Re: [docbook-apps] slides: how to balance presentation and content

[Noah Slater <nslater@tumbolia.org>]

On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 07:54:15AM +0000, DavePawson wrote:
> Justus-bulk@Piater.name wrote:
>> DavePawson <davep@dpawson.co.uk> wrote on Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:45:21
>> +0000:
>>
>>> Tables are for tabular data. Go read W3C accessibility guidelines.
>>> Tables are not for visual layout all over the screen.
>>> CSS does that nicely without messing with accessibility.
>>
>> It's the *HTML rendering* that has to be accessible, not the *DocBook
>> source*.
>
> That doesn't parse Justus.

Sure it does.

The accessibility concerns pertain to the HTML, not the original DocBook.

All of the fuss about tables is in relation to how UAs handle them for HTML, so
there is no reason why you couldn't use tables in DocBook to produce a semantic
and accessible document in HTML. The two issues are largely orthogonal.

>> This discussion about accessibility and the appropriateness of tables
>> for layout is irrelevant here.
>
> I only hope you never have to use access technology.
>
> Conversation closed.
>
> Others are interested in keeping docbook accessible thankfully.

I think you misunderstood his point Dave.

Everyone so far seems to be in agreement that using tables in the HTML output is
harmful for accessibility. That does not preclude us from using tables in
DocBook and transforming them into something else entirely in HTML.

-- 
Noah Slater, http://tumbolia.org/nslater