Buzz Archives for December 2005
JavaScript Animation for Beginners
A beginner-level tutorial on JavaScript animation from Emrah Baskaya.
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in DOM, DOM Scripting TF
- JavaScript Tips From Dean Edwards
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Dean Edwards starts JavaScript tips with speeding up object detection.
By Jeremy Keith | Filed in DOM, DOM Scripting TF
- Star HTML and Microsoft IE7
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Chris Wilson, Group Program Manager for IE Platform and Security at Microsoft, and Position is Everything's Big John Gallant have been having a conversation about * html in Microsoft's upcoming Internet Explorer 7 for Windows (IE7). Wilson has been encouraging CSS designers and developers to repair any bug-specific hacks ...
By Molly E. Holzschlag | Filed in Browsers, Bugs, CSS, DOM, HTML/XHTML, Microsoft, W3C/Standards Documentation, Web Standards (general)
- A Final End to IE/Mac
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Microsoft has announced that they will cease all support for IE/Mac as of December 31, 2005 and will cease all distribution of the software on January 31, 2006. While IE/Mac has become something of a red-headed stepchild in the past couple years, it has a proud history of standards-related achievements, most ...
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in Browsers
- Developer Resources
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Yahoo have just added a JavaScript center to their Developer Network.
By Jeremy Keith | Filed in Authoring Tools, DOM, DOM Scripting TF
- The Bad Old Days Linger On
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Most professional web developers understand why browser sniffing sucks, and have long since moved on to more robust techniques like object or property testing to make their sites degrade gracefully in less-capable user agents. But apparently Yahoo! Music didn't get the memo: their site still sniffs browsers, urging Firefox users ...
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in Browsers
- Prince 5.1 Passes Acid2
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Prince, a program that converts XML documents styled with CSS into PDF files for printing, has passed the Acid2 test. While Prince isn't a browser per se — it's a file converter — it does join Konqueror and Apple's Safari as the first CSS & HTML implementations to pass the ...
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in Acid2, CSS
- AJAX Mistakes
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A good list of DOM Scripting mistakes.
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in DOM, DOM Scripting TF
- Tool for tracking IE memory leaks
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Drip, the IE leak detector.
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in Authoring Tools, Bugs, DOM Scripting TF
- When to use DOM Scripting (and When Not To)
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Alex Bosworth has a thoughtful piece on what sorts of apps require DOM Scripting for optimal user experience, and what sorts of apps are better without.
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in DOM, DOM Scripting TF
- Microsoft Tweaks IE’s Handling of ActiveX, Java
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Microsoft has announced that they'll be changing the way IE handles ActiveX controls and Java applets to avoid liability in the Eolas patent suit. The suit, you'll recall, is about a patent held by the University of California and licenced to a company called Eolas. The patent ostensibly covers embedding multimedia ...
By Chris Kaminski | Filed in Browsers
- 24 Ways to Impress Your Friends
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It's an online advent calender, and behind each door* you'll find a web development tip/tutorial (all standards-based goodness, of course) to impress your friends with - 24 of them, to be precise. I'd prefer that to a piece of chocolate any day. 24 ways to impress your friends kicks off ...
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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)