Skip to main content


Eclipse Community Forums
Forum Search:

Search      Help    Register    Login    Home
Home » Eclipse Projects » Eclipse Website » Web Accessibility
Web Accessibility [message #3179] Wed, 04 May 2005 17:48 Go to next message
Stanimir Stamenkov is currently offline Stanimir StamenkovFriend
Messages: 256
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
One of the things that irritate me about the current site and more
obviously with the new example home page is the content do not
follow or better stated it is created against any Web accessibility
standards.

The most stare point: the fonts and font sizes. Please don't bother
styling the font for the main text (e.g. paragraphs, etc.) so it
would be my preferred and most comfortable one, and specify font
sizes for other elements like headings, smaller notes with relative
units. Currently the new example home page defaults to 11px size
font, which is about 7pt size and which is so damn tiny.

On the new example home page, the document markup is far from
perfect: nested tables all over the place.

For these and many other web content accessibility issues please
refer to the "comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html" and
"comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets" groups. There are even
published guidelines from the W3C:

http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/

For even more info check the W3C "Web Accessibility Initiative" site
<http://www.w3.org/WAI/>.

--
Stanimir
Re: Web Accessibility [message #3212 is a reply to message #3179] Thu, 05 May 2005 01:48 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse Webmaster is currently offline Eclipse WebmasterFriend
Messages: 607343
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
Stanimir,

Thanks for the feedback. I feel the text font is a bit small on the
prototype page as well. I use Firefox on Linux, and although the text
is readable, I have to squint.

I don't see what the issue is behind nested tables. They are practically
a must if you want to build a website that looks anything more than just
simple lines of text (without using frames!). I looked at a few
documents on thew W3C and I couldn't find much that indicated this
technique was frowned upon.

I do agree that we should adhere to open standards as much as possible,
and I'd like to encourage the content developers working on Phoenix to
consider this as well.

Denis


Stanimir Stamenkov wrote:
> One of the things that irritate me about the current site and more
> obviously with the new example home page is the content do not follow or
> better stated it is created against any Web accessibility standards.
>
> The most stare point: the fonts and font sizes. Please don't bother
> styling the font for the main text (e.g. paragraphs, etc.) so it would
> be my preferred and most comfortable one, and specify font sizes for
> other elements like headings, smaller notes with relative units.
> Currently the new example home page defaults to 11px size font, which is
> about 7pt size and which is so damn tiny.
>
> On the new example home page, the document markup is far from perfect:
> nested tables all over the place.
>
> For these and many other web content accessibility issues please refer
> to the "comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html" and
> "comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets" groups. There are even
> published guidelines from the W3C:
>
> http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/
>
> For even more info check the W3C "Web Accessibility Initiative" site
> <http://www.w3.org/WAI/>.
>
Re: Web Accessibility [message #3375 is a reply to message #3212] Thu, 05 May 2005 20:01 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Stanimir Stamenkov is currently offline Stanimir StamenkovFriend
Messages: 256
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
I'll try to be brief because discussing details on general content
authoring should go in the appropriate groups such I've mentioned
before.

/Eclipse WebMaster (Denis Roy)/:

> I don't see what the issue is behind nested tables.They are practically
> a must if you want to build a website that looks anything more than just
> simple lines of text (without using frames!). I looked at a few
> documents on thew W3C and I couldn't find much that indicated this
> technique was frowned upon.

"Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0"
<http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/#gl-structure-presentation>:

> Guideline 3. Use markup and style sheets and do so properly.
>
> Mark up documents with the proper structural elements. Control
> presentation with style sheets rather than with presentation
> elements and attributes.
>
> Using markup improperly -- not according to specification -- hinders
> accessibility. Misusing markup for a presentation effect (e.g.,
> using a table for layout or a header to change the font size) makes
> it difficult for users with specialized software to understand the
> organization of the page or to navigate through it. [...]

Thus said, without using some kind of specialized software, if I
need to change something I don't like (makes me uncomfortable, to
read or whatever) about the Eclipse site, through user stylesheets I
would need to dig pretty deep into the markup mess.

If you need examples of table-less, frames-less layouts you could
take a look at the following examples. Probably the most simple
three-column layout:

"World Wide Web Consortium" <http://www.w3.org/>

The same thing as part of a contest for a fancy new design for the
W3C site
(< http://www.webstandards.org/buzz/archive/2003_04.html#a00015 1>):

http://www.homelesspixel.de/remix/

Now, these were single page examples. The following are sites:

"Complex Spiral Consulting" <http://www.complexspiral.com/> (I think
that one is run by Eric Meyer, mentioned below)

Eric Meyer's "CSS Edge" <http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/>
(one could check out the complete www.meyerweb.com)

What about the Mozilla <http://www.mozilla.org/> and Opera
<http://www.opera.com/> sites? Even the site of the inventors of one
of the most inaccessible "web technology" (probably because of its
proprietary nature): Macromedia <http://www.macromedia.com/>.

Here's an example I've played with in the past:

http://www.byteberry.com/experimental/home.html

I'm not professional web content designer, but I'm a programmer
where I was in the need to implement web interfaces for various
applications and so I've learned couple of general authoring things.
There are things which I don't like in the implementaion of the
above "experiment" but I wanted to show some friends of mine what is
the much more proper way to do the original content
<http://www.byteberry.com/>.

What's common about these: if one use a decent browser like Mozilla
or Opera he/she could turn the author specified style off and he/she
could see how neat it looks even without "fancy" style applied - the
same thing would be visible using a text browser like Lynx, for
example (I enjoy using it pretty much). Now you could look at the
source markup as well - how clean it is. Internet Explorer users
could check this out (switching the style off) using a so called
"zap style sheets" bookmarklet:

"Bookmarklets for Zapping Annoyances"
<http://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html>

Apart from accessibility, using a proper markup would benefit for
easier finding of information through search engines enabling them
to do indexing/searching the content better.

--
Stanimir
Re: Web Accessibility [message #4256 is a reply to message #3375] Fri, 06 May 2005 17:49 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse Webmaster is currently offline Eclipse WebmasterFriend
Messages: 607343
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
Stanimir,

This was a very, very interesting and informative read. Thanks for
providing code examples. I've tested the pages below with Firefox on
Linux, Lynx on Linux and elinks on Linux and they all render great.
Perhaps the Windows and Mac camps can try them out and provide feedback?

Andrew, what are your thoughts on this thread? I'd like for the new
eclipse.org to be as W3C-compliant as possible (within reason) and I
believe the example pages below demonstrate how one can design
structured layouts without using frames or nested tables.

D.



Stanimir Stamenkov wrote:
> I'll try to be brief because discussing details on general content
> authoring should go in the appropriate groups such I've mentioned before.
>
> /Eclipse WebMaster (Denis Roy)/:
>
>> I don't see what the issue is behind nested tables.They are
>> practically a must if you want to build a website that looks anything
>> more than just simple lines of text (without using frames!). I looked
>> at a few documents on thew W3C and I couldn't find much that indicated
>> this technique was frowned upon.
>
>
> "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0"
> <http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/#gl-structure-presentation>:
>
>> Guideline 3. Use markup and style sheets and do so properly.
>>
>> Mark up documents with the proper structural elements. Control
>> presentation with style sheets rather than with presentation elements
>> and attributes.
>>
>> Using markup improperly -- not according to specification -- hinders
>> accessibility. Misusing markup for a presentation effect (e.g., using
>> a table for layout or a header to change the font size) makes it
>> difficult for users with specialized software to understand the
>> organization of the page or to navigate through it. [...]
>
>
> Thus said, without using some kind of specialized software, if I need to
> change something I don't like (makes me uncomfortable, to read or
> whatever) about the Eclipse site, through user stylesheets I would need
> to dig pretty deep into the markup mess.
>
> If you need examples of table-less, frames-less layouts you could take a
> look at the following examples. Probably the most simple three-column
> layout:
>
> "World Wide Web Consortium" <http://www.w3.org/>
>
> The same thing as part of a contest for a fancy new design for the W3C
> site (< http://www.webstandards.org/buzz/archive/2003_04.html#a00015 1>):
>
> http://www.homelesspixel.de/remix/
>
> Now, these were single page examples. The following are sites:
>
> "Complex Spiral Consulting" <http://www.complexspiral.com/> (I think
> that one is run by Eric Meyer, mentioned below)
>
> Eric Meyer's "CSS Edge" <http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/> (one
> could check out the complete www.meyerweb.com)
>
> What about the Mozilla <http://www.mozilla.org/> and Opera
> <http://www.opera.com/> sites? Even the site of the inventors of one of
> the most inaccessible "web technology" (probably because of its
> proprietary nature): Macromedia <http://www.macromedia.com/>.
>
> Here's an example I've played with in the past:
>
> http://www.byteberry.com/experimental/home.html
>
> I'm not professional web content designer, but I'm a programmer where I
> was in the need to implement web interfaces for various applications and
> so I've learned couple of general authoring things. There are things
> which I don't like in the implementaion of the above "experiment" but I
> wanted to show some friends of mine what is the much more proper way to
> do the original content <http://www.byteberry.com/>.
>
> What's common about these: if one use a decent browser like Mozilla or
> Opera he/she could turn the author specified style off and he/she could
> see how neat it looks even without "fancy" style applied - the same
> thing would be visible using a text browser like Lynx, for example (I
> enjoy using it pretty much). Now you could look at the source markup as
> well - how clean it is. Internet Explorer users could check this out
> (switching the style off) using a so called "zap style sheets" bookmarklet:
>
> "Bookmarklets for Zapping Annoyances"
> <http://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html>
>
> Apart from accessibility, using a proper markup would benefit for easier
> finding of information through search engines enabling them to do
> indexing/searching the content better.
>
Re: Web Accessibility [message #4606 is a reply to message #4256] Sat, 07 May 2005 16:51 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Stanimir Stamenkov is currently offline Stanimir StamenkovFriend
Messages: 256
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
/Eclipse WebMaster (Denis Roy)/:

> I've tested the pages below with Firefox on
> Linux, Lynx on Linux and elinks on Linux and they all render great.
> Perhaps the Windows and Mac camps can try them out and provide feedback?

I'm on Windows and I've tried the examples with Internet Explorer,
too. In my experience Internet Explorer is the most difficult to
satisfy, being the one having most quirks - to make it the proper
way and at the same not breaking the initial intention for the
presentation.

> Andrew, what are your thoughts on this thread? I'd like for the new
> eclipse.org to be as W3C-compliant as possible (within reason) and I
> believe the example pages below demonstrate how one can design
> structured layouts without using frames or nested tables.

Here's a simple set of things which one should always follow, IMO:

"Quality Tips for Webmasters" <http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/>

To describe the structure of a page the following are mandatory:

"Use <h1> for top-level heading"
<http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/Use_h1_for_Title>

"Use headings to structure your document"
<http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/headings>

--
Stanimir
Re: Web Accessibility [message #5659 is a reply to message #4606] Mon, 09 May 2005 19:11 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: andrew.geraghty.javalin.ca

I also would like to see the new eclipse.org meet the needs of as many
users as possible, however I think the presentation layer of the site should
meet the objectives of our project. We could take advantage of the
flexibility of CSS design. This site http://csszengarden.com/ demonstrates
CSS by letting the user switch between different designs without any change
in markup. The designs are not to my taste (nor do they reflect our
intentions for eclipse.org) but they are competently executed.



In my experience meeting this type of very rigid compliance (W3C) leads to
endless discussion threads and little enhancement to the visual vocabulary
of a site. The design elements used in a web site are as important as the
sites content and information architecture. You can have both utility and
appealing aesthetics. We should compile 'must have' list of accessibility
requirements. But should not limit the overall design of Eclipse.org if we
are to meet our project objectives.



"Stanimir Stamenkov" <stanio@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:d5is3e$m1p$1@news.eclipse.org...
> /Eclipse WebMaster (Denis Roy)/:
>
>> I've tested the pages below with Firefox on Linux, Lynx on Linux and
>> elinks on Linux and they all render great. Perhaps the Windows and Mac
>> camps can try them out and provide feedback?
>
> I'm on Windows and I've tried the examples with Internet Explorer, too. In
> my experience Internet Explorer is the most difficult to satisfy, being
> the one having most quirks - to make it the proper way and at the same not
> breaking the initial intention for the presentation.
>
>> Andrew, what are your thoughts on this thread? I'd like for the new
>> eclipse.org to be as W3C-compliant as possible (within reason) and I
>> believe the example pages below demonstrate how one can design structured
>> layouts without using frames or nested tables.
>
> Here's a simple set of things which one should always follow, IMO:
>
> "Quality Tips for Webmasters" <http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/>
>
> To describe the structure of a page the following are mandatory:
>
> "Use <h1> for top-level heading"
> <http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/Use_h1_for_Title>
>
> "Use headings to structure your document"
> <http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/headings>
>
> --
> Stanimir
Re: Web Accessibility [message #5820 is a reply to message #5659] Mon, 16 May 2005 23:24 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: kim.pepper.gmail.com

I'm a full-time web developer and would like to point out some of the
benefits of 'web standards' using XHTML/CSS.

<soap-box>

1. cross-browser support
All modern browsers support web standards. there are a few quirks with ie,
but a few css hacks are preferable to major html markup hacks such as table
layouts and spacer gifs.

2. page weight reduced
less markup = faster page load and reduced bandwidth costs

3. separation of concerns between design and content
lets designers focus on design and content creators focus on content

4. semantic page markup
reading xhtml markup is easier when meaningful tags are used (h1,h2,p,ul,
li) instead of trolling through nested table structures

5. accessibility
pages can are kinder to screen readers and user-set browser preferences for
larger text by the visually impared

6. internationalisation
the same style sheet to be applied to a number of different language pages
without duplication of code


</soap-box >
Re: Web Accessibility [message #5837 is a reply to message #5820] Mon, 16 May 2005 23:27 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: kim.pepper.gmail.com

7. Search-friendly pages
Search engine robots can index pages more accurately when the markup is more
semantic (e.g. using 21, h2 and p tags)
Re: Web Accessibility [message #5870 is a reply to message #5837] Tue, 17 May 2005 01:18 Go to previous message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: adlaiff6.gmail.com

<div post="first">
I, too, am a huge supporter of CSS/XHTML for the same reasons as above,
but mostly because it's easier to code a coherent scheme for an entire
site, and is much easier on the server, especially for a large site, to
have lightweight tags in every page and one large stylesheet (with maybe
a few header stylesheet addons).

I would be gladly willing to help turn any complete HTML project into
CSS/XHTML if needed, and I could probably help write the CSS/XHTML if
you need that too.
</div>
Re: Web Accessibility [message #561996 is a reply to message #3179] Thu, 05 May 2005 01:48 Go to previous message
Eclipse Webmaster is currently offline Eclipse WebmasterFriend
Messages: 607343
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
Stanimir,

Thanks for the feedback. I feel the text font is a bit small on the
prototype page as well. I use Firefox on Linux, and although the text
is readable, I have to squint.

I don't see what the issue is behind nested tables. They are practically
a must if you want to build a website that looks anything more than just
simple lines of text (without using frames!). I looked at a few
documents on thew W3C and I couldn't find much that indicated this
technique was frowned upon.

I do agree that we should adhere to open standards as much as possible,
and I'd like to encourage the content developers working on Phoenix to
consider this as well.

Denis


Stanimir Stamenkov wrote:
> One of the things that irritate me about the current site and more
> obviously with the new example home page is the content do not follow or
> better stated it is created against any Web accessibility standards.
>
> The most stare point: the fonts and font sizes. Please don't bother
> styling the font for the main text (e.g. paragraphs, etc.) so it would
> be my preferred and most comfortable one, and specify font sizes for
> other elements like headings, smaller notes with relative units.
> Currently the new example home page defaults to 11px size font, which is
> about 7pt size and which is so damn tiny.
>
> On the new example home page, the document markup is far from perfect:
> nested tables all over the place.
>
> For these and many other web content accessibility issues please refer
> to the "comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html" and
> "comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets" groups. There are even
> published guidelines from the W3C:
>
> http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/
>
> For even more info check the W3C "Web Accessibility Initiative" site
> <http://www.w3.org/WAI/>.
>
Re: Web Accessibility [message #562105 is a reply to message #3212] Thu, 05 May 2005 20:01 Go to previous message
Stanimir Stamenkov is currently offline Stanimir StamenkovFriend
Messages: 256
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
I'll try to be brief because discussing details on general content
authoring should go in the appropriate groups such I've mentioned
before.

/Eclipse WebMaster (Denis Roy)/:

> I don't see what the issue is behind nested tables.They are practically
> a must if you want to build a website that looks anything more than just
> simple lines of text (without using frames!). I looked at a few
> documents on thew W3C and I couldn't find much that indicated this
> technique was frowned upon.

"Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0"
<http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/#gl-structure-presentation>:

> Guideline 3. Use markup and style sheets and do so properly.
>
> Mark up documents with the proper structural elements. Control
> presentation with style sheets rather than with presentation
> elements and attributes.
>
> Using markup improperly -- not according to specification -- hinders
> accessibility. Misusing markup for a presentation effect (e.g.,
> using a table for layout or a header to change the font size) makes
> it difficult for users with specialized software to understand the
> organization of the page or to navigate through it. [...]

Thus said, without using some kind of specialized software, if I
need to change something I don't like (makes me uncomfortable, to
read or whatever) about the Eclipse site, through user stylesheets I
would need to dig pretty deep into the markup mess.

If you need examples of table-less, frames-less layouts you could
take a look at the following examples. Probably the most simple
three-column layout:

"World Wide Web Consortium" <http://www.w3.org/>

The same thing as part of a contest for a fancy new design for the
W3C site
(< http://www.webstandards.org/buzz/archive/2003_04.html#a00015 1>):

http://www.homelesspixel.de/remix/

Now, these were single page examples. The following are sites:

"Complex Spiral Consulting" <http://www.complexspiral.com/> (I think
that one is run by Eric Meyer, mentioned below)

Eric Meyer's "CSS Edge" <http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/>
(one could check out the complete www.meyerweb.com)

What about the Mozilla <http://www.mozilla.org/> and Opera
<http://www.opera.com/> sites? Even the site of the inventors of one
of the most inaccessible "web technology" (probably because of its
proprietary nature): Macromedia <http://www.macromedia.com/>.

Here's an example I've played with in the past:

http://www.byteberry.com/experimental/home.html

I'm not professional web content designer, but I'm a programmer
where I was in the need to implement web interfaces for various
applications and so I've learned couple of general authoring things.
There are things which I don't like in the implementaion of the
above "experiment" but I wanted to show some friends of mine what is
the much more proper way to do the original content
<http://www.byteberry.com/>.

What's common about these: if one use a decent browser like Mozilla
or Opera he/she could turn the author specified style off and he/she
could see how neat it looks even without "fancy" style applied - the
same thing would be visible using a text browser like Lynx, for
example (I enjoy using it pretty much). Now you could look at the
source markup as well - how clean it is. Internet Explorer users
could check this out (switching the style off) using a so called
"zap style sheets" bookmarklet:

"Bookmarklets for Zapping Annoyances"
<http://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html>

Apart from accessibility, using a proper markup would benefit for
easier finding of information through search engines enabling them
to do indexing/searching the content better.

--
Stanimir
Re: Web Accessibility [message #562465 is a reply to message #3375] Fri, 06 May 2005 17:49 Go to previous message
Eclipse Webmaster is currently offline Eclipse WebmasterFriend
Messages: 607343
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
Stanimir,

This was a very, very interesting and informative read. Thanks for
providing code examples. I've tested the pages below with Firefox on
Linux, Lynx on Linux and elinks on Linux and they all render great.
Perhaps the Windows and Mac camps can try them out and provide feedback?

Andrew, what are your thoughts on this thread? I'd like for the new
eclipse.org to be as W3C-compliant as possible (within reason) and I
believe the example pages below demonstrate how one can design
structured layouts without using frames or nested tables.

D.



Stanimir Stamenkov wrote:
> I'll try to be brief because discussing details on general content
> authoring should go in the appropriate groups such I've mentioned before.
>
> /Eclipse WebMaster (Denis Roy)/:
>
>> I don't see what the issue is behind nested tables.They are
>> practically a must if you want to build a website that looks anything
>> more than just simple lines of text (without using frames!). I looked
>> at a few documents on thew W3C and I couldn't find much that indicated
>> this technique was frowned upon.
>
>
> "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0"
> <http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/#gl-structure-presentation>:
>
>> Guideline 3. Use markup and style sheets and do so properly.
>>
>> Mark up documents with the proper structural elements. Control
>> presentation with style sheets rather than with presentation elements
>> and attributes.
>>
>> Using markup improperly -- not according to specification -- hinders
>> accessibility. Misusing markup for a presentation effect (e.g., using
>> a table for layout or a header to change the font size) makes it
>> difficult for users with specialized software to understand the
>> organization of the page or to navigate through it. [...]
>
>
> Thus said, without using some kind of specialized software, if I need to
> change something I don't like (makes me uncomfortable, to read or
> whatever) about the Eclipse site, through user stylesheets I would need
> to dig pretty deep into the markup mess.
>
> If you need examples of table-less, frames-less layouts you could take a
> look at the following examples. Probably the most simple three-column
> layout:
>
> "World Wide Web Consortium" <http://www.w3.org/>
>
> The same thing as part of a contest for a fancy new design for the W3C
> site (< http://www.webstandards.org/buzz/archive/2003_04.html#a00015 1>):
>
> http://www.homelesspixel.de/remix/
>
> Now, these were single page examples. The following are sites:
>
> "Complex Spiral Consulting" <http://www.complexspiral.com/> (I think
> that one is run by Eric Meyer, mentioned below)
>
> Eric Meyer's "CSS Edge" <http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/> (one
> could check out the complete www.meyerweb.com)
>
> What about the Mozilla <http://www.mozilla.org/> and Opera
> <http://www.opera.com/> sites? Even the site of the inventors of one of
> the most inaccessible "web technology" (probably because of its
> proprietary nature): Macromedia <http://www.macromedia.com/>.
>
> Here's an example I've played with in the past:
>
> http://www.byteberry.com/experimental/home.html
>
> I'm not professional web content designer, but I'm a programmer where I
> was in the need to implement web interfaces for various applications and
> so I've learned couple of general authoring things. There are things
> which I don't like in the implementaion of the above "experiment" but I
> wanted to show some friends of mine what is the much more proper way to
> do the original content <http://www.byteberry.com/>.
>
> What's common about these: if one use a decent browser like Mozilla or
> Opera he/she could turn the author specified style off and he/she could
> see how neat it looks even without "fancy" style applied - the same
> thing would be visible using a text browser like Lynx, for example (I
> enjoy using it pretty much). Now you could look at the source markup as
> well - how clean it is. Internet Explorer users could check this out
> (switching the style off) using a so called "zap style sheets" bookmarklet:
>
> "Bookmarklets for Zapping Annoyances"
> <http://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html>
>
> Apart from accessibility, using a proper markup would benefit for easier
> finding of information through search engines enabling them to do
> indexing/searching the content better.
>
Re: Web Accessibility [message #562593 is a reply to message #4256] Sat, 07 May 2005 16:51 Go to previous message
Stanimir Stamenkov is currently offline Stanimir StamenkovFriend
Messages: 256
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
/Eclipse WebMaster (Denis Roy)/:

> I've tested the pages below with Firefox on
> Linux, Lynx on Linux and elinks on Linux and they all render great.
> Perhaps the Windows and Mac camps can try them out and provide feedback?

I'm on Windows and I've tried the examples with Internet Explorer,
too. In my experience Internet Explorer is the most difficult to
satisfy, being the one having most quirks - to make it the proper
way and at the same not breaking the initial intention for the
presentation.

> Andrew, what are your thoughts on this thread? I'd like for the new
> eclipse.org to be as W3C-compliant as possible (within reason) and I
> believe the example pages below demonstrate how one can design
> structured layouts without using frames or nested tables.

Here's a simple set of things which one should always follow, IMO:

"Quality Tips for Webmasters" <http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/>

To describe the structure of a page the following are mandatory:

"Use <h1> for top-level heading"
<http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/Use_h1_for_Title>

"Use headings to structure your document"
<http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/headings>

--
Stanimir
Re: Web Accessibility [message #562901 is a reply to message #4606] Mon, 09 May 2005 19:11 Go to previous message
Andrew Geraghty is currently offline Andrew GeraghtyFriend
Messages: 30
Registered: July 2009
Member
I also would like to see the new eclipse.org meet the needs of as many
users as possible, however I think the presentation layer of the site should
meet the objectives of our project. We could take advantage of the
flexibility of CSS design. This site http://csszengarden.com/ demonstrates
CSS by letting the user switch between different designs without any change
in markup. The designs are not to my taste (nor do they reflect our
intentions for eclipse.org) but they are competently executed.



In my experience meeting this type of very rigid compliance (W3C) leads to
endless discussion threads and little enhancement to the visual vocabulary
of a site. The design elements used in a web site are as important as the
sites content and information architecture. You can have both utility and
appealing aesthetics. We should compile 'must have' list of accessibility
requirements. But should not limit the overall design of Eclipse.org if we
are to meet our project objectives.



"Stanimir Stamenkov" <stanio@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:d5is3e$m1p$1@news.eclipse.org...
> /Eclipse WebMaster (Denis Roy)/:
>
>> I've tested the pages below with Firefox on Linux, Lynx on Linux and
>> elinks on Linux and they all render great. Perhaps the Windows and Mac
>> camps can try them out and provide feedback?
>
> I'm on Windows and I've tried the examples with Internet Explorer, too. In
> my experience Internet Explorer is the most difficult to satisfy, being
> the one having most quirks - to make it the proper way and at the same not
> breaking the initial intention for the presentation.
>
>> Andrew, what are your thoughts on this thread? I'd like for the new
>> eclipse.org to be as W3C-compliant as possible (within reason) and I
>> believe the example pages below demonstrate how one can design structured
>> layouts without using frames or nested tables.
>
> Here's a simple set of things which one should always follow, IMO:
>
> "Quality Tips for Webmasters" <http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/>
>
> To describe the structure of a page the following are mandatory:
>
> "Use <h1> for top-level heading"
> <http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/Use_h1_for_Title>
>
> "Use headings to structure your document"
> <http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/headings>
>
> --
> Stanimir
Re: Web Accessibility [message #563128 is a reply to message #5659] Mon, 16 May 2005 23:24 Go to previous message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: kim.pepper.gmail.com

I'm a full-time web developer and would like to point out some of the
benefits of 'web standards' using XHTML/CSS.

<soap-box>

1. cross-browser support
All modern browsers support web standards. there are a few quirks with ie,
but a few css hacks are preferable to major html markup hacks such as table
layouts and spacer gifs.

2. page weight reduced
less markup = faster page load and reduced bandwidth costs

3. separation of concerns between design and content
lets designers focus on design and content creators focus on content

4. semantic page markup
reading xhtml markup is easier when meaningful tags are used (h1,h2,p,ul,
li) instead of trolling through nested table structures

5. accessibility
pages can are kinder to screen readers and user-set browser preferences for
larger text by the visually impared

6. internationalisation
the same style sheet to be applied to a number of different language pages
without duplication of code


</soap-box >
Re: Web Accessibility [message #563158 is a reply to message #5820] Mon, 16 May 2005 23:27 Go to previous message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: kim.pepper.gmail.com

7. Search-friendly pages
Search engine robots can index pages more accurately when the markup is more
semantic (e.g. using 21, h2 and p tags)
Re: Web Accessibility [message #563201 is a reply to message #5837] Tue, 17 May 2005 01:18 Go to previous message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: adlaiff6.gmail.com

<div post="first">
I, too, am a huge supporter of CSS/XHTML for the same reasons as above,
but mostly because it's easier to code a coherent scheme for an entire
site, and is much easier on the server, especially for a large site, to
have lightweight tags in every page and one large stylesheet (with maybe
a few header stylesheet addons).

I would be gladly willing to help turn any complete HTML project into
CSS/XHTML if needed, and I could probably help write the CSS/XHTML if
you need that too.
</div>
Previous Topic:Interesting perpective from a ... frustrated ... newbie.
Next Topic:Eclipse Website & Community Project
Goto Forum:
  


Current Time: Thu Mar 28 22:08:45 GMT 2024

Powered by FUDForum. Page generated in 0.02781 seconds
.:: Contact :: Home ::.

Powered by: FUDforum 3.0.2.
Copyright ©2001-2010 FUDforum Bulletin Board Software

Back to the top