On 21/5/09 18:48, Weston C wrote:
I almost just wish
we'd accepted the horse was out of the barn and tried to figure out an
easy way to signal distinctions between layout tables and semantic
tabular data, rather than trying to get the entire internet to
completely retool.
One year after HTML 4.0 recommended stylesheets over table layouts, WCAG
1.0 (published in 1999) explained how /authors/ could distinguish
between layout tables and data tables:
1) When writing a presentational table, stick to the elements "table",
"tr", "td". Do not use the "headers", "scope", "axis", or "summary"
attributes. Make sure layout tables make sense when linearized.
2) When writing a data table, add the elements "th", "thead", "tbody",
"tfoot", "caption", and "col" and the attributes "headers", "scope",
"axis", and "summary" wherever appropriate.
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/#gl-table-markup
No algorithm for guessing whether a table matching the first class (but
which could have been authored before WCAG 1.0 or in ignorance of WCAG
1.0) is a layout or data table has ever been specified, as far as I
know. You are entirely correct that text browsers and screen readers do
indeed use such algorithms, however. This is why it's more crucial to
use data table markup for data tables than to avoid presentational table
markup for grid layout.
Fast forward a decade, and authors are getting another tool in our
toolbox, not a million miles away from your 'class="layout"'. I don't
think it's very well specified yet, but:
http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/#presentation
--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
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