Re: [WSG] Implication of empty divs

[Anthony Ziebell]

If you use a tool such as tidy html in xhtml mode it will delete your empty tags... probably a setting to turn that feature off, but something to think about... Cheers, Anthony. Gerard Hynes (Gmail) wrote: My advice below. Cheers, Gerard On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 9:33 AM, Ben Lau <bensan...@gmail.com> wrote: Hi all, Are there any (seriously) bad implications of having empty DIVs around your HTML document? I try to avoid using them personally, but there are cases where the visual design has forced me to add empty divs (or spans) just to achieve the look. Apart from adding extra weight and cluttering the document, I understand screen readers do not pick up divs and spans? I'm not expert about screen readers, but I did run a site I upgraded through JAWS with some interesting results. The site had alot of <p>&nbsp;</p> due to the CMS they were using and JAWS would translate this to/speak out "blank" which wasn't ideal. Am not sure if it would do the same for <p></p> or <div></div> or <div />. Would I be better off to insert these meaningless decorative tags using _javascript_ and modifying the DOM, while non-_javascript_ users would see a more cut down version of the design? Do screen readers pick up _javascript_ and events? _javascript_ solution could work, but I would run your page through a screen reader first and see if you're happy with the result. You can download demo of JAWS from http://www.freedomscientific.com/products/fs/jaws-product-page.asp You'll probably identify other areas of content that could be improved for screen readers. He's a good article about the topic http://www.webaim.org/techniques/screenreader/ Cheers, ben ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ******************************************************************* ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ******************************************************************* ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *******************************************************************