On 1 Jan 2006, at 6:00 AM, Patrick H. Lauke wrote:
Coming in late on this:
As per the spec
http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/tables.html#adef-summary
"summary = text [CS]
This attribute provides a summary of the table's purpose and
structure for user agents rendering to non-visual media such as speech
and Braille."
So I'd say it's a combination of *purpose* and structure, and I'd say
that it should be in that order as well. Assuming a screenreader user
gets the summary, they'd presumably want to know what the table is for
first (so they can quickly decide whether or not they're interested in
it or want to skip it) before getting a whole "column one does this,
column two does that" structural description. So, something like
"Earnings for Blahblah Ltd in 2005, broken down by month. The first
column has the months, the second column has the earnings for that
particular month" or something along those lines...(yes, I suck at
examples, but you get the idea)
Sure, unless of course you are reading a page called "Earnings for
Blahblah in 2005" and your table has a caption like "Earning for
Blahblah 2005 by Month" where repeating that info (the purpose) in the
summary is redundant.
kind regards
Terrence Wood.
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