Table accessibility proposal

[Jirka Kosek <jirka@kosek.cz>]

One of feature requests which DocBook TC is solving right now is table 
accessibility. One requirement for accessibility on tables is ability to 
mark cells that contain headers for column or row. Column headers are 
marked by thead element in CALS table model. However CALS table model 
doesn't provide means to mark some cell as row header.

On its last telecon DocBook TC 
(http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-tc/200411/msg00008.html) 
proposed following solution (taken from DITA DTD) to this issue:

Add rowheader attribute to the table element. This attribute can 
indicate either that first column of table contains row headers (value 
"firstcol"), or that there are no row headers in a table (value 
"norowheader").

<!ATTLIST table
           rowheader (firstcol | norowheader) #IMPLIED>

Processing tools can use this information to create more accessible 
output (e.g. decorate table cells with scope and/or header attributes in 
the case of HTML output).

Any comments or suggestions to this proposal? Is this mechanism 
sufficient for your table accessibility requirements?

					Jirka

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   Jirka Kosek     e-mail: jirka@kosek.cz     http://www.kosek.cz
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