Buzz Archives for September 2005
Build Your Own Standards Compliant Website Using Dreamweaver 8
If you're working with the new version of Dreamweaver, you may be interested in a new book from SitePoint aimed at those who wish to build standards compliant sites. Written by WaSP member Rachel Andrew of the Dreamweaver Task Force, and tech edited by Group Leader Molly E. Holzschlag, Build Your ...
By Drew McLellan | Filed in Dreamweaver TF, Training
- Got Browser Woes? Think Again.
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If you've been losing hair due to browser incompatibilities on the desktop, blame your remaining gray hairs on IE 6.0, Safari or Opera bugs and implementation problems, and have felt the calcium leeching from your tired bones while trying to make standards-based sites compatible in older browsers, you may wish ...
By Molly E. Holzschlag | Filed in Browsers, Emerging Technology, HTML/XHTML, Mobile
- Developer Toolbar for IE
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As mentioned in a previous post, Microsoft have been at work on a web developer toolbar similar to the one available for Firefox. The toolbar has now been made fully available and can be used on IE6 and IE7. I often find myself trying to resolve issues in IE but ...
- Validation, meet Unit Testing. Unit Testing, meet Validation.
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Are you "test infected"? Do you work on dynamic sites and wish there was an automated way to run the output through the W3C validator? Do you wish it was integrated nicely with your unit testing framework? Scott Raymond has come up with a nice bit of code to add automated ...
By Anders Pearson | Filed in Validation
- MSIE7 Will Not Support
application/xml+xhtmlMIME Type -
Announced a few days ago on the IEBlog: Why aren’t we supporting XHTML when it’s served as the “application/xml+xhtml” media type in IE7? I made the decision to not try to support the MIME type in IE7 simply because I personally want XHTML to be successful in the long run. Obviously this ...
By Dean Edwards | Filed in Browsers
- Opera is Free.
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While upgrading my Opera Browser to 8.5 today, then vising the community page, I noticed today's Opera news item Opera is Free!. No more ads, better browsing, no more banners. Free. From the Opera Why Free? page: Opera has removed the banners, found within our browser, and the licensing fee. Opera's ...
By Holly Marie Koltz | Filed in Browsers
- XML Nanny: Validation Tool
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For those who design and develop their sites on a Mac, Todd Ditchendorf has developed a handy tool to help validate XML and XHTML documents from the comfort of your own desktop. XML Nanny cares for your XHTML documents in places the W3C web-based validation service can't reach... Suppose you are ...
By Drew McLellan | Filed in Authoring Tools
- No Mr. Ballmer, Microsoft Will not Win the Web
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Reading through an article about Microsoft in Business Week, I was not shocked but oh so enraged by this bit from an interview with CEO Steve Ballmer: “We won the desktop. We won the server. We will win the Web. We will move fast, we will get there. We will win ...
By Molly E. Holzschlag | Filed in Web Standards (general)
- Multi-National Team to Focus on Accessibility Tools
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A new consortium launches today and is announced at Juicy Studio with the entry Web Accessibility Tool Consortium (WAT-C), authored by Steven Faulkner, who is a co-founder of WAT-C. Gez Lemon of Juicy Studio is also a member of the WaSP Accessibility Task Force. The goals of the group include ...
By Holly Marie Koltz | Filed in Accessibility
- News From the IE Development Team
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I can't believe how useful and informative the IE blog has been since its launch. Once the topic of rumour, guesswork and conjecture, what's happening with IE is more open than I could ever have imagined. There is some more news about IE that I wanted to pick through here ...
- Web Developer Toolbar - Update
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For all those people who have been itching to try out/update Firefox to the new 1.5 beta but were put off because it won't work with the Web Developer Toolbar, there's good news - Chris Pederick has done a minor update to make it compatible with the new browser. Form ...
- European Parliament: Nil Point
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BBC News reports on the launch of a new site for the European Parliament. With the intention of putting a 'friendlier face' to a parliamentary body who has historically felt very distant to most, if not all, European citizens, you would have thought that only good things can come from ...
By Drew McLellan | Filed in Web Standards (general)
- Web Standards Are Your Responsibility
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In his recent article Web Standards Are Your Responsibility, Keith Robinson makes a convincing argument for sticking to your standards-guns against all odds. I know, probably better than many, how much of a challenge Web standards can be to implement on a day-to-day basis. I've expressed my angst towards standards and ...
By Drew McLellan | Filed in Web Standards (general)
- WaSP Welcomes Sweden
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The WaSP Education Task Force welcomes Lars Gunther as our liaison to Sweden. Lars is working with Skolverket (Swedish Language), Sweden's national agency for schools, to encourage the adoption of Web standards in their curriculum reform project for Gymnasium (Swedish Language) scheduled for launch in 2007. Gymnasium is similar to ...
By Holly Marie Koltz | Filed in Education, Education TF
addEvent()Recoding Contest-
Here's one for lovers of the language of the rhinos:- over on the WaSP DOM Scripting Task Force blog, PPK announces the launch of a JavaScript addEvent() recoding contest. Write your own version of addEvent() and removeEvent(), submit it by adding a comment to this page, and win JavaScript fame. Entries will ...
By Drew McLellan | Filed in DOM, DOM Scripting TF
- Attention All Developers …
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There's a new browser in town. Well, there's a beta update in town - Firefox 1.5 is available as a beta, and the people at Mozilla are asking developers to go give it a whirl. Try it out, see what breaks. If you're an extension developer (Cough! Cough! Chris Pederick!) ...
- addEvent() Recoding Contest
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Launching an addEvent() recoding contest.
By Peter-Paul Koch | Filed in DOM, DOM Scripting TF
- Searching for Standards
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I did a small comparative analysis of markup practices at several major search engines. It's interesting to note that only one engine is using valid markup and CSS layouts, and that would be MSN. Close behind is AOL, whose validation problems are mostly related to ampersands not being escaped, and ...
By Molly E. Holzschlag | Filed in HTML/XHTML, Validation, Web Standards (general)
- Disaster Aid for Windows users only?
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At Boing Boing yesterday: FEMA to Mac, Linux users: drop dead. Bottom line: if you're not using Windows + IE, it appears that you won't be able to file a disaster assistance claim on Fema.gov. A Javascript enabled browser is another requirement. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) offers ...
By Holly Marie Koltz | Filed in Accessibility, Web Standards (general)
- Slashdot Goes CSS: Help Beta Test
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After 8 years. That's EIGHT years, the infamous Slashdot is finally working with CSS. They are asking folks to look at their CSS and report bugs. And don't blame me if you can't connect. We're talking Slashdot after all.
By Molly E. Holzschlag | Filed in CSS
- Welcome an Event Apart
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Zeldman and Meyer are two names that will always pack a punch when it comes to being shapers of the Web, particularly when it comes to standards. Now, they've teamed up for the long-awaited, content-rich Event Apart. Having worked side by side with Eric for many years, I know how much ...
By Molly E. Holzschlag | Filed in Education, Training
- Harnessing the Power of User Groups
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Web sites in a university environment are, more often than not, micro-managed within individual faculties, colleges and administrative units. It stands to reason; each department is often responsible for their own content. However, it is a common problem that resources are not evenly spread across the different areas of an academic ...
By Steph Troeth | Filed in Education, Education TF
- Helping Hands for Displaced Designers
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Designer Matthew Richmond of the fantabulous Chopping Block is someone I regard highly not just because of his creative skill, but because he's a designer who does beautiful Flash work and cares deeply about Web standards, too. Matthew sent out an email to friends and colleagues about a site ...
By Molly E. Holzschlag | Filed in Outreach
- Best Practices for Declaring Languages in HTML and XHTML
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There's a lot of misinformation about how, when and where to declare a language - or multiple languages - within HTML and XHTML documents. Fortunately, the GEO group at the W3C provides us with details as to how to do this. Here are some guidelines to help: Always declare the default ...
By Molly E. Holzschlag | Filed in Internationalization
- Unobtrusive Behaviour Layer
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Steve Chipman presentation (audio and slides) covers all of the important aspects of modern-day JavaScript in a clear informative way.
By Jeremy Keith | Filed in DOM, DOM Scripting TF
- IE7 CSS Improvements
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Over at the IEblog, Justin Rogers details further improvements to CSS 2.1 parsing in IE7 - particularly when operating in strict mode. On the list is improvements to pseudo-element selectors (like :first-letter), multi-class selectors, and root-node selection. It's all pretty heavy CSS geekery, but it's important CSS geekery, and is as ever ...
By Drew McLellan | Filed in Browsers
- Inspiration for Tables
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Do you ever find yourself longing for inspiration where it comes to designing tables? Finding examples of good CSS-based tables is not easy - inevitably you'll have to post to a discussion list and see what people recommend. Now, finding inspiration should be a little easier with the CSS Table ...
- Microsoft Dropping Support for XHTML1.1
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Or at least they're dropping support for it in ASP.Net 2.0. Is this a bad thing? The initial reaction might be one of shock and indignation, that it is a step backwards. Another response might be to accept that it's a realistic decision to make and one that actually helps ...
By Ian Lloyd | Filed in Authoring Tools, Browsers, HTML/XHTML, Web Standards (general)
The Web Standards Project is a grassroots coalition fighting for standards which ensure simple, affordable access to web technologies for all.
Recent Buzz
WCAG 2.0 is a W3C Recommendation
By Matt May | December 11th, 2008
After 9.5 years of work, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 have reached W3C Recommendation status. On behalf of the WaSP Accessibility Task Force, I’d like to welcome WCAG 2 officially into the pantheon of Web standards.
I think this tweet by caledoniaman sums up the level of anticipation:
WCAG 2.0 and a new Guns ‘n’ Roses album in the same year. What’s the world coming to.
Interesting comparison. They’ve each had about as many pre-releases. In any case, I can say, having spent over 8 years with it, that WCAG 2 is not as entertaining as Chinese Democracy. But I do think that it’s better equipped to stand the test of time.
If I had to pick one thing I’m most happy about, I’d say it’s that the HTML- and text-centrism in WCAG 1 is largely gone. In its place is a much more flexible (dare I say robust?) concept of accessibility-supported technology. So when newer technologies can show themselves to be directly accessible, they too can be used in WCAG 2-conformant content.
Over the years, many people have conflated “WCAG-conformant” with “accessible,” and that’s led to people making statements like: “Don’t use JavaScript–it’s inaccessible.” That’s bad for everyone, from users with disabilities who actually can work with JavaScript (which is to say, the vast majority), to Web designers and developers, to policymakers, to those developing new technologies.
With WCAG 2, “Don’t use x” is no longer valid. (Was it ever?) It is now up to you, the developer, to work on the direct accessibility of your content, no matter what technology you choose. I believe we’re about to experience a new wave of accessible design techniques, as a result.
But first, we need to flush “Don’t use x” out of our system. Some are accustomed to saying it about anything they’re not comfortable with. That’s only holding accessible design back. It’s time to learn what’s out there, today, and use it in everyday Web design. It’s time to make everyone’s Web more accessible. Have a look at the WCAG 2.0 Recommendation, and its supporting material. Then, start thinking about what a more accessible Web could be. We still have a lot of work to do.
Filed in Accessibility, Accessibility TF, W3C/Standards Documentation, Web Standards (general) | Comments (8)