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

[Nick Gleitzman]

Hassan Schroeder wrote:


You can get a certain amount of "information" from a photocopy of a
grilled cheese sandwich, but it makes rather a dry meal :-)


Absolutely. But this whole thread started with the issue of whether alt 
text should be optional in HTML5.


A photocopy may be a poor, 2-dimensional representation of the real 
thing, but a blank piece of paper isn't anything at all... Which is 
more useful?


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

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 10 Sep 2007, at 1:24 AM, Hassan Schroeder wrote:


Perhaps then you (or anyone adhering to this view) can supply, as
an example, a useful description of the cited Rothko? Or maybe one
of Jackson Pollock's works? ('No. 5, 1948' might be good)

And since art is often intended to prompt an emotional reaction on
the part of the audience, write that description so the audience
has an opportunity to connect emotionally with the described work
without putting your own bias into it...

Ready, set, go! :-)


Thanks to Rahul for looking at the issue; he's saved me some time. Of 
course it's possible to describe even an abstract painting. It may, as 
I said, take a thousand words, or an essay, or even a whole book - but 
it  can be done. We have this thing called language that makes it 
possible. Whether or not the description is useful is subjective. 
Georg: "...the importance of anything on a web page depends entirely on 
the individual visitor's interests at the time of visit."


As for your second paragraph: you miss the point. My job in describing 
a painting, or a photograph, to a blind person is *not* to convey any 
emotional response that I might have to the image. It's actually 
imperative that I *don't* include any bias. Any emotional response 
possible should be the reader's, not the writer's; I would never 
presume to tell a blind person how or what to think. I reiterate: 
they're blind, not brain-dead.


And:

> I'm not saying we shouldn't provide /some/ "data", I'm saying that
> some people are trivializing the difficulty of creating *useful* and
> *relevant* alt text for complex images, especially those intended to
> convey *emotion* rather than simply "information".

Exactly. Good alt text is not trivial, and it's not easy, when the 
image/s are complex and/or conceptual. But an attitude of 'it's too 
hard, leave it out' is just plain lazy.


To get back to the original topic of this thread; Georg again: "... the 
main (original) issue here is about making the 'alt
attribute' itself optional _in_ a future specification." Sure, make it 
optional. Then those who can't be bothered writing alt text, or lack 
the skill to, don't have to. Their sites won't provide as rich an 
experience for blind visitors as they might, but hey - they conform to 
the spec, so they must be OK, right?


And, Bob - "I refuse to carry this conversation any further, as it has 
degenerated into a nit-picking excercise.  At least, one person has the 
sense/experience to know what I'm talking about. I notice that no-one 
has taken up the challenge of providing an emotional alt tag..."


Pulling out of a conversation just because people disagree with you is 
a cop-out. As for for 'emotional alt tags' - don't even try. It's not 
your job; see above.


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

[Nick Gleitzman]

Bob:

No amount of descriptive prose will
mean anything to to a blind reader.


Vlad:

I've never heard such sh*t in my life.


I've been following this thread with interest, and I have to agree with 
Vlad (if not with his exact choice of words...). I was waiting to see 
what kind of response Bob's assertion would generate, but I thought I'd 
let those already involved in the discussion have first say...


Language is what we have as our primary tool of communication. There 
are others, of course - Rothko's paintings speak volumes (even if the 
man himself lets them speak, choosing enigmatic reservation about their 
meaning) - but to presume that because someone is blind, they can't 
understand the content of a visual image via a word-based description 
is incredibly (ahem) short-sighted. They're blind, not brain-dead. I'd 
suggest the shortcoming is not in their ability to understand an 'alt' 
description, but in your ability, Bob, to write one.


To bring this back on-topic: it's not feasible, of course, to include a 
thousand-word essay as an 'alt' parameter of an img tag, if that's 
what's necessary to communicate the image's meaning (although there are 
other methods of supplying such meta-info). But including succinct, 
meaningful 'alt' descriptions of visual and/or graphic content can make 
blind people's experience of the web immeasurably richer. The skill of 
writing those 'alt's is part of writing for the web in general - a 
tricky and quite specific discipline. Being a web designer doesn't 
automatically include qualification as a web *writer*. If you can't do 
it, give the job to someone who can.


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Re: [WSG] Firefox bug on CSS white-space property

[Nick Gleitzman]

Julián Landerreche wrote:


I have tested this in:
 - Firefox 2.0.0.6 (both Win and Linux)


Hmm. Not convinced that it's a bug; your line-wrapped link appears as 
you want in FF2.0.0.6/Mac OSX - ?


To look at the issue laterally, if your fixed-width table requires that 
long links wrap, why invoke the no-wrap rule at all? Obviously this 
snippet gives no clue as to the broader context, but what if you leave 
white-space at its default setting of normal - by omitting it?


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Re: [WSG] When is invalid CSS okay?

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 23 Aug 2007, at 3:07 AM, David Hucklesby wrote:


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.


Hmm. Interesting example. 'Sheraton Center' is a placename - a proper 
noun.


Have you ever tried to use 'text-align: centre'?

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Re: [WSG] Lower portion of lower case "y" does not appear in h1 in IE7

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 11 Aug 2007, at 10:01 AM, Joyce Evans wrote:

When I view the following link (which I’m working on) in IE7, the 
lower portion of the “y” in the word “Physician” does not appear.  I 
see the entire “y” in IE 6 and FF 2 but not in IE7.  This text is 
sitting within an h1 tag within a #title tag.  Does anyone have an 
idea why I can’t see the lower portion of “y”?


Hi Joyce

Apart from the fact that you really shouldn't be using px to define the 
size of your h1 text, try adding line-height to the h1 rule in your 
css, and then tweaking the padding:


h1 {
color: #ff;
text-align: right;
font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 20px;
line-height: 22px ;
padding: 9px 62px 0 0;
margin: 0;
}

Tested in IE7/XP; haven't looked at 6...

HTH
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Re: [WSG] opinions on the sale of .com.au domain names

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 9 Aug 2007, at 10:38 AM, WebScience Australia wrote:

Please reply with your business name, contact name and hone number, 
and the answers to the two questions.


Offlist, of course, as this is waaay OT...

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Re: [WSG] H1 font not set in IE

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 17 Jul 2007, at 8:40 PM, Nick Roper wrote:


http://dev.logical.co.uk/castlewelding/final/gates_railings.php

The font for the h1 should be Garamond - as it is for the menus at the 
left. However it refuses to render in FF/Windows - although it is fine 
on FF/Mac. The other weird thing is that FF/Windows renders Garamond 
for the menus but not the h1.


I have stared at it until I can't see wood for trees any more. I even 
tried adding an inline style attribute into the H1 tag - but that 
didn't work either. Am I missing something startlingly obvious?


Umm... possibly that a font won't render if it's not present on the 
machine? I see Verdana for both H1 and the LH menu, because I don't 
have Garamond in my default set of fonts; I'd have to activate it with 
Suitcase if I want it.


It would be a good idea to specify a family of fonts in your css, 
instead of just the one - that way you're supplying a fallback style 
for those that don't have Garamond. Choose fonts that are present on 
most OSs for best results. Maybe Palatino, or Georgia?


See  for a 
handy list of common fonts for both 'doze and Mac.


HTH
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Re: [WSG] Footer Problem IE5.x

[Nick Gleitzman]

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?


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Re: [WSG] Font-size 62.5% problem

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 2 Jul 2007, at 3:10 PM, Felix Miata wrote:


Paul Collins apparently typed:


I seem to be having trouble assigning the font-size:62.5%


Please note that...


Toldja.

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Re: [WSG] Footer Problem IE5.x

[Nick Gleitzman]

Sarah Peeke (XERT) wrote:

2. If I don't include a dreaded hack in my css (which I'd really like 
to

remove because my style sheet doesn't validate)


So use a Conditional Comment - ?

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Re: [WSG] Font-size 62.5% problem

[Nick Gleitzman]

Jermayn Parker wrote:

personally I have always had trouble with percentages and hence only 
use em's

Maybe if you switch over to all em's it may help.


There's been frequent discussions here in the past on this topic - and 
the consensus is that ems are good *once* you've set a size on the body 
using a percentage - but don't get Felix started on any value other 
than 100%... ;o)


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Re: [WSG] scope, cols and colgroups

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 30 Jun 2007, at 6:07 PM, Chris Price wrote:

I didn't say I would be happy for it to be invalid but poor design 
that validates isn't useful.


No, you said, ".. so just making it valid or logical may not be my 
prime concern." The point is, and the reason Philippe pointed out that 
your code wasn't valid, is that it's impossible (well, bloody 
difficult) to debug invalid code.


Time and time again, on this list, we see requests for 'problems' 
regarding invalid code. Validating your code is not only sound 
practice; it's the first step - every time - in debugging.


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Re: [WSG] scope, cols and colgroups

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 30 Jun 2007, at 4:11 PM, Stuart Foulstone wrote:


Surely you don't mean that ;-)

On Sat, June 30, 2007 2:49 am, Chris Price wrote:


My thinking was that my real aim is to make the data useful so just
making it valid or logical may not be my prime concern.

Kind Regards
--
Chris Price


Yes, I did a double-take at this myself. Logical is subjective - but 
invalid is not useful. It's just a pain.


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Re: [WSG] Skip to Content?

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 30 Jun 2007, at 11:34 AM, Sander Aarts wrote:

My 'skip to' menu is like a map of the page and I believe it benefits 
more people than it hinders.


Can't argue with belief. If it works for you (but more importantly, for 
your visitors), go for it.


But at the risk of presuming to take up Michael's pov for him, I 
understood him to be questioning whether making a page more complex 
actually improves usability. OK, your pages might be complex, and so 
you feel the need to provide 'road maps' for people to find their way 
around more easily - but if the page is so complex that you need to 
provide a map of the navigation and content, don't you think that maybe 
your page is too complicated? It suggests a review of the IA as a 
whole.
(Granted, I have no idea of the content of your site, so I accept I'm 
talking in a general sense, but still...)


Taken to (an admittedly illogical) extreme, you'd end up with a page, a 
map of skip links to explain what's there, and a map of the map to 
explain what's there, and...


Do you do any user testing with the target group of visitors for whom 
you're providing this extra 'benefit' to see if it actually works for 
them? Or is it just your belief?


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Re: [WSG] Skip to Content?

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 30 Jun 2007, at 9:58 AM, Sander Aarts wrote:

> So you don't care at all about the cognitively challenged visitors 
to your site then?


You're challenging me now as I don't have a clue what your talking 
about. How does adding 'skip links' make a site less usable/accessible 
for cognitively challenged people?


I think that was an ironic reference to the KISS principle...

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Re: [WSG] Page Structure

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 29 Jun 2007, at 5:44 AM, Sander Aarts wrote:


Nick Gleitzman schreef:

<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


...with a paper doc the user always gets to see the front cover.


Unless they're blind.


Well, they wont be seeing anything else then either, so semantics and 
hierarchy of headings doesn't really matter in that case. Unless they 
have it in braille maybe, but then they will probably start with the 
front cover as well.


Exactly - which is why I said, later in the same post, that comparisons 
between web and print are pointless.


But if you insist, supplying your nice glossy brochure or whatever with 
braille for unsighted people is *exactly* what we're talking about - 
Michael was referring to the 'visual weight' of the branding on a site 
or a document. Semantic XHTML gives us a way of providing that weight 
to blind visitors - by choosing the appropriate  we can get their 
assistive technology device (whatever that may be) to tell them thata 
certain piece of info is more important.


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Re: [WSG] Page Structure

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 29 Jun 2007, at 5:53 AM, Sander Aarts wrote:


Sunday John schreef:
Does a content based site respond to search engine than a well  
meta-tag, keyword e.t.c site?
If I'm correct search engines like Google give extra weight to  
keywords in meta-tags, but only if they appear in the content of the  
site as well. That way they know that these words are not just  
attractive dummies.


cheers,
Sander


This from Google Webmaster Help [1]:

"The best way to ensure that your site returns for your preferred  
keywords is to include them on your pages. Our crawler analyzes the  
content of webpages in our index to determine the search queries for  
which they're most relevant. If you create an information-rich site  
that clearly and accurately describes your topic, it'll likely return  
for your desired keywords."


[1]  



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Re: [WSG] Page Structure

[Nick Gleitzman]

Sander Aarts wrote:


How can you search for a company when you don't know it exists?


How do you find out what goods a certain company sells if don't know 
what they are?


Sorry, Sander, but that logic escapes me. Of course I don't know what 
goods a certain company sells if I don't know they exist. But I know 
what goods I'm looking for, so that's what I'll search on.



You search for the goods or services that you want - don't you?


Not always. If I want to know what campagnes Amnesty International is 
currently running, I don't want to search for every undemocratic 
country in the world.


Not if you know how to use a search engine, no. And you're presuming 
that I know that Amnesty International exists - which is the whole 
point. What if I don't? I'd search on "human rights abuses".


You just can't tell how people are searching for information. You only 
know know on which keywords you defenitly want to be found. And I 
think that the name of the organisation is an important one (you don't 
want to disapoint people who already know your name).


Exactly. But I still contend that my company name, being most likely 
more unique than any name of goods or services that I provide, doesn't 
require as much semantic weight in my markup and it will *still* be 
easily found by those who already know I exist - but that the strongest 
weight is given to the name/s and description/s of what I'm offering, 
because *I* think that's what the majority of searchers will be looking 
for.


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Re: [WSG] Page Structure

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 28 Jun 2007, at 11:41 PM, Sunday John wrote:

Does a content based site respond to search engine than a well 
meta-tag, keyword e.t.c site?


It's pretty much accepted now that  don't carry 
nearly as much weight as keywords (= search terms) in the actual 
content of a page. And Google - if you look at the results - returns 
your search term/s in the context of the page content, not the page 
 or , although of course they're 
important too.


The best advice I've ever found about optimising pages for SE results 
is: don't try and out-think a SE; it's too complex. Just concentrate on 
good, meaningful content, marked up in a semantically logical way.


'How to code for SE rankings' is just too big a subject to cover in a 
few words. Have a look at Danny Sullivan's site [1] or Google's own 
tips for webmasters [2] for good info.


[1] http://searchenginewatch.com/
[2] http://www.google.com/webmasters/

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Re: [WSG] Page Structure

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 28 Jun 2007, at 11:03 PM, Sunday John wrote:

The company logo is the image image and the representative of the 
company on the internet. Without the existience of the company the 
logo won't exist and without the branding the website wouldn't have 
come anyway!


The content should just be readable and not to dominate the site. I 
think readability is alot different from donimations of content. So, 
lets even looked at it from this angle "the company logo is part of 
the content" :)


True, to a point, but we're discussing searchability.

How can you search for a company when you don't know it exists? You 
search for the goods or services that you want - don't you?


Once you've found a company's site, then you know they exist, sure - 
but you wouldn't find them if the structure of their markup favoured 
searches on 'Billy Bob's Fab Shop'. You'd be searching on whatever it 
is that Billy Bob sells. That's why the page content is more important 
than the 'brand' - as far as SEs are concerned.


Remember, too, that if you feel the need, you can style the company 
name and/or tagline as big, bold and bright as you like - and still put 
it in a , or even a . Your  could be 6px high and #ccc on 
#fff, but it still carries more semantic weight in the markup...


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Re: [WSG] Page Structure

[Nick Gleitzman]

<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


...with a paper doc the user always gets to see the front cover.


Unless they're blind.

Thing about markup is, we can structure it for many more purposes than 
hard copy info can be. The most important blind visitor? Google... 
(Which I think is where this thread started.)


Anyway, the web/hard copy comparison is always going to break down 
sooner or later.


The. Web. Is. Not. Print.

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Re: [WSG] Skip to Content?

[Nick Gleitzman]

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'?


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Re: [WSG] Page Structure

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 27 Jun 2007, at 6:43 PM, James Jeffery wrote:


H1 should be your company name, or logo.



Some people like to use IR (Image Replacement) for logos, but a logo 
is your brand, just as your
 name is your brand, so i wouldnt use IR on a logo. Tagline should be 
H2.


Im not sure on what you mean by page content, i wouldnt wrap the whole 
content in a , thats

abusing the H* element.

logo or company name
tagline

 . PAGE CONTENT ..

Your page content might consist of a number of elements, Divs, Lists, 
Paragraphs ect. But the important

thing to remember is use the H* element where a heading is needed.


Hmm. Not sure I agree with this. I think the advice Ed's been given is 
good - if SE results are essential to the success of the page, then I 
would put 'Rugby World Cup 2007 Packages' in the .


I  know the convention is to use h1 for the 'brand', but then every 
page on a site has the same ...


What about the  tag? It's important for SE rankings, too - I put 
the 'brand' info (Co. name, tagline) in it and then the same info in 
the  doesn't need to take up the all-important .


Are Ed's clients' customers more likely to search on 'Glory Days' or 
'Rugby World Cup 2007 Packages'?


HTH
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Re: [WSG] Aligning text with images

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 27 Jun 2007, at 12:55 PM, Raster Graphix wrote:


Hi,
 
I need to align image with the text which is quite happening in IE but 
not in Firefox. The page is uploaded

at http://www.atulmangal.com/try/try.html
 
If someone could please advice me on how to fix this in firefox would 
greatly be appreciated.

 
Thanks!

--
Warm Regards
Harpreet


As you so often see on this list if you've been around for a while, the 
first step in troublshooting is to validate your code. You're using a 
XHTML Transitional doctype, but you have  and  tags in CAPS. 
Not allowed...


You take care of the basics, and we'll then help with real problems.

Oh, and I received three copies of your post. One's enough.

N
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Re: [WSG] Aligning text with images

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 27 Jun 2007, at 12:55 PM, Raster Graphix wrote:

If someone could please advice me on how to fix this in firefox would 
greatly be appreciated.


And I forgot to mention - you're developing the wrong way round. Test 
in Firefox first, then workaround for IE - not the other way round...


N
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Re: [WSG] Table Problem

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 26 Jun 2007, at 8:45 AM, Olajide Olaolorun wrote:

Can some help me with this problem: 
http://www.olajideolaolorun.com/problem.html


Its right when i view it in Firefox, but in IE, its problematic. Can 
anyone help me out as to why it is not aligning right?


Firstly, I assume that you mean 'aligning correctly', not aligning to 
the right...


Your code contains this:


Name:



Note that the  containing the  has no ' align="left" ', as 
the  containing the text does. I think adding this will improve 
your layout.


BUT - your code has many errors. You should validate it before posting 
a request for help here, as many simple problems can be solved by 
validating your code: you can't, for instance, use  with a 
XHTML Doctype. Must be lower case.


Your use of inline  tags, non-breaking spaces, and some would say 
the table for layout at all, goes against the whole ethic of Web 
Standards. All your presentational instructions should be handled by 
css, either in the  of your file, or called from an external 
stylesheet.


With respect, it looks like you're a beginner, or at least a novice, 
with HTML. If this is the case, I suggest you use a HTML4 Doctype (or 
no doctype at all), and leave XHTML until you know a bit more about 
what you're doing...


HTH
Nick
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Re: [WSG] Tackling tabular data + per row form input

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 22 Jun 2007, at 5:41 PM, C. Bergström wrote:


...a clean and valid html way to display tabular data...


...is a table - isn't it?

N
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Re: [WSG] Container Background Image Does Not Appear in Firefox

[Nick Gleitzman]

Joyce Evans wrote:

I’m new to this group, and I’m not sure if it’s okay to post a 
question, but here it is:

 
I’ve designed a website and am now creating the CSS for the home 
page.  This is the CSS for my main container div:

 
#container {
    width: 760px;
    background-color: #00;
    color: #00;
    margin: 0 auto;
    padding: 0;
    text-align: left;
    background-image: url(images/bg_container.jpg);
    background-repeat: repeat-y;
}
 
The problem is that the bg_container.jpg image does not appear in 
Mozilla Firefox; however it appears in IE 7.  bg_container.jpg is 760 
px wide with the first pixel and the last pixel being black.  All the 
pixels in between are white, thus creating a thin black border on the 
left and right hand sides of the 760 px container.  In the latest 
version of Firefox, I do not see these two black lines.


Hi, Joyce, and welcome.

Of course it's OK; that's what we're here for!

It's difficult to tell what the problem might be just from your post, 
because you don't say whether your css is in the HTML file or a 
separate css file - in any case, if you can, it's always a good idea to 
post a link to a live page where we can  see your code in action.


A couple of points, though:

First, your #container div has a black background, but you're filling 
it with a white image file - so you'd need too be aware of any problems 
this might create with legibility of the content that sits over the top 
of that background;


Second, is there any reason why you're using a bg img instead of simply 
using left anf right borders on the #container div?


Third, if you do need to use that image as the bg, consider a gif 
instead of the jpeg. It will be a lot smaller in file size, and 
sharper, too, if you knock out all the colours in it except black and 
white...


HTH
Nick
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Re: [WSG] Web Publishing Guide [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 18 Jun 2007, at 1:18 PM, dwain wrote:


Dale, Tim wrote:


Today, AGIMO released the Web Publishing Guide


this is nice, but do you have anything for the unites states along 
this line?


With respect, don't you think that guidelines for the US would better 
be written by someone in that country, rather than here in Australia?


N
(puzzled)
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Re: [WSG] force download a media file

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 13 Jun 2007, at 8:10 PM, SJL wrote:


I have this problem where i want to force download...


I actually want the "save as" window to appear and give the choice to 
the viewer.


Hmm. I've been following this thread, with its discussion of headers, 
MIME types and content-disposition, and I have to say that your post 
suggests a fundamental dilemma, even before you get to all the 
server-side shenanigans: you can't force your visitors to do anything - 
and especially not if you want to 'give them choice' as well!


The web is unique, in that it's a user-configurable medium. In the same 
way that we shouldn't try to serve the same pixel-perfect layouts to 
every visitor, you shouldn't expect to be able to 'force' your visitors 
to download a file. If their browser is configured with a helper app 
that handles your file inline, let it happen! Savvy surfers expect a 
measure of control - or at least the illusion of control - over their 
experience. That's why you hear, over and over, not to use pop-ups, new 
windows, or other practices that take that control out of their hands. 
They don't like it - and they'll go somewhere else.


'Podcasts' all over the web (and I quote the word because it's becoming 
a generic term for a downloadable audio file) are supplemented with a 
single, simple instruction: 'Right-click (or Control-click) and choose 
Save As...'


Now *that's* giving your visitors choice.

N
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Re: [WSG] Safari now on Windows

[Nick Gleitzman]

Michael MD wrote:


Speaking of Mac browsers -
a friend called me on the weekend and said he can't find anything 
newer than IE5 for OS9 but won't upgrade to OSX because it would be 
way too slow on his G3. (and he doesn't have the money to buy a new 
machine)

now that is something to think about!


Speaks volumes for the longevity of Macs, if you ask me. It's 
equivalent to saying, 'I can only run IE 4.x because I only have a 386 
(486? What do I know?) processor and Win 95.' Or whatever.


How many 386/486 machines do you still see out there?

Tell your friend he should be able to run Netscape 7 without too much 
fuss.


Cameron Singe wrote:

> I normally use the university macs for testing, the scary thing is 
they still have IE 5.5 as the default browser


Nope. IE for Mac stopped at 5.2.3 - and don't make the mistake of 
comparing IE 5.x/Mac with IE5.x/Win. They're completely different 
programs; they just happen to have similar names.


Felix Miata wrote:

> If all you use it for is running Safari or IE5 or Camino, a G3 is way 
more than plenty fast enough to run OS X.


Yes, but Michael didn't say his friend was 'just' looking to use a 
browser. I got the impression he's still using his G3 for all his 
computing needs. There again, at least you can dual boot a G3. Stiil a 
pain to have to reboot just to surf the web...


N
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Re: [WSG] Use of PDFs - Accessibility issues

[Nick Gleitzman]

Nick Roper wrote:

Just to confirm, the recommendation from the agency is to replace 
existing html content with PDF version, not to provide PDFs as an 
additional alternative.


Nick, you've made it fairly clear that your question is about 
accessiblity in PDFs, rather than whether or not it's a good idea to 
use them - but I'm afraid the most common answer you're likely to get 
is going to be: don't rely on them exclusively.


The web is for HTML; the ability to deliver other file types is 
possible, but not the best option if accessiblity is desired. As 
printable alternatives, sure, I guess (but what's wrong with a good 
print style sheet?) - but I'm thinking of a number of Aust Govt sites 
which insist on delivering critical info as PDFs and even Word docs, 
which I find astonishingly short-sighted, as well as probably an abuse 
of accessiblity guidelines, if not legislation. What if I don't have 
Word installed (and why should I?)?


The site may certainly need an IA overhaul, if it's been mangled over 
time by too many cooks - but that's no reason to stop using HTML in 
favour of PDF, surely. I think the site owners should have it pointed 
out to them that the agency's recommendations are simply out of touch 
with what's needed.


HTH (a bit)
N
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Re: [WSG] Help with css cascade problem from external style to internal style

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 7 Jun 2007, at 2:25 PM, JS Bracher wrote:

Once I realized the problem was a specificity issue, I changed the 
internal style block to:


li#index a, li#index a:hover ...


Hopefully you changed the HTML as well, because the sample you 
originally posted had the id of 'index' on the , not the  - ?


N
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Re: [WSG] ie word wrap mess-help

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 7 Jun 2007, at 8:34 AM, kevin mcmonagle wrote:

Hi can anyone suggest how i might get this definition list to wrap 
around


First, and always, validate your code. Your  doesn't contain a 
...


N
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Re: [WSG] What does Semantic mean?

[Nick Gleitzman]

Raine wrote:


 Let me be so bold as to nip this thread in the bud...


Gee, sorry. I just thought, given the intensity that some people 
display here, a little levity every now and then helps the medicine go 
down - or something... Look what fun we can have:


... often tiresome ... display ... and ... trivial ... insistence on 
precision ... and excessively subtle reasoning.


BTW, was there a point to posting the same definition twice?

N ;o)
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Re: [WSG] What does Semantic mean?

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 6 Jun 2007, at 2:59 PM, John Faulds wrote:

Well if we're going to talk about 'pedanticness' it has to be pointed 
out that there's no such word; the word you're looking for is 
'pedantry'.


Pedanticity?
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Re: [WSG] What does Semantic mean?

[Nick Gleitzman]

Lucien Stals wrote:


I suspect that the following code...

staff details

email[EMAIL PROTECTED]
phone12345678



Is perfectly valid, semantic markup which a screen reader would render
just fine.


Logical, no doubt of it. But see Steve Green's post which said, "JAWS 
... can only enter 'forms mode' when a form control has focus."


Does that mean that JAWS won't read the contents of the  
element because it's not in 'forms mode'? And if not, how important is 
it for clarification of what follows that the legend be read? If the 
answer to that is 'not', or 'optional', there's not much point in 
including it - is there?



But can I point out, Ben, that at no time did anyone ever suggest
placing form elements in the middle of general content. I'm not sure
where you got that one from.


I understood Ben to be referring to the  element itself. But 
if a  is a form element, and is used out of context of a form 
and its controls, then it *is* "...a form element cropping up in the 
middle of general content..." - isn't it?


Don't you just love circular arguments? Whoops, discussions?

N

PS Before anyone gets bent out of shape by minimal quotes from previous 
posts changing their context or meaning, can I respectfully remind them 
that the previous posts and threads are always there for refererence?

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

[Nick Gleitzman]

Barney Carroll wrote:


...a deceased squirrel foetus


Wow. What an image.

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

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 5 Jun 2007, at 6:13 PM, Patrick Lauke wrote:


No need to debate it...w3schools is a cr*ppy resource, full stop.


That's an opinion, which of course you're entitled to (happens that I 
agree with you) - but I couldn't resist taking a look. And right there 
on their Home page:


"W3Schools provides material for training only. We do not warrant the 
correctness of its contents. The risk from using it lies entirely with 
the user."


Well, yes.

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

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 5 Jun 2007, at 3:34 PM, Jackie Reid wrote:

The fact the validator passed it also seemed to me to say that it 
could be used in this way. If  can't be used this way why 
does it pass validation?


Forgot this point: valid doesn't mean correct, or sensible. It's really 
easy to write code that validates, but which is semantic rubbish. The 
Validator is a great tool for checking the correctness of markup, but 
it can't interpret context - it's just a dumb piece of software.


Oh, and while we're talking semantics: "fieldset" = "set of fields" - 
doesn't it?


Comes back to those tables again. You can - they'll validate just fine, 
if you do 'em right. But does that mean you should? How robust will 
your markup be, over time and across technologies?


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

[Nick Gleitzman]

Joseph R. B. Taylor wrote:

Rules are meant to be understood and for the most part followed.  
Sometimes they're meant to be bent/broken a little, when it comes to 
document design, occasionally the ends can justify the means.


That's how the whole tables-used-for-layout tag soup of last century 
came about - isn't it? Aren't Standards about, well - standards?


Would I do it? No.  The visual effect you are hoping to achieve is 
easy enough to do.  It's just a box with a heading after all.


Indeed.

Jackie Reid wrote:

> I will say this though ...i think its a shame that when someone takes 
the time to respond to a question and states their point of view only 
to get shot down in flames and virtually abused. This list is here to 
enable us to discuss the implementation of webstandards amongst like 
minded people and I'm sure no one is really "hell-bent on abusing the 
standards".


I agree. There's a whole range of abilities represented by the, what, 
5000 members? - and some are simply asking because *they don't know*. A 
little patience goes a long way - have a coffee before replying? (I'm 
guilty, too - I know.)


Mind you, those Return Receipts posted back to the list make me grit my 
teeth...


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

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 5 Jun 2007, at 11:41 AM, Lucien Stals wrote:


...the fieldset itself can contain anything...


Huh? Where in the spec does it say that?!

And why would you want to use something for which it's not intended? It 
would surely, at best, be semantically confusing.


Some legacy code I just picked up contains multiple instances of this, 
and other equally dubious logic:


blah

What's wrong with ? (OK, it should be , but 
this is an old page without even a DOCTYPE - presumably from the good 
ol' days of HTML3.2)


Similarly, why use a  when a simple  will do?

N
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Re: [WSG] ie positioning help needed

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 3 Jun 2007, at 8:44 AM, Mark Hedley wrote:


...for IE6 and to be fair... who uses it still?!


How about 56% of your audience?!



N
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Re: [WSG] layout/font site test - please

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 2 Jun 2007, at 8:06 PM, Designer wrote:


 I've used a simple table


Nothing wrong with that, if NN4.x is in your group of target browsers. 
But you might like to consider adding a rule to your css so that the 
content of the RH column is anchored to the top of the cell - at 
present it's displaying default behaviour of "valign=middle", making it 
drop lower as the viewport is narrowed...


N
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Re: [WSG] Recommended screen size

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 2 Jun 2007, at 12:29 PM, Katrina wrote:


that position is about to undergo a 360 degree change



...which will bring it back to where it started...


N
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Re: [WSG] OT on list

[Nick Gleitzman]

Stuart Foulstone wrote:


Assistive technology off topic?


Barney Carroll wrote:

It's worth making the point: Don't get intimidated by this - JAWS is a 
perfectly legitimate thing to discuss here.


When it's used to access Photoshop - which in my experience doesn't 
have a whole lot to do with Web Standards - yes, it's OT.


Just to fill in a small blank for those who don't know: Marvin, who 
asked the original question, is blind, so the use of JAWS is immensely 
more relevant to him than it is to we sighted members. But the simple 
fact remains, that while I hope that Marvin can get the help and advice 
he needs, this ain't the place to ask.


Barney Carroll also wrote:

But I digress: Let's see how popular we can make this thread. A web 
standards list about grammar, oblique self-references and wilful 
misunderstanding, that's what we could all do with. Hehehe.


You guys crack me up. Anyone like to hear what I did on my holidays?

N
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[WSG] OT on list

[Nick Gleitzman]

Hi folks

Is it just me. or have a whole slew of recent posts been OT?

CMS: there's a CMS list just for you guys. Please use it...
Photoshop and JAWS: sorry, Marvin, but that's just OT for this list.

Can we get back to the on topic issues of Web Standards, perchance?

Check the guidelines - if you you need to preface a post with, "This is 
probably OT, but..." then it is. So don't post...


Thanks

N
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Re: [WSG] need help with tabular interface

[Nick Gleitzman]

kevin mcmonagle wrote:

Thanks nick i might need to implement that js fix. The sliding doors 
method, or any that ive seen, only works if all the tabs are the same 
colour.


Ah. Of course. I'm sure you could make your design work, but there 
would be a lot of classes and/or ids involved to target the specific 
tabs, and a whole lot of css as a consequence...


I will have to change my design cause i dont have time to figure id 
out-in fact even if i did have the time

that would be a tough nut to crack.


Your call, of course - you know how much time you have. But better to 
find out now whether your design is viable, than many hours into 
wrestling with it!


N
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Re: [WSG] need help with tabular interface

[Nick Gleitzman]

kevin mcmonagle wrote:


I am going to start with the sliding doors 2.0 article on ala.
Does anyone have any advice or examples regarding a sideways tabular 
nav bar?


You've got the right starting point - but be aware that (in my previous 
experience) IE/Win (of course...) doesn't honour the background image 
change on mouseover - unless the bg img is in the .


Hmm - occurs to me that the js fix for Exploder that's used for 
Suckerfish dropdowns [1] may be adaptable to your tabs - ? But then, of 
course, you've got to think about degradation when js is disabled...


[1] www.htmldog.com/articles/suckerfish/dropdowns/

N
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Re: [WSG] making form elements the same height

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 25 May 2007, at 5:18 PM, Taco Fleur wrote:


http://www.clickfind.com.au/test-index.html

I am trying to get the form elements the same height


Hi Taco

Form Submit buttons are system-level widgets - they're different shapes 
and sizes according to which browser/OS combination is in use. They're 
notoriously difficult to style, as in most instances, being generated 
at the system level, they just won't accept css styling. Have you 
thought about using a custom image, which you can make the size you 
want?


This is only a partial answer, of course, as an image (unless it's 
sized in ems or %) won't enlarge as the text is enlarged. You already 
have a problem in that regard, as one level of enlargement is enough to 
cause your Submit button to wrap to the next line... (I'm viewing in 
Safari/Mac - and the Submit button also doesn't resize with text - it's 
just pushed around.)


BTW, "5,712,590 million" = 5,712,590,000,000

N
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Re: [WSG] Australian University webpage reviews and WANAU membership

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 25 May 2007, at 1:58 PM, Lachlan Hardy wrote:




Reply made offlist as debates of qualifications and recommended
medications are definitely OT.

/* Admin */

Agreed.

This thread is now closed as the majority of content appears to be OT, 
and is certainly not conducive to helping anybody


This list is for discussing and debating web standards and 
close-related topics. I would prefer this was done in a friendly 
helpful manner. The list rules *require* that this is done politely 
and professionally


Keep this in mind

Thanks
Lachlan Hardy


At the risk of incurring further admin wrath, I'd just like to share 
that it only took two more emails offlist before Tim resorted to the 
irrefutable intellectual argument of telling me to f**k off. Speaks 
volumes, really. Communicate with him at your own risk.


N
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Re: [WSG] Australian University webpage reviews and WANAU membership

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 25 May 2007, at 1:22 PM, Tim wrote:


So what do you know about change management Nick?
Comment on the research Nick, stick to the issue instead of trying so 
pathetically to belt me up.

The page is not intended for you Nick.

Take a bex and have a good lie down.

Tim


Reply made offlist as debates of qualifications and recommended 
medications are definitely OT.


N
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Re: [WSG] Australian University webpage reviews and WANAU membership

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 24 May 2007, at 8:04 PM, Tim wrote:


I have a post graduate Diploma in Applied Social Psychological research


Wow. If that's true, then you should surely appreciate that the best 
way to effect change in *any* system is not by angry, aggressive and 
sarcastic ranting, but by reasoned, logical, CALM discussion. No-one 
wants to deal with someone who accuses all the time. and shouts while 
he's doing it to boot...


Oh, and BTW, your web pages make my head hurt. They may contain 
relevant information, but visually friendly they ain't.


N
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Re: [WSG] Map of Australia Image Map

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 25 May 2007, at 11:44 AM, Felisimina Jom wrote:

We are trying to put together a map of Australia where the states 
appear on hover and are clickable.

 
As I understand it, the hover state can't be used in  so I 
wonder if there is a way to display the States on hover without using 
javascript?

 
Has anybody seen or created way of displaying States on hover using 
CSS only?


You'll need to create a series of graphics of the whole country with 
the various states highlighted as you require. Then use css to define 
which graphic appears on hover - note the whole graphic is replaced, 
not just the state under the cursor.


N
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Re: [WSG] dl v table for form layout

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 23 May 2007, at 7:36 AM, John Faulds wrote:

I doubt there's any laws in Australia that prohibit me having sex with 
a wombat - doesn't mean it's something that's OK to do though


Damn.
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Re: [WSG] width of inline lists

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 20 May 2007, at 10:02 PM, Designer wrote:

Has anyone got a (simple) workaround for the fact that I want to 
specify the width of each  in an inline list?  (which is not 
allowed).


Sorry, previous answer was incomplete.

Not allowed? By whom/what?

Float the s left, give each one an id and you can customise widths 
to your heart's content.


N
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Re: [WSG] width of inline lists

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 20 May 2007, at 10:02 PM, Designer wrote:


div#menu li{
width : 250px;
display : inline;
list-style-type : none;
}




and, of course, the 'width : 250px' is just ignored.  I've tried 
setting a width on the  but that doesn't work either.


MUST I use a table?


No, just use float:left instead of display:inline for the li.

N
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Re: [WSG] ive given up on css

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 16 May 2007, at 11:28 PM, Nick Fitzsimons wrote:



http://www.wizwebz.co.uk ...





OK, enough - I quit. How can I possibly compete with these world-class  
designers?


N
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Re: [WSG] ive given up on css

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 16 May 2007, at 7:28 PM, kevin mcmonagle wrote:


What would you have done in this situation?


Find another client - or risk sounding like a whiner yourself. At the 
end of the day, you can give clients informed choice, but you can't 
*make* them follow your advice. If they can't see the benefits of a 
standards-based approach, sack 'em if it hurts too much to work with 
'em.


N
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Re: [WSG] Site check please

[Nick Gleitzman]

Elle Meredith wrote:

Could you please have a look at http://digitaluwphotography.com/ and 
let me know what you think?


I also have a problem with the top div#access links that I don't know 
why just don't work (skip and site info).


Elle, your css declares div#access as position:absolute, and your html 
has div#access marked up as a child of , not of div#wrapper. So 
div#access is taken out of flow, then div#wrapper is the first element 
in flow - and it covers div#access.


Move div#access inside div#wrapper and the links are accessible to the 
cursor.


Or if the order of your marup is important, add a positive z-index 
value to div#access via the css and move it up to the top of the stack.


BTW, you do know your dropdowns don't work in IE/Win, don't you?

HTH
N
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Re: [WSG] v's , v's

[Nick Gleitzman]

Robby Jennings wrote:

I've found this list of  depreciated tags 
http://www.html-reference.com/depreciated.htm which lists  and 
 as depreciated.   I thought the  tag would be depreciated.


Don't like the look of that page much. Must be old. Very vague, infers 
that HTML4.0 is new, doesn't mention doctypes... here's a better 
reference [1] - straight from the source, and no mention of deprecation 
for *any* of those four elements. Of course, that's HTML4.0. If you're 
planning to code to a flavour of XHTML, things change. There,  and 
 are definitely deprecated, but I think your source is wrong in 
saying that  and  are also...


 and  are presentational, and so are considered to have no place 
in html markup. Personally, I use inline  and  elements 
because they can be styled conventionally - or not, as a design 
requires - via css but still maintain a basic level of control over 
semantic emphasis within the text.


As a quick aside to the main issue, but staying with the theme of 
correctness, elements which are recommended not to be used are 
deprecated. Depreciation is what happens to your shiny new 
car/PC/camera/iPod the moment you take it out of its box. Kind of 
ironic that html-reference.com have this error embedded so deep it's in 
the filename...


[1] 

N
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Re: [WSG] What do we say if we don't say "click"?

[Nick Gleitzman]

John Horner wrote:


I'm looking at a design involving image thumbnails and the instruction
to "click images for larger version" -- I have the idea that saying
"click" is wrong, or rather the assumption that everyone is using a
mouse is wrong.

So, how would you word this instruction, or otherwise inform users that
a small image links to a larger one?

"Images are linked to larger versions" seems to passive-voice to me, 
and

I can't think of any generic term for using a link.


I racked my brain over this one, too (I build a lot of image 
galleries), and finally settled on 'Select an image to enlarge'.


Long translation: 'Use whatever navigation method your browsing device 
employs to select an image thumbnail and hit enter to see an enlarged 
version.'


Works for me.

N
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[WSG] How to mark up a flowchart?

[Nick Gleitzman]

Hi all

I have to incorporate a couple of simple flowcharts into the content of 
a site I'm building, I'm scratching my head about the best way to mark 
up this info in a semantically meaningful way. A generic example can be 
seen here:




 I'd be interested in the list's response.

Thanks
Nick
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Re: [WSG] alternative to target="_blank" in xhtml 1.1

[Nick Gleitzman]

Gallagher, Robin wrote:

Users of the search engine on my intranet site wold like to have the 
results open in a new page. Can anyone suggest a valid method to do 
this in xhtml 1.1?


Umm... teach 'em how to use the software? A good browser allows the 
choice of a new window - or tab - with a modifier key added to the 
mouse click. If all else fails, or you tell us that they're stuck on 
IE/Win, then right-click > Open in new window.


N
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Re: [WSG] Strange empty XHTML element issues in IE & FF

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 22 Feb 2006, at 10:00 AM, Patrick H. Lauke wrote:


Nick Gleitzman wrote:

Easy. In both cases, 'self-closing' elements is incorrect. Both 
 and <div> need full closing:  and , whether 
they're empty or not.


To expand on that answer: unless you're sending XHTML with an XML or 
XHTML+XML MIME type, you must follow the compatibility guidelines 
under Appendix C of the XHTML 1.0 spec. This particular case is 
covered under C.3...


"C.3 Element Minimization and Empty Element Content

Given an empty instance of an element whose content model is not EMPTY 
(for example, an empty title or paragraph) do not use the minimized 
form (e.g. use   and not )."


http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#C_3

P


Thanks, Patrick and Lachlan, for that clarification. I was so 
distracted by trying to make out Paul's miniscule font size that I 
didn't read his first line properly...


N
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[WSG] Plain text v HTML on this list

[Nick Gleitzman]

A frequent request, which occasionally needs to be remade: could list 
members please use plain text for posting? It makes the posts much 
smaller in file size, which is kinder to those who only have dialup 
connections (yes, there are still some), but more importantly, makes 
the posts more legible. I, for one, tend to skip over posts which are 
rendered in my mail client in teeny tiny text...


Thx

N
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Re: [WSG] Strange empty XHTML element issues in IE & FF

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 22 Feb 2006, at 9:16 AM, Paul Hempsall wrote:

 
Issue 1: In the Head section of my XHTML I had an empty script element 
(see below). IE refused to load the page. FF had no problem with this.

 

 
To get IE past this line in the markup I had to change the text to 
read:

 

 
 
Issue 2: In the body of my document I have an empty . IE rendered 
the page correctly. FF didn't close the element, so my CSS didn't get 
implemented correctly.

 

 
To allow FF to process the div, I had to modify the line to:
 

 


Easy. In both cases, 'self-closing' elements is incorrect. Both 
 and 
 need full closing:  and , whether 
they're empty or not.


HTH

N
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Re: [WSG] IE7 Compatibility Team

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 10 Feb 2006, at 10:49 AM, Cade Whitbourn wrote:


Wow. Microsoft are taking very pro-active measures to assist the
developer community in fixing sites for IE7.

I received an email from someone on the 'IE7 compatibility team' with a
screenshot of our site in IE7 and a list of all our stylesheets with 
all

the filters and hacks identified that we may need to modify.

I'm impressed. Have other site owners received any similar contact from
the IE7CPTTM yet?


C a d e  W h i t b o u r n
Web Designer - Web Projects and Business Development
Australian Stock Exchange
www.asx.com.au



Hmm. ASX, hey? Well, they sure know where the money is... Maybe they're 
starting at the top and working their way down? Or maybe they just have 
a vested interest - ?


N (Cynical? Me? Naah...)
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Re: [WSG] Background-Image download order

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 2 Feb 2006, at 1:18 PM, kvnmcwebn wrote:



nick
"
Bear this in mind, too - some browsers will call *all* images specified
with the background property in your CSS file, whether they're needed
for that page or not."

errr..
what browsers?


Safari, from memory... it was a while ago. Later versions may have seen 
a fix. Sorry, don't have time to test right now...


I wonder what would happen if the seperate stylesheets were alled 
called in

from one "importer" stylesheet? would that make any sense?


Uh - wouldn't that result in the same problem? If a browser reads a CSS 
file, it will process all the other files called by it - won't it?


N
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Re: [WSG] Background-Image download order

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 2 Feb 2006, at 1:24 PM, Ric Raftis wrote:


Nick Gleitzman wrote:

 Boring, but multiple CSS files, one for each page, containing only 
the bg image declarations for that page.


Maybe I've missed something, but why wouldn't you just have the one 
css file but declare the background image in the head section of each 
individual page?


You could, of course, but I use external files for the same reason that 
I don't include the whole CSS file in the  - separation of of 
content and presentation.


N
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Re: [WSG] Background-Image download order

[Nick Gleitzman]

Is there any logic I can apply (ordering CSS etc) that will affect the
order the browser requests and downloads background images?


Bear this in mind, too - some browsers will call *all* images specified 
with the background property in your CSS file, whether they're needed 
for that page or not. I fell foul of this one, and was wondering why my 
first page was taking ges to render. The solution? Boring, but 
multiple CSS files, one for each page, containing only the bg image 
declarations for that page.


HTH...

Nick
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Re: [WSG] li background image

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 14 Dec 2005, at 11:19 AM, Nathan Wheatley wrote:


it does not work. I can't see why it
does not, but after measuring the pixel height of the buttons the
above outputs, the height is only 15px.

Is there a way to force the 26px height?


Add 'line-height: 26px' to your declaration for li...

HTH

N
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Re: [WSG] Noise (was) Mambo & Accessibility

[Nick Gleitzman]

Is it my imagination, or has this list acquired an unreasonable amount 
of noise lately? Aren't there separate lists for  CMS and/or software 
issues? Call me a grouch, but all I've seen in the last little while 
has been FF1.5 and Mambo...


C'mon, guys - can we get back OT, please?

N
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Re: [WSG] Safari not loading website

[Nick Gleitzman]

We are using relative links in Javascript to open the attachments.

Could please anyone shed light on what might be causing this.


Well, you've answered your own question! Use absolute paths in your 
links. (and... Lotus Notes?! Ouch...)


N
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Re: [WSG] Validate a PNG?

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 9 Nov 2005, at 7:02 PM, Absalom Media wrote:


...and the
requirements state XHTML and CSS compliance as a specific requirement
for submission to the contest.

The twist is that the designs must be submitted as PNG or JPG...


Huh? Sounds to me like the organisers just don't know what they're 
talking about. Unless their intention is to vet designs as images, and 
only look at the code of shortlisted entries - ?


Weird.

Nick
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Re: [WSG] is this a tabular data?

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 30 Oct 2005, at 11:43 PM, Jad Madi wrote:


I'm not sure if i'm going to use defining trick, what I know about
standards markup and symantic, is to use the tag by it's meaning
rather than by How it look like,


If that is so, can you do any better with your class names than 
'pinktext' and 'bold'? What if it gets changed to green, italic text?


N
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Re: [WSG] Stop the Presses! Announcing the supercool search plugi n!

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 7 Oct 2005, at 9:15 AM, Drake, Ted C. wrote:


it is going to make my life much easier


Ted, speaking of which - HTML messages, untrimmed - up to 34KB, and 
counting. Do us a favour?


Thx - N
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Re: [WSG] CSS class and id naming conventions

[Nick Gleitzman]

James Oppenheim wrote:

I tend to use underscore for class and id, try very much to stay away 
from two word file names.


This is a question (discussion?) that comes up every couple of months 
here on the list - ultimately, I reckon you'll get as many 
'conventions' in use as you've offered suggestions. I think it's very 
much down to the individual - and the ease with which other members of 
a team (or inheritors of legacy code) can work with your css.


I believe there are strong arguments for creating filenames that result 
in logical, human-readable URLs.


Underscores in class & id names are not a good idea - some browsers 
don't read them properly, and the styles aren't rendered properly, if 
at all... from memory, an early Safari was one such.


HTH
N
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Re: [WSG] Hiding Headings

[Nick Gleitzman]

 Joseph R. B. Taylor wrote:



1. Put the H1 in there, but set it's display to "none" on the style 
sheet.


2. Set the header overflow to hidden, then set the top padding on the 
H1 to be a pixel more than the header's height - thereby hiding the 
heading text.


One problem I discovered with the second method - you can drag the 
content in Firefox, revealing the heading...


Which approach is better?  Do search engine spiders know the heading 
is hidden in scenario one and skip that text?  Is there a known 
workaround for the issue caused by scenario two?


Instead of {display: none}, use {margin-left: 999px}. Visitors won't 
see the H1 text, but Search Engines will; and nothing to see if content 
dragged...


N
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Re: [WSG] computer arts mag article/review

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 26 Sep 2005, at 10:11 AM, kvnmcwebn wrote:

Do most wsg members - who do both the design and mark up - actually go 
to

code when the design is done without looking back?

I try but alway end up going back and forth to make improvments. It 
eats

time.

This is probably the biggest benefit of the whole web standards 
process for
me, i mean the time it saves when i decide to change something after 
im 30

pages into a site.

I guess part of my  question is when do you know the design is there 
from a

wsg point of view?

Is it when you know the client will go wow that looks nice?


maybe this is o.t. and too subjective a topic


No, I don't think it's OT. To qualify my tongue-in-cheek comment about 
a cheque - design is not a static process. It's a continuum. And with 
this medium in particular, unlike print where sooner or later a 
commitment has to be made, the design process carries right into 
production. Many clients will continue to request changes as they 'live 
with' the designs we supply, and coding to Standards, as you say, makes 
incorporating those changes much, much easier - regardless of what 
stage of development a site is at.


That's not to say we shouldn't charge for those changes, of course. 
Careful control of 'scope creep' and a clear agreement about what 
constitutes author's corrections should always be in place...


N
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Re: [WSG] computer arts mag article/review

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 26 Sep 2005, at 9:50 AM, Duncan Heal wrote:

Incidentally, is there some sort of 'real' designer certificate I can 
get?! ;)


Yup, it's called a cheque from a satisfied client.

N
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Re: [WSG] UTF and IE/Mac - extra character?

[Nick Gleitzman]

First thing I thought when reading your message: BOM. And indeed, it 
is there.


I remember, when I still used BBEdit @version 7, I had a hard time 
getting rid of it. I think you have to set it first in the application 
prefs, save without BOM, before opening any document.


Thanks, Philippe. That did it. I needed to set the prefs, then open a 
new doc, paste the code into it from the old one, and save. Voila - 
errant character gone.


Cheers

N
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Re: [WSG] UTF and IE/Mac - extra character?

[Nick Gleitzman]

Hmm, until I read that part, I was going to say "just set the encoding 
to UTF-8, no BOM", because I had exactly the same problem using 
BBEdit, and solved it that way.


When you say you've set "prefs", have you used the "options" button in 
the Save dialog box to set the encoding? That's what I did.


Well, yes - in BBEdit Preferences, if you set 'UTF-8, no BOM' as the 
default for 'Text Files: Saving', that's how files are saved. You can 
then use the Options button in the Save dialog to override this on a 
file-by-file basis...


N
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[WSG] UTF and IE/Mac - extra character?

[Nick Gleitzman]

Hi all

I'd really appreciate it if anyone can shed light on this non-critical 
but annoying anomaly.


I've just built a couple of pages using UTF encoding, rather than 
iso-8859-1, and all is as expected, except that in IE/Mac, if you View 
Source, there's a single character ('?') as the very first character of 
the file - and it renders. Thought at first it might be a localhost 
thing, but it happens with the online version as well... This character 
is not evident when Viewing Source with any other browser - or in the 
HTML file.


HTML is written with BBEdit; I've set prefs to save files as UTF-8 
(tried with and without BOM - makes no difference).


Any ideas, anyone?

Page is at http://www.omnivision.com.au/reed/index.htm

Thanks

Nick
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Re: [WSG] the struggle to get valid

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 10 Sep 2005, at 7:18 AM, Drake, Ted C. wrote:


I hope everyone has a nice weekend.

I thought I'd share a little code I stumbled upon on one of our legacy
includes.

 
<

br>


I'm tempted to extend that to 'I hope everyone has a break (or 32) over  
the weekend...'


N
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Re: [WSG] Educate the educators (was) Barclays standards redesign

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 8 Sep 2005, at 10:43 AM, Andreas Boehmer [Addictive Media] wrote:


H This is going way off-topic, right?


No, no - I've enjoyed the couple of heatedly debated threads over the 
past couple of days far more than the 'please fix my code' posts - 
without please or thank you - that are such a prominent feature of this 
list. It *is* a discussion group, isn't it?


And I think that formal education of Standards is a critical way to get 
the word out there... and so, on topic. Admin, if you disagree, I'm 
sure we'll hear from you...


N
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Re: [WSG] Educate the educators (was) Barclays standards redesign

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 8 Sep 2005, at 10:43 AM, Andreas Boehmer [Addictive Media] wrote:

But not everybody can afford this kind of employment mix. If you are a 
full
time lecturer all you can rely on is books, training courses and 
seminars to

learn from.


What about the web itself?


That's actually no different to being a student, with the
exception that the lecturer has got a full time job in addition to 
having to

learn all the stuff they have to then teach.


...and that's no different from having a full-time job as a developer, 
and having to research - and learn - all the new stuff.


This industry makes it really hard to be a good long-term teacher, I 
think.
If you are professor of mathematics you can pretty much rely on things 
not
changing too much over the years. But teaching web development or 
something

similar requires you to be learning new things non-stop.


Of course it does - as does any field that is based on emerging, and 
rapidly changing, technology. Sorry, but 'I haven't got time' is a 
copout, IMO. I think what's more relevant is how long it takes for 
curriculum changes to be formulated, approved, and implemented - which 
takes time, because of the administrative structure of so many 
educational institutions. I know - I've worked on curriculum 
development committees in the past, and it took two years for the 
changes to reach the students - by which time the real world had moved 
on...


N
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Re: [WSG] Educate the educators

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 8 Sep 2005, at 9:48 AM, Herrod, Lisa wrote:


There are actually a few excellent teachers at Sydney Institute (ultimo
TAFE) who understand and teach web site design and development with a 
real
focus on web standards. Their knowledge is extremely current and while 
the

old addage of

'Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach.'


is sometimes true, it isn't always. and defineitely not in this case.


Thanks for the heads up, Lisa - that's really good to know. I did 
preface that adage with '(cynical)' - and I realise that my comments 
about education were a vast generalisation.


So, newbies of the world, take note - Sydney is the place to be, if you 
want to learn how to do it right!


N
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Re: [WSG] Barclays standards redesign

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 8 Sep 2005, at 9:31 AM, Paul Bennett wrote:

be glad you're learning about web standards now - it'll make getting a 
good job a lot easier.


The capability of my tutors wasn't much better than yours. Even 
Zeldman has lamented lately (sorry - googled and couldn't find the 
entry) that Universities can teach molecular physics but apparently 
are unable to teach standards-compliant web design.


...which just goes to prove the value of the Web itself as a community 
- and of lists like this.


To paraphrase that old saw again: 'Those that can, do - and share. 
Those that can't, just get in the way.'


BTW, just out of interest, I searched JZ's site for 'physics' with his 
internal search (Atomz?) and got only 3 references - to 'fiasco'. Kinda 
apt, though...


N
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[WSG] Educate the educators (was) Barclays standards redesign

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 8 Sep 2005, at 8:59 AM, Craig Rippon wrote:

by-the-by:  I am a web development student at Yeronga TAFE college in 
Brisbane, Australia. One of my instructors has never heard of DOCTYPE, 
refuses to put tags in lowercase and also refuses to close , 'cause 
they don't need to be closed.


Which just goes to prove the (cynical) old saw: 'Those that can, do. 
Those that can't, teach.'


Seriously, this is a good example of how important it is that tertiary 
education the world over keeps its curriculum up to speed with what's 
happening in the real world. Difficult, I know, given the 
administrative behemoths that are responsible for govt-run education - 
but as a student, if your course is not up to scratch, you should 
complain - in writing - to the highest power that you can. Maybe your 
local MP? It may take years for change to come about, and probably 
won't help you, but it may help the students down the line...


N
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Re: [WSG] Troubleshooting page in Internet Explorer Mac

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 4 Sep 2005, at 8:33 PM, Officelink wrote:


  I'm having problems with the following page:

http://www.officelinkonline.com.au/test/

  It works fine in all modern browsers except Internet Explorer for 
the mac where the divs are stretching way over to the right for some 
reason.



A quick look suggests that the problem lies with the nav block - if you 
disable the link to , you lose the styling of the nav, of 
course, but the rest of the page renders correctly. Seems that 
something in  is conflicting with something in 
...


Sorry to be vague, but it's late...

HTH
N
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Re: [WSG] Online Resources for HTML Beginners

[Nick Gleitzman]

Mordechai Peller wrote:

In general, you should recommend that they examine the code of well 
written, semantically correct pages.


Sure, but first you have to teach them to recognise such things...

N
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Re: [WSG] Randomly load images into the background-image selector...

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 24 Aug 2005, at 6:47 PM, Bennie, Jack wrote:

Does anyone know any neat code [JScript/CSS - not PHP] that can 
randomly load a selection of images into the 'background-image' 
selector?


Which makes me wonder - will a browser call and execute javascript if 
it's contained within, or linked from, a CSS file?


N
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Re: [WSG] Center aligning links with a specified height

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 23 Aug 2005, at 8:41 AM, Adam Burmister ((DSL AK)) wrote:


Could somebody please check it in Safari?



Hmm again - not quite.

See < http://www.omnivision.com.au/test/safari.gif >

Sorry, gotta go to work right now - I'll check in later and see how 
you're doing...


N
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Re: [WSG] Center aligning links with a specified height

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 23 Aug 2005, at 7:48 AM, Kenny Graham wrote:

Try keeping them inline, and setting line-height to 40px.  As long as 
word-wrap doesn't become a factor, that should work fine.  But since 
you're using pixels, I'm guessing word-wrap would already cause 
problems anyway.




Hmm... line-height on the  works for me in Safari 1.3/OSX 10.3.9 and 
IE6/WInXP, but not in Firefox - strange.


I do, however, offer this solution to the centering issue - see my 
modifications to your code at

< http://www.omnivision.com.au/test/center_test.htm >

Note that, when testing, I use backgrounds rather than borders to 
identify the various elements; I find this gives a more accurate idea 
of layout. If you have a number of nested elements, all those borders 
add up to extra space...


I've left your CSS rules that I've disabled in the code, but commented 
out so you can see what they were.


Note also that the inline-block solution doesn't work in IE5/Mac...

I think the key to centering the list is in an extra containing div 
(id="shell") that allows the whole footer to be centered, with no fixed 
width, so that {margin: 0 auto} works to center it, and it then expands 
to the the width of its content (the ). This extra div is 
semantically null, I guess, but I'll take it as a viable solution!


Now for that height issue...

HTH

N
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Re: [WSG] IE in Virtual PC

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 22 Aug 2005, at 12:18 AM, Jan Brasna wrote:

Does this statement imply the machine hosting Virtual PC and IE  
becomes vulnerable to malicious software?


No. Only the guest OS (WXP, W2K) is vulnerable. It runs in sandbox.


no reason to suspect anything will be different


Colors are different (due to the matter of Mac's different gamma).


It's straightforward to set up a monitor profile with a gamma that 
matches a PC's.



How does using VPC, compare to just using Browser Cam?


You can try behavior or interaction too.


...and resize browser windows, zoom text etc, to check effectiveness of 
liquid design.


Personally, I find being able to test CSS variations (box model hacks, 
for instance) in real time, in a real browser environment, an 
invaluable dvelopment tool, and one that was well worth the expense. 
Heck, I covered the cost of the software in the time I saved testing 
the first site I built after I installed it!


N
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Re: [WSG] IE in Virtual PC

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 21 Aug 2005, at 10:31 PM, Chris Kennon wrote:

Does IE in Virtual PC display the same quirks as the XP, 2000 version 
of IE? I'm a MAC OS user, but  would like to test CSS in IE before 
going to Browser CAM.


Hope this clarifies :)

C

PS
The wit of this list is just a sharp as the knowledge.



Thanks for the compliment, Chris (I think).

Philippe has pretty much answered the question. You load Win OS into 
VPC from original MS disks, so there's no reason to suspect anything 
will be different... I run WIn 2K and XP on VP7 on a 2x2GHz G5, and 
it's still much slower than a native Wintel box, as the processor is 
emulated by the software, but it's plenty good enough for testing. I've 
never come across anything that renders differently...


HTH

N
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Re: [WSG] IE in Virtual PC

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 20 Aug 2005, at 7:48 AM, Chris Kennon wrote:

Would some knowledgeable participant enlighten on the behavior of IE 
in Virtual PC for the MAC?



Respectfully,
C

PS
 I hope my questions are not banal,  due to the absences of replies,
 I'm beginning to feel like the carrier of something contagious :)


Well, not banal, maybe, but certainly a little vague... (at least this 
one).


The answer that first comes to mind is - it displays web sites. Now, 
what is it that you really want to know?


N
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Re: [WSG] Getting an image to slide behind another, not drop below

[Nick Gleitzman]

On 12 Aug 2005, at 5:17 AM, Richard Lake wrote:


if I could somehow get the right hand image slide to behind the left
hand image instead of drop beneath it then I can support widths of 
less than

770 without the header breaking. Is there a way of doing this?


Richard, check out my site; I do just this in my header (well, reversed 
L>R, but you'll get the idea). Help yourself...


N
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