RE: Accessible tables

"Current" by my definition is what is currently in use by the majority of
uses.  There is a significantly large enough percentage of global users out
there that are still using NN4.x to warrant inclusion in the "current" club.
Remember, for many large IT Departments (lazy or overworked - depends on
perspective <grin>), they had already bought into Netscape when they were
the dominant browser and so that is all they support.  Here in Ottawa,
Canada, the majority of the Federal Government departments I've encountered
are still using Netscape 4.x as a baseline browser (often on Windows 95),
the only one their departments will "officially support" at this time.
Perhaps when they migrate to Windows 2000 and/or XP this will change, but
for now, Netscape still has a 40% + usage stat in this town.  And remember,
not everyone is comfortable enough (or just plain willing) to upgrade work
equipment by themselves, even if they are allowed.   Heck, I've seen whole
librarys and student labs still using Netscape 3 "Gold" (scary, I know...)

On the original topic, there is nothing in the HTML 4.01* spec which says
you "Can't" use tables for layout, only that the W3C discourages this
practice in favour of Style Sheets
(http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/tables.html#h-11.1).  However, the W3C -
WAI Priority 2 Guideline acknowledges Tables as a layout tool, and says "5.4
If a table is used for layout, do not use any structural markup for the
purpose of visual formatting."
(http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/wai-pageauth.html#tech-table-layout)

(* The HTML 3.2 spec was more specific, "HTML 3.2 includes a widely deployed
subset of the specification given in RFC 1942 and can be used to markup
tabular material or for layout purposes. Note that the latter role typically
causes problems when rending to speech or to text only user agents."
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html32#table)

JF



> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-aware-techniques(at)hwg.org
> [mailto:owner-aware-techniques(at)hwg.org]On Behalf Of Michael Sauers
> Sent: February 26, 2002 3:24 PM
> To: Aware List
> Subject: RE: Accessible tables
>
>
> > Until all browsers recognize CSS, the Accesibility
> > Community has nothing against using tables for layout,
> > as long as they are identified as such...
>
> What do you define as "all"? The current versions of IE, NS, Opera, Amaya
> and all the others I can think of all support CSS quite well. (Each has
> their quirks but that's no reason to use it. Heck, Netscape 4.x has never
> handled tables properly but that doesn't seem to stop anyone.)
>
> (Notice I said 'current.' Netscape 4.x is not current and will
> never support
> CSS well. But then again neither will NS3.x)
>
> ----------------------------------------------
> Michael Sauers, Librarian, Trainer & Author
> Bibliographical Center for Research (BCR)
> Aurora, CO :: 303-751-6277 :: msauers(at)bcr.org
> http://www.bcr.org/~msauers
> ----------------------------------------------
>
>

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