Subject: Re: The "supercharged FONT tag": CSS vs. XSL From: "James Tauber" <jtauber@xxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 13:55:06 +0800 |
In his post, David Baron makes the comment that has often been made in this debate: "if these useful transformations are mixed with formatting objects instead of elements with meaning (such as HTML, possibly with CSS), they are no longer useful for people using alternative devices or disabilities." First of all, FOs as they currently exist don't have that much less accessibility than HTML and it is easy to modify them to achieve at least as much accessibility. As they stand, FOs indicate lists and list items, tables, etc. The only *accessibility* difference I see between FOs and HTML+CSS is that using block for headings versus paragraphs is not distinguished and nor is emphasised text. This is easily solvable by, as I have suggest before, FOs having a property with an ICADD type. (eg <fo:block icadd="H1">) Secondly, David (and others) seem to have this view that on the one hand there are "elements with meaning" and on the other "formatting objects". This is a misunderstanding, in my opinion. Whether an element has meaning or not is entirely dependent on whether the recipient application understands the vocabulary. Consider the XML <Foo>Hello</Foo> With CSS "annotation" I might get: <Foo css:display="block" css:font-family="sans-serif">Hello</Foo> With XSL transformation I might get: <fo:block font-family="sans-serif">Hello</fo:block> In what way is the latter "no longer useful for people using alternative devices or disabilities"? Knowing that the element was a Foo ("an element with meaning") does absolutely nothing for accessibility! So I fail to see how XML + annotation with CSS does *anything* more for accessibility than FOs. The whole argument seems bogus to me, especially if, as I have suggested, FOs have an ICADD-style attribute on them. James XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
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