Talk:Accessible HTML eBooks
I've now finished the initial creation of this page, and moved it off my userpage, so it's over to you for improvements! Btw, I'm not an expert on accessibility matters at all, just felt it was worth finding out about. And no, my past PP projects are not shining examples of best practice! Will try to do better now that I know more.Laurawisewell 15:57, 6 March 2007 (PST)
I was looking at the Images section, looking for any mention how to handle the decorative drop capitals at the start of chapters/sections (if you want to use images). In the past, I've used an alt text of just the letter (e.g. alt="A"). Would it be better to say alt="Decorative capital A" or perhaps leave it off altogether, because it's "decorative"? It also breaks the next word into two parts: the first letter and the rest of the word, which I think is not good. Maybe the whole word could be used, but with CSS that hides the first letter. Some ideas! camomiletea 16:23, 11 April 2007 (PDT)
- A method was described in this forum post that apparently works well. :) --Acunning40 17:01, 11 April 2007 (PDT)
- That's the method I've used before. But I'd like to rethink it now. Putting the image as a background image can't be good -- people often turn off background images, and that's the default if you print it out. So they get a giant space with no letter at all, and there's no way to put any alt on a background image. If we use a real image, my instinct is to have empty alt. But I don't know how to hide the first letter without breaking up the word. the first-letter pseudo element doesn't respect display:none. Maybe using @media rules or something. (Laurawisewell forgot to sign)~
"The <thead>,<tbody> and <tfoot> elements are seldom used, because of bad browser support." As far as I can see, this merely means people aren't bothering to use them because in most browsers they have no effect. They don't have a 'bad' effect, the table just looks the same as it would without them. Anyone got a reference to the contrary? I don't think we should warn people away from using them. More generally, I don't think we should keep giving the impression that accessibility features will harm the experience of the majority, when in most cases they will either enhance it or cause no change.Laurawisewell 08:50, 14 April 2007 (PDT)
- Anyone understand what rel and rev do?
Based on my reading, they are used to explain the relationship between linked (separate) documents. So they'd be useful if you're doing an omnibus edition of a multi-volume set, but not really if you're doing "normal" monolithic HTML.--logista 07:22, 9 May 2007 (PDT)
1) I know I've previously seen an eBook produced which made use of the access keys; but I don't know which one it was... I'd like to see that as an example.
2) I'm having trouble figuring out whether it's actually a good idea to use the access keys or not. Apparently they can result in a kind of conflict for people who are using adaptive technology like screenreaders[1] [2]. This DP article seems to strongly suggest accesskeys, but doesn't warn about the negatives. -- camomiletea 20:34, 15 October 2009 (PDT)
- Access keys are used in this ebook and this one. Laura asked about it in the accessify forum; the response she got is here near the end. I also found this more recent discussion on the topic in their forums. The survey of people using screenreaders linked from that last thread also seems useful for various accessibility topics. --Acunning40 08:56, 16 October 2009 (PDT)
- Thanks, that's the book I was looking for! And the survey link is very useful, so much so that I added it to the references for this article. -- camomiletea 22:09, 16 October 2009 (PDT)