W3C and WCAG Code Validation

Started by StudioX, August 12, 2005, 01:01:38 PM

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StudioX

Forgive me in advance if it's the wrong area to post (PS. Love the WYSIWYG Editor)

We ran a test a couple of days ago, to find out which forums were the best (and the worst) in terms of adhering to WCAG and W3C Guidlines. You guys did quite well, especially when compared to some of the more experienced forums.

You can view the full results at hxxp:www.studiox-designs.org/fwintro.html [nonactive] Not meant to be spam or advertising but if you feel that it is, I'm sure you'll take the neccessary action(s).

Good luck with the software. It seems to be very light and well put together.

[Unknown]

That more or less just runs tidy on the html, which isn't exactly the same as the validator (for example, the summary attribute is specifically not required in the spec, and is usually omitted from tables which don't need a summary - it also tries to "tidy up" the HTML to its guidelines, and gives errors if this is not possible.)

More useful (in my opinion) validators for this include:
http://www.contentquality.com/fulloptions.asp
http://validator.w3.org/ (of course)
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

But, those just validate.  It's hard to really tell, unless you use a conforming browser.  If you are using Firefox (Deer Park is best, Firefox 1.0.x had some bugs that make the forum less usable) you can test SMF by going to this URL:

http://www.example.com/forum/index.php?debug

You will be sent content in application/xhtml+xml, which will cause Firefox to (actually) parse pages as XML, and (actually) follow the XHTML 1.0 Traditional doctype.  In the next release of SMF 1.1, a few things have been changed and improved in that respect in the JavaScript code - however, I believe the smiley popup may not yet work exactly properly.

You can try it here:
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?debug

-[Unknown]

StudioX

#2
Technically speaking, in terms of accessibility, a summary="" is used to denote a table without any semantic value.

Try: hxxp:diveintoaccessibility.org/day_20_providing_a_summary_for_tables.html [nonactive]

I had this confirmed to me last week too by a blind user, who, I have to assume, knows more on the subject than you or I. The urls you are providing, pretty much cover W3C guidelines but not WCAG and other Accessibility guidelines which is, of course, what the table summary falls under.

WCAG 5.5:

5.5 Provide summaries for tables. [Priority 3]
    For example, in HTML, use the "summary" attribute of the TABLE element.

Anyway, last thing I want to do is get all anal about standards. Just thought it may help.

[Unknown]

Quote from: StudioX on August 12, 2005, 04:11:33 PM
Technically speaking, in terms of accessibility, a summary="" is used to denote a table without any semantic value.

Try: http://diveintoaccessibility.org/day_20_providing_a_summary_for_tables.html

I had this confirmed to me last week too by a blind user, who, I have to assume, knows more on the subject than you or I. The urls you are providing, pretty much cover W3C guidelines but not WCAG and other Accessibility guidelines which is, of course, what the table summary falls under.

I think you missed my meaning on that point.  The summary attribute is not required in the spec, unlike the alt attribute.  Sometimes, the right thing to do with the alt attribute for images is to leave it blank, just as with the table's summary.  However, since it is not required (and rather implied) it seems logical to omit it when it is not necessary.

For example, images used purely as decoration - for example, logos - often should not have an alt.  Meaning, if you have:

(image) IBM

It does not make sense (even though some authors do this!) to add alternate text for the image, producing:

IBM IBM

Or:

(IBM logo) IBM

This isn't helpful to screenreaders or the blind (and, yes, I also know blind users and have conversed with them.)  Similarly, it doesn't make sense to provide summary attributes for all tables either.  For example, the message index (or topic listing) uses a table to display the list of topics, but it really doesn't need a summary attribute because the title element already describes what the page is about.

The default theme is not perfect, and in many places uses tables to get around problems in Internet Explorer 4's rendering.  This is regrettable, and other or newer themes may have their own browser requirements, but such tables should also - I hope you'll agree - lack the summary attribute.

-[Unknown]

StudioX

I'm going to agree sort of. :)

I shall leave this link hxxp:www.accessifyforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=2764&highlight=summary [nonactive] as evidence that you are technically correct, though maybe not ethically so.  :P

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