Slashdot Mirror

Before I begin: My original post contained the word official formatted like this: `official' meaning that not everybody recognizes this as the best way things should be done. It is a `standard' (note the quotes) that is designed to unify (sp?) the way document rendering is performed. (ie, not everybody agrees with it)

There are four bugs with a summary description containing TBODY, so those bugs are known and being worked on. (Mozilla will continue to run Milestones long after NS6 is released. Don't confuse Netscape and Mozilla.)

Blink has been around so long, but I too wish it would be removed... (It can have uses though.) Some things are no longer being supported, such as the NS4.x ILAYER and LAYER stuff.

17 .7 The TEXTAREA element doesn't contain any mention of an "onscroll" event, and I haven't seen it anywhere else in the docs (Nor in DOM 1 or 2). Try talking to the W3 people, it isn't Mozilla's fault it isn't implemented.

TBODY align support isn't in the spec either: 11.2.3 Row groups: the THEAD, TFOOT, and TBODY elements Sorry, gotta talk to the W3 about this too.

The TBODY is a row grouping element, from the spec:

Table rows may be grouped into a table head, table foot, and one or more table body sections, using the THEAD, TFOOT and TBODY elements, respectively. This division enables user agents to support scrolling of table bodies independently of the table head and foot. When long tables are printed, the table head and foot information may be repeated on each page that contains table data.

Of course, there is no mention of how to indicate that the tbody should be scrolled or printed on each page because you are supposed to use style sheets for that. (same with all rendering details)

Remember, Mozilla didn't write the spec, they just want to implement the spec. There are places (too many) that are ambiguous and must be interpreted according to the letter and intent of the writers.

Cool fact: The w3c (!) links to this 'version' of deCSS. (Look under 'Other software' at the bottom.)

-

Trusting GCC to reliably catch all violations of the standard is unwise.

http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86.ht ml
http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86-libs.html
http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86-devel.html
http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86-doc.html
http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86-75dpi-fonts. html

Of course, they could be named differently, but who knows?

http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86.ht ml
http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86-libs.html
http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86-devel.html
http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86-doc.html
http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86-75dpi-fonts. html

Of course, they could be named differently, but who knows?

http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86.ht ml
http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86-libs.html
http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86-devel.html
http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86-doc.html
http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86-75dpi-fonts. html

Of course, they could be named differently, but who knows?

http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86.ht ml
http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86-libs.html
http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86-devel.html
http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86-doc.html
http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86-75dpi-fonts. html

Of course, they could be named differently, but who knows?

http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86.ht ml
http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86-libs.html
http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86-devel.html
http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86-doc.html
http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86-75dpi-fonts. html

Of course, they could be named differently, but who knows?

Mozilla M14 supports CSS rather well as far as I can see, which is already a big improvement on Netscape 4.x

Mozilla M14 supports CSS rather well as far as I can see, which is already a big improvement on Netscape 4.x

Sounds like a useful setup. I hope we won't be stuck with this forever, though. Too many files. Bluh.

Once XSLT is out there, you can use an XSLT stylesheet to paste in the header, footer, navigation, and so on. It'll be pretty easy, too. Here's an example stylesheet. It just contains the header, the footer, and three XSLT elements.

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<!-- xsl stylesheet to add template & navigation to pages -->
<html xsl:version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"> <head>
<title><xsl:value-of select="/html/head/title"/></title>
...
</head>
<body>

... (all sorts of header stuff, including tables and graphics) ...

<h3>Related links:</h3>
<xsl:copy-of select="//div[@id='related']" />

... (more tables and stuff) ...

<!-- now paste in the content -->
<xsl:copy-of select="//div[@id='mainbody']" />

... (all sorts of footer stuff) ...

</body>
</html>

The first one glues in the title of the page; the other two paste in content. Simple-- but it is also a lot more powerful than this example shows.

Share and enjoy:

• XSLT specification (http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt)
• James Clark's partial XSLT implementation (http://www.jclark.com/xml/xt.html) - not standard-compliant yet but very good.

If I just had a 1-font web page, wouldn't I only need one tag at the beginning and end? Looking at some of my other pages, they have font tags within font tags. Wonder how much I can slim down.

If you do, be warned: your document isn't valid HTML.

According to the Transitional HTML 4.0 DTD, FONT is an inline tag, and must be contained in a block-level element. (That is, if I'm reading the DTD right...)

If you want to set the base font for your page, use the BASEFONT tag. It's an empty tag that you can use to set the base size, face, etc. for your document.

Or, as countless others have said, move over to cascading style sheets.

Jay (=

If I just had a 1-font web page, wouldn't I only need one tag at the beginning and end? Looking at some of my other pages, they have font tags within font tags. Wonder how much I can slim down.

If you do, be warned: your document isn't valid HTML.

According to the Transitional HTML 4.0 DTD, FONT is an inline tag, and must be contained in a block-level element. (That is, if I'm reading the DTD right...)

If you want to set the base font for your page, use the BASEFONT tag. It's an empty tag that you can use to set the base size, face, etc. for your document.

Or, as countless others have said, move over to cascading style sheets.

Jay (=

Learn to use style sheets. The font tag should never be used as it is horrible. Look at [the HTML 4.01 spec] and [the CSS-1 spec].

Look at [my site] for an example - no font tags at all. This is in pure XHTML 1.0, which is an XML extension of HTML 4.01. Sorry about the image borders - the border parameter of the img tag isn't allowed in XHTML 1.0, and yet Netscape seems not to understand the style sheet line that removes it. Works in IE 5.0 though...

ac.uk

Learn to use style sheets. The font tag should never be used as it is horrible. Look at [the HTML 4.01 spec] and [the CSS-1 spec].

Look at [my site] for an example - no font tags at all. This is in pure XHTML 1.0, which is an XML extension of HTML 4.01. Sorry about the image borders - the border parameter of the img tag isn't allowed in XHTML 1.0, and yet Netscape seems not to understand the style sheet line that removes it. Works in IE 5.0 though...

ac.uk

Definitely a heads-up for anyone looking for a quick technical fix to the problem.

Anyway, sometimes I wish for a /. house lawyer. There are far too many "IANAL but..." threads here.

Consider someone on /. arguing along the lines of:
"Well IANACE (I'm not a computer expert), but I read the specifications and since I think that since they limit our freedom to write however we like, I suggest we disobey them."

There is no X support at all. Moreover, there's no ML support at all! Please W3C change the name.
--

So, if they don't have any kind of early support support for the XSLT standard now (available at http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt), then they're already digging another hole for themselves.

Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

I have read your column "URL as UI" and Tim Berners-Lee's about Cool URIs.

What do you think about Berners-Lee's recommendation to keep extensions off URL (I see you site uses .html)? And the rest of the T B-L's comments?


--

I think your confusing machine names and urls (universal resource locators). ICANN only cares about domain names, machine names and IP addresses. Machine names are used so we don't have to remember the raw IP addresses. Domain names are there so one can distribute the administration of machine names to groups controling local networks. URLs are used to find specific web pages and may or may not have a machine name in them. Many do, but many more are just a path relative to the page that contains them. I strongly sugest reading the first couple of chaptes in the book "DNS and Bind" from O'Reilly's. It tells the history of system naming. For URL related documentation I recomend looking though what W3C has to say.

As for DNS needing updating: Yes it does, but then it will have to be updated before IPV6 sees wide spread use.

Looks like Harry Browne's page uses xhtml transitional - with all the lowercase tags.

Sorry, using lowercase tags, does not mean you are using XHTML. Browne's site does not even have a DTD specified, there is no way it can be XHTML compliant.

Incidentally, anyone know where a good comprehensive xhtml tutorial would be? Or a good xhtml WYSIWYG editor?

Well you might want to check out this site to see some actual XHTML. It was mentioned in the "Want to see some good HTML?" post that was moderated off-topic. Don't know why the post was moderated as off topic though, I thought good HTML design was the topic. Also look at the W3's site for more info..

Rob Malda For President!

...I always capitalise my tags...

For the forward-looking:

The W3C's XHTML 1.0 spec states in part:

4.2 Element and attribute names must be in lower case

XHTML documents must use lower case for all HTML element and attribute names.

Not too bad but you really should have a DTD.

You might be interested in studying the HTML 4.01 specs and cascading style sheets to learn how to write clean HTML without ugly hacks like BODY attributes and formatting with line breaks.

Unfortunately, many browsers don't implement CSS very well. IE, Mozilla, and Opera do pretty well and Netscape is so-so, but older versions of all of them will suck... Nevertheless, CSS is the way to go. HTML was never meant as a style markup language, and you should use tags that reflect content rather than presentation (<em> instead of <i>); use CSS for fancy stuff, it really is easier and better once you get into it.

Not too bad but you really should have a DTD.

You might be interested in studying the HTML 4.01 specs and cascading style sheets to learn how to write clean HTML without ugly hacks like BODY attributes and formatting with line breaks.

Unfortunately, many browsers don't implement CSS very well. IE, Mozilla, and Opera do pretty well and Netscape is so-so, but older versions of all of them will suck... Nevertheless, CSS is the way to go. HTML was never meant as a style markup language, and you should use tags that reflect content rather than presentation (<em> instead of <i>); use CSS for fancy stuff, it really is easier and better once you get into it.

Your page needs a little help yet.

Your page is missing some stuff. Mostly some type declarations and an alt tag, but there's no reason to be sloppy.

Looks like slashdot has quite a few errors , Click here to check it out

This page is not good HTML

Apart from the other recommendations made (Essential Sys Admin and Practical Unix Security are must-haves), I would suggest:

• Install TCP Wrappers and configure it appropriately. Block anything that you don't need, log everything else.
• Read the corresponding tech tips from CERT, depending on what you need (e.g. if you want to set up an FTP server, read the "Anonymous FTP Configuration guidelines")
• Read the WWW security FAQ if you are planning on running a web server.
• Use Tripwire. They have a commercial version, but you can always use the free version (1.3). I think they also give the newer version for Linux for free.
• Read other documents at http://www.cert.org/nav/securityim provement.html and http://xforce.iss.net/library/faqs/.
• Be always alert for anything strange that happens on your system. There is no substitute for an alert and informed sysadmin.

Slashdot does not have valid HTML!

You see Microsoft has a version 5 out there that really isn't better than Netscape 4.7. At least not by much.

Actually, IE5 is enormously better than Netscape 4.7. Though I prefer Netscape's UI, the fact remains that the Netscape 4.x rendering engine has not seen any significant change since 1997. Netscape 4.x does a miserable job with stylesheets, and is utterly clueless about XML. IE, on the other hand, seems to do quite well with these, even if it does not fully conform to the specs. I don't mean to imply that IE is better in every respect, but I am saying that under the hood, IE5 beats Netscape hands down.

It's a good thing that Mozilla will enable Netscape to catch up with and surpass IE5 in terms of under-the-hood excellence. However, I still think that skipping Netscape version 5 is a really bad idea. Although Mozilla is becoming quite capable and usable, it will be months before it is stable and feature-complete enough to release as Netscape 5.0.

I think that for Netscape to be so brash as to call its next browser version 6.0, the browser should be able to trounce IE 5.x by fully supporting CSS2 and XSL, among other things. It's not even close. Calling this well-intentioned-but-underdone browser "Netscape 6.0" will just set it up to be beaten by a superior IE 6.0. Netscape should just cut the crap and be honest about its version number, because otherwise it will just lose more credibility in the long run.

You see Microsoft has a version 5 out there that really isn't better than Netscape 4.7. At least not by much.

Actually, IE5 is enormously better than Netscape 4.7. Though I prefer Netscape's UI, the fact remains that the Netscape 4.x rendering engine has not seen any significant change since 1997. Netscape 4.x does a miserable job with stylesheets, and is utterly clueless about XML. IE, on the other hand, seems to do quite well with these, even if it does not fully conform to the specs. I don't mean to imply that IE is better in every respect, but I am saying that under the hood, IE5 beats Netscape hands down.

It's a good thing that Mozilla will enable Netscape to catch up with and surpass IE5 in terms of under-the-hood excellence. However, I still think that skipping Netscape version 5 is a really bad idea. Although Mozilla is becoming quite capable and usable, it will be months before it is stable and feature-complete enough to release as Netscape 5.0.

I think that for Netscape to be so brash as to call its next browser version 6.0, the browser should be able to trounce IE 5.x by fully supporting CSS2 and XSL, among other things. It's not even close. Calling this well-intentioned-but-underdone browser "Netscape 6.0" will just set it up to be beaten by a superior IE 6.0. Netscape should just cut the crap and be honest about its version number, because otherwise it will just lose more credibility in the long run.

You see Microsoft has a version 5 out there that really isn't better than Netscape 4.7. At least not by much.

Actually, IE5 is enormously better than Netscape 4.7. Though I prefer Netscape's UI, the fact remains that the Netscape 4.x rendering engine has not seen any significant change since 1997. Netscape 4.x does a miserable job with stylesheets, and is utterly clueless about XML. IE, on the other hand, seems to do quite well with these, even if it does not fully conform to the specs. I don't mean to imply that IE is better in every respect, but I am saying that under the hood, IE5 beats Netscape hands down.

It's a good thing that Mozilla will enable Netscape to catch up with and surpass IE5 in terms of under-the-hood excellence. However, I still think that skipping Netscape version 5 is a really bad idea. Although Mozilla is becoming quite capable and usable, it will be months before it is stable and feature-complete enough to release as Netscape 5.0.

I think that for Netscape to be so brash as to call its next browser version 6.0, the browser should be able to trounce IE 5.x by fully supporting CSS2 and XSL, among other things. It's not even close. Calling this well-intentioned-but-underdone browser "Netscape 6.0" will just set it up to be beaten by a superior IE 6.0. Netscape should just cut the crap and be honest about its version number, because otherwise it will just lose more credibility in the long run.

You see Microsoft has a version 5 out there that really isn't better than Netscape 4.7. At least not by much.

Actually, IE5 is enormously better than Netscape 4.7. Though I prefer Netscape's UI, the fact remains that the Netscape 4.x rendering engine has not seen any significant change since 1997. Netscape 4.x does a miserable job with stylesheets, and is utterly clueless about XML. IE, on the other hand, seems to do quite well with these, even if it does not fully conform to the specs. I don't mean to imply that IE is better in every respect, but I am saying that under the hood, IE5 beats Netscape hands down.

It's a good thing that Mozilla will enable Netscape to catch up with and surpass IE5 in terms of under-the-hood excellence. However, I still think that skipping Netscape version 5 is a really bad idea. Although Mozilla is becoming quite capable and usable, it will be months before it is stable and feature-complete enough to release as Netscape 5.0.

I think that for Netscape to be so brash as to call its next browser version 6.0, the browser should be able to trounce IE 5.x by fully supporting CSS2 and XSL, among other things. It's not even close. Calling this well-intentioned-but-underdone browser "Netscape 6.0" will just set it up to be beaten by a superior IE 6.0. Netscape should just cut the crap and be honest about its version number, because otherwise it will just lose more credibility in the long run.

The decision for Quote.Com to change wasn't only based on the "reliability" of the platform.

Their decision was also based on facts like:

• There are more pre-built software components for IIS/SQL server
• Things like XML support are very primitive in PERL, for example.
• MCSEs are cheaper to hire than Unix admin/programmers
• With more, cheaper machines, you can play the "uptime numbers game"

A lot of developers are working on XML support in PERL (there is a Perl/XML FAQ), but you still can't support Unicode. Perl still relies on 8-bit character sets, so we use UTF-8 instead of 16-bit Unicode. Unicode support is neccesary for a complete XML implementation.

You'll also find that MCSEs will be cheaper to hire than Unix programmers. This is partly due to their (general) lack of skills, and partly due to their great abundance. An MSCE course only teaches you how to think the Microsoft Way. I wouldn't trust an MSCE to maintain or write code in C++ or Perl, for example. Without the MFC and a pointy-clicky interface, an MSCE can't function.

However, give the MSCE the MFC and a pointy-clicky interface, and an MSCE can deliver a program faster than a "traditional" developer. The fact that the program inherits all the bugs and mis-features of the MFC is not an issue here. The fact that the program was slapped together without regard for maintenance or robustness is also not an issue here. The issue that Quote.Com chose to focus on was delivery time, not quality of product.

As for the uptime numbers game, it works like this:

If you have 1 Sun server, and you need to upgrade the hardware, you need to shut it down. If it takes 1 hour to shut down, replace the hardware and restart, then you have 1 hour downtime.

If you have 2 Windows NT servers (for the same price as 1 Sun machine), and you need to upgrade the hardware, you need to shut them down. If you do it one machine at a time, and take 4 hours total to replace the hardware, then the server pool still has 0 hours downtime. Windows NT pundits will happily overlook the fact that the individual machines are constantly being overhauled.

In addition, Microsoft introduces the idea of "scheduled downtime". That is - you plan to reboot each machine once a day, to make sure the system remains stable. So twice a day, you have one of your two machines reboot. One machine reboots in the morning, the other in the afternoon. The total downtime of the server pool as a whole is still 0 hours (because you're not counting "scheduled downtime" as "real downtime").

Now combine the MSCE factor with the downtime numbers game factor, and you'll find that you can get away with shoddy code, because when your server crashes, it's not really downtime anymore. The problem of data integrity in your backend database is something for the DBA to worry about. You've got your uptime figures and time-to-delivery figures up there in the top 10. If the DBA complains about data integrity, you sack her and fire someone with a more "can-do" attitude. You don't want slackers in your Microsoft Powered enterprise!

Daily Reboots:

• Win95 prescription: 50mg of reboot daily
• What's So Bad About Microsoft?

The only problem I've had so far is when I get moderator access on /., half of the moderation options are rendered incorrectly or are out of position! Despite being a better browser, it's not good enough for Slahsdot :)

Well, if you think IE5 is bad, try reading Slashdot with Mozilla M13. You often get black text on a black background: cool, groovy, far out... but not readable. The problem here isn't IE5. I'm extremely hostile to Microsoft generally, but apart from a number of annoying trying-to-be-too-clever gimmicks IE5 is not a bad browser. Mozilla M13 isn't a bad browser either.

The problem is that Slashdot's HTML is atrocious. It's pretty much tuned to Netscape 4, and consequently looks reasonably alright in Netscape 4; but it's so bad that any reasonable HTML parser is going to have severe trouble with it. Run it through the validator if you don't believe me

It is bad, but not quite as bad as indicated. The underlying problem here is that the W3C's validation tools is currently configured to default to XHTML when the document type is unspecified (it used to default to HTML 2, which is more correct). One still gets about 8 screenfuls of errors if one validates it against the HTML 4 DTD. I believe it has been mentioned as a broken site on the Lynx mailing list. To allow it to be validated properly, they need to add: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> before the <html>

What ever happened to link rev, and the heirarchy of documents? Is this the current implementation of it?

So long as we're picking on sites for not being "correct"... umm... and I hate to say this... but /. isn't exactly an angel...

Take a look at slashdot.org's w3c validation results and I think you'll find Mr slasdot.org isn't all that conformant.

The LONGDESC tag, as defined in HTML 4.0 is not displayed as a pop-up on images in IE, and probably not in Netscape either (I don't have it handy to test). And although I can't say for sure, I wouldn't be surprised if page readers could use the LONGDESC tag just fine.

But that would be incorrect HTML syntax. alt is a required attribute for images. It's there because of concerns about universal access. I know it sounds silly but it really makes sense. Some images can be (at least partially) described (such as using images to provide neat text, you can put the text into the alt tag). Others can't be easily described and should be indicated as such by using alt="".

Just because it works the other way doesn't mean it's correct. IE will display a table that isn't properly closed, but it cacks badly on netscape. IE's behaviour works but it's not correct. The same is true actually for many other things. A great example is &, it's always supposed to be written as &amp; even when it appears in a url (such as a cgi url using get). Does it work the other way? Yes, but it's still not correct. Every web designer should know how to use free tools like http://validator.w3.org/. It's a great tool to find out if your page is Really compliant. Of anyone, you'd think that the W3c would know!

It's really a shame in some ways that the web has become so accesible. On the one hand it's a great medium for free speech. However, it's unfortunately become clogged with so many peopl that think that just because they can use frontpage that they're a web designer. Some better awareness of true web design would be nice.

Personally, my first experience with majour HTML design was working for a community net. Because we used lynx (no ppp conection, you connected to us with a terminal emulator), all of the pages had to be fully lynx-compliant. It really forced you though to develop tight coding practices. I really think that it's helped make me a better web author. Most of my pages now are content-based (rather than just glitz) and almost entirely text. The (graphical) formatting I use is all still intended to be lynx-friendly. Thing is, once you work with it for awhile, you can create Lynx-friendly code without really having to think about it. I still proof my pages but even I'm suprised at how well they turn out without any modification on my behalf. Nodens

W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WAI-WEBCONTENT-19990505 /)

This provides a great deal of advice on how to make your site accessible. Better, the advice is divided by priority: making sure that a page works without Javascript is Priority 1, but providing summaries for tables is Priority 3.

There have been murmurs on Slashdot before about companies getting sued (under the Americans with Disabilities Act) for having inaccessible pages. The W3C Accessibility Guidelines would likely be used as a reference if the courts rule that web sites are covered by the ADA.

The blame doesn't rest 100% on site designers, either. There are new (and forthcoming) WAI guidelines for authoring tools and browsers.

Visit the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Home Page at W3C (http://www.w3.org/WAI).

W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WAI-WEBCONTENT-19990505 /)

This provides a great deal of advice on how to make your site accessible. Better, the advice is divided by priority: making sure that a page works without Javascript is Priority 1, but providing summaries for tables is Priority 3.

There have been murmurs on Slashdot before about companies getting sued (under the Americans with Disabilities Act) for having inaccessible pages. The W3C Accessibility Guidelines would likely be used as a reference if the courts rule that web sites are covered by the ADA.

The blame doesn't rest 100% on site designers, either. There are new (and forthcoming) WAI guidelines for authoring tools and browsers.

Visit the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Home Page at W3C (http://www.w3.org/WAI).

W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WAI-WEBCONTENT-19990505 /)

This provides a great deal of advice on how to make your site accessible. Better, the advice is divided by priority: making sure that a page works without Javascript is Priority 1, but providing summaries for tables is Priority 3.

There have been murmurs on Slashdot before about companies getting sued (under the Americans with Disabilities Act) for having inaccessible pages. The W3C Accessibility Guidelines would likely be used as a reference if the courts rule that web sites are covered by the ADA.

The blame doesn't rest 100% on site designers, either. There are new (and forthcoming) WAI guidelines for authoring tools and browsers.

Visit the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Home Page at W3C (http://www.w3.org/WAI).

W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WAI-WEBCONTENT-19990505 /)

This provides a great deal of advice on how to make your site accessible. Better, the advice is divided by priority: making sure that a page works without Javascript is Priority 1, but providing summaries for tables is Priority 3.

There have been murmurs on Slashdot before about companies getting sued (under the Americans with Disabilities Act) for having inaccessible pages. The W3C Accessibility Guidelines would likely be used as a reference if the courts rule that web sites are covered by the ADA.

The blame doesn't rest 100% on site designers, either. There are new (and forthcoming) WAI guidelines for authoring tools and browsers.

Visit the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Home Page at W3C (http://www.w3.org/WAI).

While writing an article in slashdot is a good idea, most of us are probably already aware of this issue (personally not only I use almost no images in my web pages, but I also take the trouble to use a <span lang="..."> tag whenever I introduce a quote in a foreign language, so that a text to speech translator could presumably make the right decisions; and when I'm not too lazy, I even use the <abbr> quote for abbreviations — anyway, here is not the place to brag about my HTML coding style).

I think you should contact the W3 Consortium instead. This sort of thing is precisely their raison d'être. They have written many advocacy documents and editorials on similar subjects, and they probably have one targeting this precise problem. The moral authority of the W3 Consortium, although thin, is still stronger than an individual's, and they might have a better chance to convince a reluctant webmaster.

I highly suggest (and force on my web admins and designers) the new W3C Recommendation for building tools that support sites that provide accessible content. Such guidelines can be utilized by hand-designers to create aesthetic, useable, and accessible web experiences for all. Every time I access a web page that provides a poor user experience for non-mainstream browsers (I used lynx and w3-mode quite a bit), I email a standard letter to the webmaster that provides some guidelines and references for such. Even if 5% of /.ers did that, the world might start shifting toward a better place.

For, although your page is truly viewable in any browser, and is completely accessable to people of all disabilities, quit frankly my son, your page looks like festering backside of a unwashed gibbon.

--
But Master, I followed all of w3.org's reccomendations. I used tidy and bobby, and checked all the links. I didn't use CSS because every browser interprets them differently. I rejected tables as they work differently on different browsers (especially table background images). I did my best to make sure that it looked just as good on Lynx as it does in Gecko!

---
And that is the problem my son. All pages look like junk in Lynx. However, AOL users are spoiled little pigs. In the process to make your page appeal to the 10% of people who don't support the current IE and Netscape browsers, you have offended the other 90%. Go back and try again.

-----

The author is currently the webmaster of virtualsurreality.com. He has learned that even w3.org is still in confusion about the <p> tag and that table backgrounds are questionable (as can be seen by comparing his main page under Netscape and I.E.). He is however in love with Tidy.

-----