat an already beaten, kicked, poked, piddled-on very dead horse,
> but I didn't see an actual "answer" to this post. Is there a font-size best
> practice? Did a majority here agree on anything?

No, not now. I'm still reading all the links that Felix and others
sent me. But besides my first attempt to put all this in a few lines
of text, nothing happened.

I hope that someone will add to my points:

- Don't reduce the main font-size to less than 80% of the default
  font-size. Try to keep it at 100% for the main text.

- Specify font-size in relative units (em or %) to give the user
  control over the font-size.

- Let the layout grow/shrink with the font-size or ensure that there
  is enough space to enlarge the font-size to 150%.

regards

  Martin

 



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Re: [WSG] Font Sizes - Best practice

[Martin Heiden]

David,

on Monday, February 20, 2006 at 21:47 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

> On the subject of trying to please everyone

I know that it is impossible to please everyone, but I'd like to find
a method which makes the world better for at least one person without
doing any harm to others ;-) (Have you read "A theory of justice" by
John Rawls ;-))

regards

  Martin

 



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Re: [WSG] Font Sizes - Best practice

[Martin Heiden]

Hi,

on Monday, February 20, 2006 at 12:57 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

> A far more fundamental group of people (which I already mentioned
> in my first email on this discussion) is of course that of
> the clients who pay for web design/development.

That's one point.

The other problem that I face frequently is, that I try to build
websites that look good at at least 800x600px and flow to more or less
1000px width at default font-size. I set the max-width for maintaining
the readability of the main content.

At the small resolution, I'll get problems to fit the content to the
layout if I don't reduce the font-size (at least in navigation or
extra columns).

But ok, let me make a first start for best practices regarding
font-sizes:

- Don't reduce the main font-size to less than 80% of the default
  font-size. Try to keep it at 100%.

- Let the layout grow/shrink with the font-size or ensure that there
  is enough space to enlarge the font-size to 150%.

Any corrections/additions?

regards

  Martin

 



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[WSG] Font Sizes - Best practice

[Martin Heiden]

Hi!

  I read a lot of threads about font-sizing lately, but I still did
  not catch the point of best practice yet.

  I use to set the body font-size to 62.5% for getting 1em = 10px at
  default settings. (It's much easier for me and the browser to
  calculate round values...) Then I increase the font-size on the
  elements that contain text. (But usually just by the factor 1.2...
  yes, I'm feeling guilty...)

  So if a user sets another preferred font-size, my hole layout will
  adjust to that value, but of course the text won't be at the size,
  the user chose, but a bit smaller. He would be able to set a minimum
  font-size and the hole layout will adjust to his preference.

  On the other hand, I don't know anyone who changed the default
  font-size in his/her browser, but lot's of people (mostly designers)
  who prefer smaller font-sizes.

  Well, the question is: Which group of people is more important? Or
  better: Is there a way to please both groups?

regards

  Martin
 
@Felix: I sent you the mail in CC because I'm very interested in your
thoughts about this topic. TIA for your contributions to the thread.

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Re: [WSG] list's with header text

[Martin Heiden]

Paul,

on Tuesday, January 31, 2006 at 11:39 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

What's wrong with this?

The following are the days of the week

  Monday
  Tuesday
  Wednesday


regards

  Martin

 



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Re: [WSG] Site Review

[Martin Heiden]

Stephen,

on Monday, January 30, 2006 at 17:01 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

> Should an agent's address really be a definition list??

I only wrote that I would do it that way.

> If you want that sort of semantic pedantry, the markup should be:
> 
> Acme Estate Agents
> 
> Address
> 
> The...House
> Lodge Roa...4DD
> Telephone
> 0208 457 4777...
> 
> 

> I DO think that definition lists are over used and often misused.

I do think that your advice is a misusage of the dl. What you define
is a table. You substitute th by dt and td by dd. I don't think that
definition lists are meant like that. For addressing the machine
readability I'd choose hcard microformat.

But I think that discussing this won't bring us any further... There
were lots of threads on this list discussing how to markup an address
and I don't think that there is the ONE way to do it right. Everyone
has to choose his/her way...

regards

  Martin

 



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Re: [WSG] Site Review

[Martin Heiden]

Darren,

on Monday, January 30, 2006 at 12:26 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

> http://ta.rt-ms.net/2/properties.html
> http://ta.rt-ms.net/2/propertydetails.html

You've got some problems in your HTML:

1. with/height attributes of img tags don't accept units.
2. the inputs need name attributes (but I guess you will add these
   later)

You should provide some alt-Text for the images of the properties.
A page title would be nice ;-)

Maybe you should wrap the ie7 script in a conditional comment for
only IE using it.

The use of strong in:
Image 1 of 10

isn't very semantic IMHO, but substituting it by span doesn't add much
value too.

For the address I'd use a definition list:


  Acme Estate Agents
  The White House
  Lodge Road
  NW4 4DD
  Tel: 0208 457 4777
  Fax: 0208 457 4765
  Email Agent

  
instead of:


  Acme Estate Agents
  The White House
Lodge Road
London
NW4 4DD
  Tel: 0208 457 4777
  Fax: 0208 457 4765
  Email Agent


You could also add some classes for defining the microformat.

regards

  Martin

 



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Re: [WSG] ASP, PHP and Ruby - oh my!

[Martin Heiden]

Joseph,

on Thursday, January 26, 2006 at 15:49 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

> I usually still use classic ASP for my server-side stuff, but have begun
> playing with PHP as well, since ASP is obviously over whether its a good
> tool or not.

> Now Ruby is pounding on my door, claiming to be the next best thing.

> Are many of you already using Ruby?  Thus far, I've only seen that it 
> increases the add/update/delete coding speed.

This question is definitely off topic. Webstandards are:

Structural Languages
Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML) 1.0
XHTML 1.1
Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0
Presentation Languages
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Level 1
CSS Level 2
CSS Level 3
Object Models
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 (Core)
DOM Level 2
Scripting Languages
ECMAScript 262 (the standard version of JavaScript)
Additional Presentation Languages (Markup)
Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) 1.01
MathML 2.0
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.0

I would add XSLT to this list.

But to answer your question in short words:

Ruby is worth a look, especially with the ruby on rails framework.

I would choose the language which is best for my project. If it is a
small project which has to be developed in short time. Ruby with ROR
is the first choice.

If the project gets larger and has to be extended by other persons,
I'd probably choose PHP.

If it is a large scale enterprise project, I prefer Java with Cocoon
and/or Spring.

regards

  Martin

 



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Re: [WSG] addEventListener

[Martin Heiden]

Miika,

Today is my quirksmode day ;-)

http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2005/10/_and_the_winner_1.html
http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/coding_techniques/memory_leaks/index.html

I tend to use .onclick for attaching events to links, because it has
fewer cross browser issues than the modern event listeners.

But I prefer to use event listeners for events like window.onload.

regards

  Martin

 



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Re: [WSG] The Evils of innerHTML

[Martin Heiden]

Joshua,

on Wednesday, January 18, 2006 at 23:56 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

> innerHTML doesn't work with XHTML, etc,. I know... and it's not a DOM
> method... but do people consider it okay to use when it seems
> otherwise impractical to use "standard" methods?

Do you know the discussions at quirksmode about xmlhttp? There are
some considerations about innerHTML and DOM in the comments wich loads
of arguments pro and contra.

http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/coding_techniques/xmlhttp/index.html

I personally prefer the standards way.

regards

  Martin

 



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Re: [WSG] All in the Head DTD feedback

[Martin Heiden]

Karl,

on Tuesday, January 10, 2006 at 10:34 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

> "A Document Type Definition defines a set of declarations that conform
> to a particular markup syntax."

That's much better!

regards

  Martin

 



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Re: [WSG] All in the Head: Document Type Definition

[Martin Heiden]

Lynne,

on Tuesday, January 10, 2006 at 04:19 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

> On 1/10/06, Martin Heiden <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Document Type Definitions were AFAIK first used by SGML and later
>> for defining XML and XHTML. Because of the limitations of the DTD
>> Language XML Schema has been developed. XML Schema is kind of
>> heavyweight so that many people use the simpler RELAX NG instead.

> XML is a subset of SGML - right?

MMMmhhh I'm not sure about that one. But I hope this may
clarify it:

"So XML Is Just Like SGML?

No. Well, yes, sort of. XML is defined as an application profile of
SGML. SGML is the Standard Generalized Markup Language defined by ISO
8879. SGML has been the standard, vendor-independent way to maintain
repositories of structured documentation for more than a decade, but
it is not well suited to serving documents over the web (for a number
of technical reasons beyond the scope of this article). Defining XML
as an application profile of SGML means that any fully conformant SGML
system will be able to read XML documents. However, using and
understanding XML documents does not require a system that is capable
of understanding the full generality of SGML. XML is, roughly
speaking, a restricted form of SGML.

For technical purists, it's important to note that there may also be
subtle differences between documents as understood by XML systems and
those same documents as understood by SGML systems. In particular,
treatment of white space immediately adjacent to tags may be
different." [1]

I'm not sure if the term "subset" is specific enough. I'd say that
XML is a SGML application profile. But probably you're right 'cause
even the XML specification states that in the non normative part.[2]


> But DTD's define the elements. attributes and entities of the document
> type, and their order, and just happen to use SGML to do so.  SGML not
> XML - or am I missing something?

AFAIK DTDs are neither specified in XML nor SGML but in a grammar
which has been defined in the SGML and in a more restrictive way in
the XML specification. The grammar defined in the XML specification is
compatible with the SGML one. I didn't find a reference on what
language is used for that grammar, but it goes back to the research of
Noam Chomsky about formal languages and formal grammar.[3]

With this DTD language/grammar you can only specify a XML document to
the point of well-formedness. You can't say if an attributes value is
valid or not. At this stage XML Schema comes in: XML Schema provides
"a means for defining the structure, content and semantics of XML
documents"[4]

I hope this is understandable.

regards

  Martin

[1]http://www.xml.com/pub/a/98/10/guide0.html?page=2#AEN72
[2]http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-xml-20040204/#sec-xml-and-sgml
[3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_grammar
[4]http://www.w3.org/XML/Schema

 



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Re: [WSG] All in the Head: Document Type Definition

[Martin Heiden]

Christian,

on Monday, January 9, 2006 at 16:29 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

> "A Document Type Definition is an XML schema language and defines a
> set of declarations that conform to a particular markup syntax."

> Is this true for HTML DTD's? Are they XML as well?

IMHO it's not wrong, but very confusing. A DTD defines a
sort of schema, but DTDs aren't XML. They do the same, what can be
achieved with XML Schema, but in a different way.

Document Type Definitions were AFAIK first used by SGML and later
for defining XML and XHTML. Because of the limitations of the DTD
Language XML Schema has been developed. XML Schema is kind of
heavyweight so that many people use the simpler RELAX NG instead.

I think that Karl took that explanation from Wikipedia...

regards

  Martin

 



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Re: [WSG] Fieldset inclusions and possible Firefox bugs

[Martin Heiden]

Rowan,

Did you try the easy clearing method?

on Thursday, January 5, 2006 at 10:09 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:


CSS:

dt {
float: left;
clear: left;
width: 9.5em;
font-weight: bold;
text-align: right;
}
dd {
margin-left: 9.5em;
}
dd.last:after {
 visibility: hidden;
 clear: left;
 font-size: 0;
 height: 0;
 display: block;
 content: ".";
}

HTML:

  
Login Details

  Username
  
  Password

  


  
  

  


I did not test this but I'm pretty sure that it'll work.

regards

  Martin

 



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Re: [WSG] Images as DIV Background with and without link (w3c friendly)

[Martin Heiden]

Paul,

on Wednesday, January 4, 2006 at 17:35 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

> You can't use the :hover pseudo class on any element other than an
> anchor in IE unfortunately. I don't have time to look too far, but
> with a brief search I found this link that mentions it:
> http://4umi.com/web/css/hover.htm

Yes, you're right! You have to use a behavior, expression or some
other javascript solution to make :hover work on other elements than a
in ie < 7, but if you take a closer look at the css I sent, you'll see
that you don't need a :hover on the span to change the background. The
:hover is set on the a(!):

>   a#header:hover span {
> background: url(another url) no-repeat (or shift);
>   }

(it could be that you have to change the background of the a tag too,
but if I recall it right, it sometimes solves the :focus, which
doesn't work well at all).

I use this quite often and it works.

regards

  Martin

 



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Re: [WSG] Images as DIV Background with and without link (w3c friendly)

[Martin Heiden]

Paul,

on Wednesday, January 4, 2006 at 15:48 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

> I thought the Gilder/Levin/Shea Enhancement Method was best, but
> you can't have a hover state on a graphic link using this.

> Example HTML would be: 
>  href="revised.html">Revised Image Replacement

Why?

a#header:hover span {
  background: url(another url) no-repeat (or shift);
}

should work.

regards

  Martin

 



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Re: [WSG] Re: ScreenreaderVisibility issue - (was) CSS Rollover Flicker

[Martin Heiden]

tee,

on Tuesday, December 27, 2005 at 18:19 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

> and this is the cure (without causing problem in PC' IEs):

> #siteOption li a span {
>  text-indent: -16000px;
>  font-size: 1px;
> }

> http://gb.lotusseeds.com/macie.html
> http://gb.lotusseeds.com/macie.jpg

> However, Safari, Firefox and Oprea won't honor it no matter what.

This should work in those browsers too. But if not, you can safely use
the commented backslash hack for ie mac. The browser is dead and using
hacks for dead browsers is somehow safe.

maybe you need to set overflow:hidden; ?

Take a look at: http://phark.typepad.com/phark/2003/08/accessible_imag.html

> Working on this site, I notice that there is an isue with class, span
> class specificities that the above three browsers wont' honor and   
> which never happened before with other sites I did.
> For example:

> Despite the lower specificities for class, I would think the world
> three most advanced browsers would honor my simple request without  
> telling them specifically that the '.lastpara' is the child of the  
> 'p' element of  descendant of 'content' div.

These browsers are right. And yes, it is because of the specificity.

#content p is more specific than .lastpara and therefore overrides the
padding value. You already found the cure, so simply use it, it's
correct.

regards

  Martin

 



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Re: [WSG] CSS Rollover Flicker

[Martin Heiden]

tee,

on Tuesday, December 27, 2005 at 13:03 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

> Hi mysterious "E". Interesting approach! It seems to work and a real
> quick fix.
> I have tested on PC/Mac: Safari, FF, Netscape, Mozilla, iE and Opera.
> Can you guys confirm?
> http://gb.lotusseeds.com/menutest_2.html

This one will work if the a covers 100% of the li's area, otherwise
the li's background could shine through. But for this menu it's real
quick and simple fix.

> Honestly I wasn't too crazy to try out sliding doors or preloader  
> scripts method (nonetheless it has to be done so that I can get over  
> with the whole annoying moment  before stepping into a fresh new  
> year  :) ), had wasted some 4 hours trying out one of the Stu  
> Nicholls' method (http://www.webreference.com/programming/ 
> css_flicker/) and it broke quite badly in IE andI didn't feel like  
> fixing yet another IE bug.

It should work in IE >= 5.0. If you define other pseudo-classes, you
have to put them in the correct order in your stylesheet:

:link
:visited
:focus
:hover
:active

Or one will override the others. This might be your problem.

Another thing. You use:

#siteOption li a span {
display: none;
}

This way, the text inside the span is hidden from screen readers. See:
http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=ScreenreaderVisibility

It would be better to position the span off left:
#siteOption li a span {
position: absolute;
left: -1000px;
font-size: 1px;
}

Like that it will be invisible for css-browsers, but visible for
screen readers.

regards

  Martin

 



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Re: [WSG] CSS Rollover Flicker

[Martin Heiden]

tee,

  you need a preloader (javascript) or better use css rollovers:

  http://wellstyled.com/css-nopreload-rollovers.html
  http://www.alistapart.com/articles/slidingdoors2/

  and the flicker will disappear.

regards

  Martin

 



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Re: [WSG] best way to style addresses

[Martin Heiden]

Tee,

on Thursday, December 22, 2005 at 10:03 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

> I am working on a page that involves with hundred of address in
> different locations/cities. What is the best way to do?
> unordered list,  definition list  or  table data?

> I am thinking to make two columns for address. Did a similar page  
> sometimes ago with unordered list with two columns floated, because  
> some address are 4 lines, some are 3, the result wasn't good.

The markup of addresses has been discussed earlier on this list. One
thread was this:

http://www.mail-archive.com/wsg@webstandardsgroup.org/msg21847.html

I think you should base your decision on what the user needs to do
with this list of addresses. If he has to search for a person, I would
probably choose a sorted table.

If it is a list of addresses, which doesn't need to be searched or which
represents a hierarchical order, I'd choose an unordered list with
each address marked up like this:


Name
Street Number
ZIP City
Country


(I don't like the address tag, because it can only be used with inline
elements...)

Probably there will be a better microformat for this, but I don't have
the time to search for one now. Take a look at www.microformats.org

But probably the near future will bring us a pattern for marking up
addresses at John Allsopp's www.webpatterns.org

regards

  Martin

 



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Re: [WSG] Swf - google

[Martin Heiden]

Elton,

on Tuesday, December 20, 2005 at 15:33 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

> I have a swf file in my page.

> Google will not index. I can print the content of swf in a div with
> display:none.

> Is it a good practice ? Does anyone have a better idea ?

Yep! Use standards and some proprietary IE Conditional Comments ;-)





 Alternate Content for google to index.



regards

  Martin

 



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Re: [WSG] Browser Resolutions

[Martin Heiden]

Gunlaug,

on Friday, December 16, 2005 at 11:36 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

> Martin Heiden wrote:
>> IMHO there are too much fixed-width sites out there to make a sidebar
>>  usable with a x-resoultion < 1024px.

> Unless one uses Opera and has it set to 'fit to window width'.
> Lots or variables...

Yes! I always compare the resolution and the browser statistics
page...

And yes, I already filed a feature request for our online controlling
service to include viewport sizes in the reports ;-)

regards

  Martin

 



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Re: [WSG] Browser Resolutions

[Martin Heiden]

Philippe,

on Friday, December 16, 2005 at 09:46 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

> On 16 Dec 2005, at 5:28 pm, Martin Heiden wrote:

>> Our statistic of last week:

> [snipped]

> Those numbers refer to the resolution of the monitor, right ?
> What would this tell me about the size of the browser window ? That  
> is what interests me.

Sorry, didn't catch this one.

> The user may or may not have the browser window open at full width of
> the monitor.
> The user may or may not have on of those sidebars open in the  
> browser. That side bar may or may not be large.

> That makes those numbers pretty meaningless in my eyes.

You're right, but I wouldn't say that this data is meaningless. It
just leaves too much space for misinterpretation ;-)

You can at least get an overview how many visitors use resolutions
which make it possible to use a sidebar without switching it on/off
every time you open a new site. IMHO there are too much fixed-width
sites out there to make a sidebar usable with a x-resoultion < 1024px.

regards

  Martin

 



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Re: [WSG] Browser Resolutions

[Martin Heiden]

Stephen,

Our statistic of last week:

1024x76840753   60.4%
1280x1024   14808   21.9%
800x600 51967.7%
1152x86428784.3%
na  18082.7%
1400 x ?693 1.0%
1600x1200   494 0.7%
1440 x ?307 0.5%
1680 x ?172 0.3%
1920x1440   69  0.1%
2560 x ?68  0.1%
1018 x ?29  0.0%
2048x76828  0.0%
640x480 22  0.0%
960x720 16  0.0%
1344 x ?14  0.0%
1536 x ?13  0.0%
1360 x ?12  0.0%
1200 x ?12  0.0%
1000 x ?10  0.0%
3840 x ?10  0.0%
1120 x ?7   0.0%
3200 x ?7   0.0%
1268 x ?6   0.0%
5120 x ?5   0.0%
2304 x ?5   0.0%
1160 x ?5   0.0%
819 x ? 5   0.0%
720x480 4   0.0%
784 x ? 4   0.0%

It's a insurance site. Vistors aged mostly 25-45.

regards

  Martin

 



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Re: [WSG] CSS Driven?

[Martin Heiden]

Hi,

on Monday, December 12, 2005 at 15:01 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

> Sorry, but I have to disagree.
> Tables as well as divs, spans etc. are containers. They are both html
> elements. I don't think that any standard has suppressed the table
> element from html and in my dictionary, hacking is modifying a program
> in an unauthorized manner. Are tables unauthorized?

Well, I understood it in a very similar way as Christian. If we speak
about table based layout, we mean layout tables not tables for tabular
data.

A css driven site may use tables, but for tabular data only.

Martin.



 



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Re: [WSG] edit standard based website for client

[Martin Heiden]

Frederic,

on Thursday, December 8, 2005 at 11:32 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

> let's say that you have to built sites that are going to be maintained by
> non-techies, and you know they are going to use Dream weaver, what should
> you do?

Upgrade Dreamweaver/Contribute to the current version and try to keep
the design simple... (The preview mode is much better than in the
former versions, but still not perfect)

> Is there any other ways?

Configure a cms for your client. There are some standard conform, open
source cms out there. (For example: textpattern, drupal (php based),
apache lenya (java based), ...)

regards

  Martin

 



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Re: [WSG] standards or confusion?

[Martin Heiden]

Peter,

on Wednesday, December 7, 2005 at 12:31 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

> Martin Heiden wrote:

>> Do it on the serverside!!!

> Maybe I'm a cycle head, but it seems silly to use computation cycles 
> (although very little) to compute a year that changes only once per 
> year.  Use a server side include or hard code it in your footer template
> and remember to change it in the new year.  Guess this is my enterprise
> application architecture brain talking here.

You're right! I would do it with SSI or even more static (maybe by
using a Dreamweaver library element).

As others mentioned, the solution via JavaScript relies on a correct
set clock at the client's side and you can't control that. So best
practice is: don't trust in it!

If one uses JavaScript, one should always ask, what happens if
JavaScript is disabled? What happens if anything the script relies on,
is different from the expectation? The site should be usable even if
the scripts aren't executed.

So if it is possible to do something at the serverside or even before
the upload ;-). It should be done there!

And if you have a wonderful behaviour which only works on the
clientside, make the site work without it, or at least give the user a
message that without JavaScript he'll miss something marvelous...

An Example:

On our site we've got an online-consultation tool which only works
with JavaScript enabled. At the moment we are redoing the site and
after the relaunch this tool will be started via click on an image
button. On window.onload an unobstrusive JavaScript will exchange a
button which links to a contact form, with the one to start the
online-consultation tool. So a user without JavaScript can use the
contact form and the one with JavaScript enabled has the chance to
contact us by chat. ( Of course there is another link to the contact
form ;-) )

And that's the magic: You're site looks well and is usable even
without JavaScript, but the scripts are able to enhance the
functionality and the usability of web pages without making them
unusable if the scripts aren't executed.

regards

  Martin

 



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Re: [WSG] standards or confusion?

[Martin Heiden]

Bob,

on Tuesday, December 6, 2005 at 18:57 wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:

> These connected to a linked JS in the :

> 1. http://www.fotografics.it"; onclick="popUp 
> (this.href,'elastic',500,650);return false;"> powered by:  
> FotoGrafics

http://www.fotografics.it"; 
rel="popUp(type=elastic;width=500;height=650)"> powered by: FotoGrafics

In an external JavaScript:

var links = document.getElementsByTagName("a");
for(var i=0; i 2.  alt="" width="88" height="25" id="p7NVim10" />

Do you have a page where we can see what should happen?

> 3. 

http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2005/10/_and_the_winner_1.html

But with all the comments...

Then:

addEvent(body,'load',function() { P7_setNV('p7NVim10',2) });
addEvent(body,'load',P7_trigNV);

> This one all alone on the page, with no linked JS in the :

> 
> 
> var d=new Date();
> yr=d.getFullYear();
> if (yr!=2003)
> document.write("© "+yr);
>  Cedar Tree Books
> 

Do it on the serverside!!!

regards

  Martin

 



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Re: [WSG] Extending xhtml strict to include frameset and target

[Martin Heiden]

Olá Isabel,

  you should try to get rid of the frames and use the strict doctype.
  Don't change the overall structure of the site and nor users neither
  search engines will be upset with the redesign ;-)

  Like Christian mentioned you could use a php include for the header.
  then use ids on the body tag to highlight navigation via css. That
  saves a lot of headaches and gives the user a much better experience
  than the actual site. But it would probably better to redesign the
  navigation structure as well and to add some more levels...

  If you still want to extend the dtd, use XHTML 1.1 and modify the
  driver. (You should serve it as application+xml, but I won't think
  to much about that, even if it isn't conform with standards).

  To do that:

  1.) Download the driver:
  http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/xhtml11_dtd.html#a_xhtml11_driver
  
  2.) Modify it.

  3.) Let the Doctype point at your custom driver and add your
  modifications to the description.

  I'd choose the php include way.

  And please, don't let it blink so much ;-)

Boa sorte!

  Martin

 



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Re: [WSG] The Big Lie about CSS

[Martin Heiden]

Tom,

on Monday, September 19, 2005 at 14:57 you wrote:

>> Martin's correct, class="red" is putting presentation in the markup.

> I disagree. some_text is puttiing  
> presentation in the markup. class="red" is still a class that can be  
> changes in the sheet. In my mind, the word red in this case is just a
> word, not a color.

Technically yes, but you'll agree that it is confusing to call the
class red which gives the text a blue color, don't you? If you want to
change the color, you've got to change the class name and probably the
css too.

So you'll agree that the name for the class is badly chosen. It is
from the semantic point of view a bad idea to use names of colors as
class names.

Sometimes it might seem or even be more flexible to use classes that
just add floats, clear or similar and which can be mixed with other
classes that give styling to the content. And yes, I do that too, but
I always feel guilty ;-)

regards

  Martin

 



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Re: [WSG] The Big Lie about CSS

[Martin Heiden]

Marco,

on Montag, 19. September 2005 at 11:01 you wrote:

> Still I'd prefer server side manipulation of the HTML over manipulating
> the CSS. If you have a some text and you want
> it to be red at certain times you can either server-side change the color
> value of the .blue class in CSS or you can change the HTML output to
> become some_text and define .red in the CSS as
> well. Simplified example maybe but it explains things a little bit.

But you mix structure and visual display. If you'd call the class
"importanttext" you'd only have to change the css if you want to let
it appear blue instead of red:

some_text

.importanttext {
  /* color: red; */
  color: blue;
}

regards

  Martin

 



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Re: [WSG] Style a parent element based on an id selector of the child element

[Martin Heiden]

Martin,

  that's  not  possible  all  selectors work the other way around. You
  could  assign a class or, if you don't need it for other things, the
  id  to  the  td  tag. If this isn't possible on the server side, use
  javascript to do so.

regards,

  Martin

am Mittwoch, 14. September 2005 um 10:56 schrieben Sie:

> Is  there  a way to style the td element with a background colour if
> an  element has a active_menu id?





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Re: [WSG] Flash and 100% height - retry and apologies

[Martin Heiden]

Brendan,

Am Mittwoch, 10. August 2005 um 12:41:53 haben Sie geschrieben:

> I have changed tact with my problem with the suggestions I
> received. I'm now trying an absolute layout and I think I'm closer,
> but IE is still nabbing me with it's insistence that the Flash
> application must be set to 100% of the viewport.

Calculate and assign the height - and if you need to the width too -
of the container div using a expression and some JavaScript. Feed it
to IE by using conditional comments.

Martin.

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Re: [WSG] Flash 100% wide layout issues - resorting to javascript - eek!

[Martin Heiden]

Brendan,

>  I've faltered my brothers (and sisters) - I ran
> screaming back to my javascript skills - crying for a solution to my
> woes - help me be strong! I used some javascript to calculate the
> heights and widths and set some dimensions of the divs and flash.

Have you tried to set some dimensions to the container of the flash:

#viewer {
width: 100%;
height: 40%;
}

#viewer object {
width: 100%;
height: 100%;
}

You could also position the div absolutely:

body {
 height: 100%;
}

#viewer {
position: absolute;
left: 200px;
right: 0px;
top: 500px;
bottom: 40px;
}

#viewer object {
width: 100%;
height: 100%;
}

Martin.

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Re: [WSG] background images fluid

[Martin Heiden]

Bruce,

> I guess I cannot communicate what I mean.
> I have an image on my own website of a sunset.
> I put it in the banner div as an image and set the width to 100%.
> I am perfectly happy with it, it looks good and stretches to fit all
> resolutions. There is nothing wrong with it at all.
> At 1024 it fills the monitor to both edges, and does the same at 800 with no
> scroll bars.

You can't do that with a background-image. CSS3 will (probably) have
some properties to control the size of background-images.

There were some proposals how to circumvent this problem, but none of
these solve your problem. If you assign a percentage width/height to
an img, AFAIK the percentage-value is calculated relative to the
original size of the image. That means that it won't solve your
problem too.

What you could do is using an img-tag and caculate the width by
Javascript and assign a value in px.

But a much better solution would be to let the sunset just cover about
1024px and use either the method Ingo proposed or the small-pic with
gradient method. You could even nest two divs and use two
background-images, the sunset fixed and a small one repeated which
composes a nice effect.

Martin.

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Re: [WSG] HR - Presentation or Structure?

[Martin Heiden]

Nathan,

Am Dienstag, 12. Juli 2005 um 15:37:41 haben Sie geschrieben:

> In speech, I would say we do a similar thing...not the same.  There are
> rules for italics (refering to a particular thing, like a book or a 
> word) that don't refer to any verbal usage.  You wouldn't want screen
> readers to put emphasis there (i.e. "Because it is a verb, /run/ has a
> past, present, and future tense.").  Yet we choose two elements, EM and
> STRONG that come from written forms instead of INF1 through INF5 for
> inflection values.  Sure we can mimic inflection for EM and STRONG, but
> that doesn't change their origin or primary intention.  I mean, think
> about it, we have whole tags devoted to tables and images - purely 
> visual content.  What purely auditory elements do we have (auditory 
> descriptors of visual data don't count)?

I think of  and  as abstract concepts. They don't come
from written forms but from the intention to distinguish between a
"normal" part of content and a "emphasized".

There are some purely auditory elements in real life: Like clapping
hands... And even in speech you use different "melodies" to express
your feelings. Think of the real worlds equivalents to ;-) :-) or :-P

>>> You are mixing DATA, CONTENT, STRUCTURE and VISUALIZATION.

> I'm not aware of all these differences...what's the difference between
> data and content?  Aren't they the same?  The closest thing I could find
> is the difference between data and information 

CONTENT is text, images... this content is represanted by 01010011 on
the harddrive, which is DATA.

Martin.

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Re: [WSG] HR - Presentation or Structure?

[Martin Heiden]

Nathan,

Am Dienstag, 12. Juli 2005 um 14:04:09 haben Sie geschrieben:

> Similarly, strong and emphasized elements are derivations of bold
> and italicized type, respectively. If you think about listening to a
> speech verses reading a speech, the oral form gives much less
> meaning to these "structural" elements (sometimes no meaning at
> all).

I do not follow your argumentation.  and  aren't
derivations of bold and italics but the otherway around. bold and
italics are visual expressions of emphasis. In speech you do the same
with intonation. If diferent people say the same thing in diferent
languages or even in the same, it sounds diferent, but in means of
structure you will still notice the emphasis, sometimes even without
knowing the language.

If you separate structure and visual expression, you've got much more
chances to express exactly what you want. Yo can choose to express
 as orange text and  as red instead of just being bound to
italics and bold. And a screenreader can still distinguish between
normal and strong emphasis. Maybe someday you'll be able to instruct
even the screenreader how you want to express this structure in aural
way.

> I would lump X/HTML in with that group of "inherently visual
> documents."  And someone will say, "But it's data recorded 
> electronically, not printed on a page," to which I would reply, "Data is
> data, whether stored in ink or in memory."  A hard drive can contain
> 00010111, but whose to say whether that's a character or part of an 
> Elvis mp3?  The meaningfulness of data is largely in how it is 
> interpreted, and the primary interpretation of X/HTML is visual.  Screen
> readers can interpret websites orally just as audio books can interpret
> books orally.  It doesn't change the idea that the primary intent was
> visual.

You are mixing DATA, CONTENT, STRUCTURE and VISUALIZATION. These are
different layers of the product that you see on your monitor or hear
from your speakers. If you mix the compontents you loose flexibilty.
If you store a book as DATA on a harddrive expressed as STRUCTUREd
CONTENT - maybe technical as xml (or xhtml) - you can transform the
same STRUCTURE with it's CONTENT to a visual representation (like a
webpage) or using a screenreader to aural media (voice/mp3). You only
have to change the VISUALIZATION.

And I think that's huge a benefit.

 and  are much more meaningful than  or  because
they don't loose their meaning when transformed to different media.

Martin.

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Re: [WSG] HR - Presentation or Structure?

[Martin Heiden]

Hi!

Am Dienstag, 12. Juli 2005 um 05:33:00 haben Sie geschrieben:

> Am I alone in feeling that  should be depreciated in favor of CSS
> borders? Especially with  in the XHTML 2.0 drafts, what
> semantic or even structural value does  have? Every argument for
> its retention that I've heard so far has been presentation related.

XHTML 2.0 replaces  with  which has a more structural
meaning than horizontal rule.

http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml2/mod-structural.html#edef_structural_separator

I'm not shure if an empty separator element is needed. I'd prefer to
use something like , too, because it sets a bracket around
the content which has to be separated. But I guess that it is easier
to use  for example in a dynamic drop down menu to divide
it into sections than to use brackets and define that the last one
doesn't need a border-bottom.

Martin.

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[WSG] Markup for complex tables - WAS: [WSG Announce] Accessible data tables - an article and request for further testing

[Martin Heiden]

Russ,

> Roger Hudson and I have been conducting some tests into the difference
> between "id" and "headers" vs "scope" - to see which of these options was
> more widely supported in assistive devices.

Thanks for this very informative article!

I've got a question regarding a similar problem. I've got to define a
common styleguide for complex data tables. The data contained within
these tables will consist of several rows and columns (>20x1000). So I
think that it will be best practice to let the user define his own
views on the data. In each view he can select a subset of columns,
which he needs for the current task, that he's working on. At the same
time there should only 10-15 rows be displayed at a time. (All this
has to be managed on the server side)
So I've got to define a controller section within the table from which
the user can choose the view and the "page" of displayed rows.

How would you markup this controller-part of the table. This is
neither a header nor data, isn't it?

Further each row/cell shall be editable. I think that the best way
would be to make the rows selectable and let the user edit this
specific row in a division under the table and submit to the server
for integration after editing.

This edit area may be a seperate table. But how to include the
selection criterias (input[type=radio|checkbox]) in the table. td? th?

The footer of the table shall contain some standard buttons for
choosing what to do with the selection... the same problem.

What do you think? Should one place all these controller stuff inside
the table or better put it outside in seperate divs?

Martin.

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Re: [WSG] Flash and valid XHTML

[Martin Heiden]

Jan,

> So I started to use the FlashObject...

And I don't like to depend on JavaScript... ;-)

But it's good to have both methods: you can choose.

Martin

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Re: [WSG] Flash and valid XHTML

[Martin Heiden]

Jan,

Am Donnerstag, 30. Juni 2005 um 10:28:18 haben Sie geschrieben:

>> I use IE Conditional Comments:

> Isn't it a bit overkill?

Why do you think so?

I had some problems with flash satay and IE 5.x so I switched over to
this method. And if you don't use loads of small flash movies in a
page it's not too much overhead.

But I think it's a question of personal preference.

Martin.

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Re: [WSG] Flash and valid XHTML

[Martin Heiden]

Erwin,

Am Mittwoch, 29. Juni 2005 um 19:16:22 haben Sie geschrieben:

> I¹ve not been able to find another method of embedding flash in a page so
> that it still validates.

I use IE Conditional Comments:


  




  


regards,

  Martin

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Re: [WSG] vs

[Martin Heiden]

Chris,

> I recall some controversy surrounding when to use  and , could
> someone clarify proper use?

Simply don't use , because it is visual markup. Think about what
you really want. Is it emphasis, use em, is it just something visual
use text. And try to give the class a
semantic name, not "italic".

If one day you'd like to format this passage bold, just change the
definition in your css. You don't have to make changes to your
HTML-Code and the name of your css class will remain valid.

Martin.

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Re[4]: [WSG] Regarding foreign languages

[Martin Heiden]

Patrick!

Am Donnerstag, 2. Juni 2005 um 18:11:30 haben Sie geschrieben:

>> I agree with you in all points but this one. Even in XHTML 1.0 the
>> lang-Attribute is needed.

> At the risk of splitting very fine hairs even further: *needed* or
> *allowed* ? I'd tend to think the latter...

You are right! *needed* should not say mandatory. Maybe we should say
*allowed* and *recommended*?

Martin.

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Re[2]: [WSG] Regarding foreign languages

[Martin Heiden]

Ben,

Am Donnerstag, 2. Juni 2005 um 17:23:57 haben Sie geschrieben:

> For further reference: You also use both "lang" and "xml:lang" in
> XHTML transitional for backward compatibility with HTML4, whilst in
> strict mode "xml:lang" is all you need.

I agree with you in all points but this one. Even in XHTML 1.0 the
lang-Attribute is needed. It is droped in XHTML 1.1.

See: http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/dtds.html#a_dtd_XHTML-1.0-Strict




Martin.

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Re: [WSG] Minimum browsers/OS tested for?

[Martin Heiden]

Neerav,

  we develop for Firefox and test while developing from time to time
  in Opera (>7). If everything is done, we check in IE6 and Safari and
  tweak the code (using conditional comments for IE).
  After that we check in IE5 (Win), but just if anything breaks the
  layout completly.

  IE5 Mac and Version 4 Browsers get unstyled text without decorative
  images/flash.

  Once in a while we check our site in Konqueror.

Martin.



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Re[2]: [WSG] Flash Satay method article

[Martin Heiden]

Simon,

Am Dienstag, 10. Mai 2005 um 18:32:05 haben Sie geschrieben:

> 
> codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=7,0,19,0";
> width="400" height="300">
>
>   
>   
>   
>  width="400" height="300"
> type="application/x-shockwave-flash">
>   
>   
>value="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer";>
>   ALTERNATE CONTENT HERE (should not be displayed)
> 
>   
> 

I would do it in a slightly different way:

   
   
 
   
   
   http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"; />
   
 
   

Otherwise it ssem to me that you'll loose the display of alternative
content in all non IE>5 browsers. And even in IE I'm not shure if
cascading object-tags work.

Martin.

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Re: [WSG] realistic placement of 'high contrast' & 'text too small?' links?

[Martin Heiden]

Jamie,

what about something like this:


  [help|high contrast|text too small?]
--
[logo]


[tab][tab][tab][tab]  [login form]
--

You could put a small line above the header with some
accessibility/usabilty related links. It won't steal to much marketing
relevant space and would be still visible enough for people who need
that information. You could choose colors wisely so that the
accessability section appears more related to the browser than to the
site. (Maybe by using the user's color-scheme?)

Just my two cents.

Martin.

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Re[2]: [WSG] Weird IE 5.0 method test

[Martin Heiden]

Bert,

Am Freitag, 22. April 2005 um 11:10:20 haben Sie geschrieben:

> Sending this off-list since it doesn't appear to be standards
> related (it's not DOM ECMAscript?)

IMHO it is on topic, because following the standard it should be
possible to test, if a method exists.

> Without seeing why you would use convoluted javascript to load a
> different page, given a regular link works in any browser, it's 
> hard to work out what you want to do.

Well, this little code snip is part of a flash detection. The user
should be automatically redirected after detection. There is a
noscript-part with a simple link for users with disabled javascript.

We are going to drop this detection soon, but now we have to keep it,
because there are several parts of a complex web application which
depend on it.

I need the replace method because the detection page may not be
recorded in the browser history. (Otherwise we'll get some problems
with google and their ad-words policies).

Martin



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[WSG] Weird IE 5.0 method test

[Martin Heiden]

Hi!

  In a (ugly) javascript I try to test if window.location.replace
  exists, before I use it:

  if(window.location.replace) window.location.replace(href);
  else window.location.href = href;

  This works well in IE >= 5.5, Safari, Netscape and Mozilla. IE 5.0
  seems to have a different implementation of replace(), because I get
  an error.

  Does anybody know a bullet proof solution to this problem?

Thanks!

  Martin.

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Re[2]: [WSG] Blockquote or Q?

[Martin Heiden]

Hugues,

HB> Blockquote for sure, and like Alan suggest, make use of normal tags inside.
HB> And let me give you a nice trick to insert language specific quotemarks :
HB> If you declare the language in your HTML tag like 
HB> you can define inside your CSS what kind of quote mark to insert before and
HB> after your blockquote, so then you do not have to manually insert those
HB> quote marks and forget about them :)

  What about IE? This doesn't work in IE. You could of cause do some
  magic trickery with JavaScript, but what about users without CSS
  and/or JavaScript?

  I would prefer your way, but I don't think that is already usable
  nowadays.
  
Martin



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Re: [WSG] Easy forms, uneasy Gecko

[Martin Heiden]

Kornel,

Am Donnerstag, 14. April 2005 um 13:29:47 haben Sie geschrieben:


KL> There is a very easy way of doing forms without tables:
KL> label {display: inline-block; width: 10em;}

KL> I prefer doing forms that way, because I'm styling code
KL> that I don't have full control of and I don't like to struggle
KL> with floats'n'clearing.

I guess there is just one way, that won't please you:

label { display: inline }

Like that you would loose alignment.

But if it is a simple form with just pairs of label - input you could
use floats and the Easy Clearing Method:
(http://positioniseverything.net/easyclearing.html)

label {
  display: block;
  width: 10em;
}
input:after {
content: ".";
display: block; 
height: 0; 
clear: both; 
visibility: hidden;
}

I think this method will fail if you have to inputs in a row. However,
I never tried it, maybe it works.

Martin

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Re[2]: [WSG] take object out of tab order

[Martin Heiden]

Diona,

Am Freitag, 8. April 2005 um 15:24:36 haben Sie geschrieben:

dk> What happens if the tabindex is specified as null? Is it still included
dk> in the stack?

Yes, it is. It's the same as don't specify a tabindex at all.

I found out that it is a feature and that there is a workaround in
flash:

http://www.sonokids.com/tabnew.html

Searching for "flash tabbing" did the trick...

Martin.

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Re[2]: [WSG] take object out of tab order

[Martin Heiden]

Kevin,

Am Freitag, 8. April 2005 um 01:32:08 haben Sie geschrieben:

K> sorry for my ignorance what is the tab order?

I'm not sure if it is your ignorance or my insuficient knowledge of
the english language ;-)

What I mean is:

You can step through the links/objects/form elments on a HTML page by
pressing the TAB-key. On our pages this works well until a flash
object gets the focus. When this happens you can press the TAB-key as
often as you like, nothing happens.

There is an attribute tabindex to control the order of giving focus to
certain elements when pressing the TAB-key. It accepts values >0, but
it seems impossible to take an element out of the normal order. (which
is the order of the character stream).

See http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/interact/forms.html#h-17.11.1 for
more details.

Martin.


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[WSG] take object out of tab order

[Martin Heiden]

Hi!

  Is there a way to take an object (flash) out of tab order?

  The problem:

  Our site uses flash for a small animation. There isn't any
  link/button inside the flash, just graphics. At least in Firefox on
  PC (IE does this job well) the focus gets lost in the flash while
  tabbing through the page.

  Does anyone know a way to prevent the flash getting focus?
  Or to tell the flash to give focus back to the rest of the page?

  Is it a bug or a feature? I couldn't find any bug report at
  mozilla.org.

Martin.

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Re[2]: [WSG] CSS Document layout/structure

[Martin Heiden]

Lea,

Am Donnerstag, 7. April 2005 um 15:01:34 haben Sie geschrieben:

LdG> On Thu, 7 Apr 2005 14:22:04 +0200, Martin Heiden wrote:
>>   I split the rules into different files:
>> 
>>   general.css
>>   layout.css
>>   elements.css

LdG> Are you seeing much overhead in load time?
LdG> I've put off doing the same for that reason.

I didn't pay much attention to this, but probably I would rather
prefer to split all into different files than to have one very large
one, even if there were some reasonable performance leaks.

I guess that I would merge the files with php/jsp or or during the
deployment process, if I'd have to react.

Martin.

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Re: [WSG] CSS Document layout/structure

[Martin Heiden]

Hi!

  I split the rules into different files:

  general.css
  layout.css
  elements.css

  In these files I try to use "container centric" selectors. That
  means: if the XHTML is structured like this:

  

  
   
  

  

  If it makes sense I try to include as much of the cascade as
  possible:

  #container1 #container2 #container3 p { ... }

  This way it is much easier to identify which rule belongs to the
  specific container and where to find it in the pages source.

  I try to keep some order when defining the properties, but... I'm
  just too lazy ;-)

Martin
  
Am Donnerstag, 7. April 2005 um 11:33:58 haben Sie geschrieben:

CS> Hi,
CS> I am struggling to get to grips with designing with web standards and
CS> one of the problems I am having is with "reading" style sheets.
CS> Having sorted out the html code to make it more readable and modifiable
CS> it seems that we have shifted the "mess" to style sheets. Many of the
CS> sheets I look at are long, comment-less and very difficult to understand.
CS> So that I don't fall into the same trap, can anyone recommend some
CS> reading on how to make style sheet structure and layout both 
CS> understandable and also easily modified?
CS> Thanks,

CS> Charlie




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Re: [WSG] how to use external fonts with css?

[Martin Heiden]

Hi!

Am Mittwoch, 6. April 2005 um 16:31:09 haben Sie geschrieben:

to> I will wish to use external fonts (noncommon to pcs, obtained through
to> server by the pagina Web) for my designs with css, somebody knows like
to> doing it?

If you just need it for headings or smaller paragraphs, this may be a
workaround:

http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/archive/2004/08/sifr

Martin.

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Re[2]: [WSG] ID conflicts

[Martin Heiden]

Tee,

Am Dienstag, 5. April 2005 um 15:47:49 haben Sie geschrieben:


t> This is the page I'd working on now. The body and the menu buttons are in id
t> so it works but doesn't pass the validation of course.
t> http://www.lotusseeds.com/big5.htm

t> <.div id="siteOption">
t> 
t>>
t> 
t> 

t> My code:
t> #siteOption li a#home {
t> #siteOption li a#home:hover {
t> body#homepage li#home a {

Try to adress your links by using the containers. Give the  a
class and discard the ids from the s.

Then you can set css properties by selectors like:

body#homepage div#siteOption li.home a
body#homepage div#navlist li.home a

Try to put all containers in your css-selectors so it is much easier
to identify them in the source code.

If you'd need the ids for accessing elements via javascript, you could
give certain elements a prefix like: li-home, a-home

But in your case you should just change to classes and use more
specific selectors.

Martin.



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

[Martin Heiden]

Tat,

Am Sonntag, 3. April 2005 um 16:02:19 haben Sie geschrieben:

TO> I'm trying to have a link open in a new window (like I've done a million
TO> times). however the validator doesn't like this.

TO> This page is not Valid XHTML 1.1
TO>  !

You seem to use XHTML1.1, so you can modify the driver of your DTDs to
include the target module.

Take the original driver from:

http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/xhtml11_dtd.html#a_xhtml11_driver

uncomment the target section, give it a name and put it inside your
site. Then modify the doctype of your pages to point at the new
driver.

Martin.
 

 




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Re[4]: [WSG] A HREF around a Flash Object?

[Martin Heiden]

Kornel,

Am Dienstag, 22. März 2005 um 14:40:02 haben Sie geschrieben:

KL> Use conditional comments around  tags.

Sometimes one can't see the forest, 'cause there are too many trees...

Thanks

Martin.

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Re[2]: [WSG] A HREF around a Flash Object?

[Martin Heiden]

Hi!

Am Dienstag, 22. März 2005 um 11:01:34 haben Sie geschrieben:

RP> I would use code something like this:

RP> >
RP>
RP> value="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"; />
RP> >
RP> height="300" alt="description" />
RP>
RP> 

RP> In theory ( at least the way I understand it ) if the browser doesn't
RP> understand the object tag or doesn't have the correct plugin it moves
RP> down to the next tag nested inside until it comes to code it can 
RP> render.  This gives you fail-over all the way down to the text level
RP> provided you give an accurate alt value.

This approach isn't conform to web standards, because the embed-Tag is
Netscape only. The other problem is that IE won't show the image if
Flash isn't present.

There is a way to use the object-Tag for all browsers called flash
satay, which can be found at ala.

For me this method didn't work in IE Win 5.0, so that I normally use
another method which works well but in Browsers without css support:


  
http://url.com"; />

http://url.com"; />
http://url.com";>
  


  http://url.com"; class="flash">
http://url.com"; />

http://url.com"; />
http://url.com";>
  


In the main css I've got the definition:

.other { display: block; }
.ie{ display: none; }

In another stylesheet that is linked inside a conditional comment I've
got:

.other { display: none; }
.ie{ display: block; }

This way you can control the link target in HTML. If the Browser
doesn't know how to display Flash, you've got a fallback to an linked
image.

The only problem is that a browser without css support will show the
two objects/images.

Martin.

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Re: [WSG] A HREF around a Flash Object?

[Martin Heiden]

Matt,

Am Dienstag, 22. März 2005 um 00:14:11 haben Sie geschrieben:

M> That way users without Flash can still link through to the target page.

M> Any Ideas?

You can pass the URL to a Flash variable by using the param-Tag and/or
the URL of the Flash itself.

This looks like:

  
http://url.com"; />

http://url.com"; />

  

In the Flash use the variable clickTag.


Martin

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Re: [WSG] Is there any way to set the width of a file input field in Firefox?

[Martin Heiden]

Irina,

Am Freitag, 4. Februar 2005 um 05:50:36 haben Sie geschrieben:

IA> Does anybody knows how to set the width of a file input field in Firefox?

Take a look at the form.css in res under your firefox installation
directory. There you will find the following styling:

/* file selector */
input[type="file"] {
  -moz-appearance: none;
  white-space: nowrap;
  cursor: default;
  -moz-binding: none;

  padding: 0 !important;
  border-style: none !important;
}

input[type="file"] > input[type="text"] {
  border-color: inherit;
  background-color: inherit;
  color: inherit;
  font-size: inherit;
  height: inherit;
}

/* button part of file selector */
input[type="file"] > input[type="button"] {
  height: inherit;
  font-size: inherit;
}

Feel free to override the defaults. :)

Martin.

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Re: [WSG] Best approach

[Martin Heiden]

Hi!

Am Donnerstag, 9. Dezember 2004 um 17:26:33 haben Sie geschrieben:

KK> I made a quick sample without the img swap thingy
KK> http://www.mouseriders.dk/esrum/index.htm but they insist on the img
KK> swap. So now I'm wondering which approach would be best using css and no
KK> javascript getting the layout as in my sample but with img swap?

Take a look at the sliding doors technique from ala:

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/slidingdoors/
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/slidingdoors2/

and the original:

http://wellstyled.com/css-nopreload-rollovers.html

I guess that trick will solve your problem.

Martin

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Telefon: +49 221 757-1860
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Internet: www.devk.de
 

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Re: [WSG] Use of

[Martin Heiden]

Hi!

  IMHO the problem is, that the address tag is an inline element. I
  would like to use it like this:

  
   
   name
   street
   city
   country
   phone
   email
   
  

  But this is not valid XHTML... :(

Martin

Am Montag, 29. November 2004 um 10:55:45 haben Sie geschrieben:

NL> I'm curious if and how you are all using the address tag. The HTML 4
NL> spec has this to say:

NL> --
NL> The ADDRESS element may be used by authors to supply contact 
NL> information for a document or a major part of a document such as a
NL> form. This element often appears at the beginning or end of a document.

NL> For example, a page at the W3C Web site related to HTML might include
NL> the following contact information:

NL> 
NL> Dave Raggett,
NL> Arnaud Le Hors,
NL> contact persons for the W3C HTML Activity
NL> $Date: 1999/12/24 23:37:50 $
NL> 
NL> --

NL> ...and out of curiosity jumping ahead the xhtml2 spec says...

NL> --
NL> The address element may be used by authors to supply contact 
NL> information for a document or a major part of a document such as a
NL> form. This element often appears at the beginning or end of a document.

NL> content model of address element
NL> The content model of the address element should be improved to improve
NL> its semantic processability.

NL> Attributes

NL> The Common collection
NL>  A collection of other attribute collections, including: Core,
NL> Events, I18N, Bi-directional, Edit, Embedding, Map, and Hypertext

NL> Example:

NL> mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]">Webmaster
NL> --

NL> On a "Contact Us" page I'm currently using it like so:

NL> Tasmania Office
NL> 
NL> Contact: Errol Flynn
NL> 
NL> 
NL> PO Box 123
NL> Hobart TAS 7001
NL> ph.: (03) 6222 1234
NL> fax: (03) 6222 1235
NL> email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]"> 
NL> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
NL> 

NL> However, the specs above don't make it fully clear if what I'm doing is
NL> wrong or right. The phrase "to supply contact information for a 
NL> document or a major part of a document" seems to rule out it's most
NL> common use on a contact page as strictly speaking that's usually 
NL> contact info for an organisation.

NL> Surely  simply applies as a block element to ANY address,
NL> however it then also seems unclear as to how to format the address
NL> within that block.

NL> Thanks,

NL> Nick

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



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