Re: [office] Recommendation to deprecate the is-subtable attribute

[Richard Schwerdtfeger <schwer@us.ibm.com>]

Hi Michael,

The issue raised on the use of table:is-subtable involves problems arising during table cell merge and split whereas the structure and the cell number scheme gets lost to assistive technologies. So, it appears that your option covers that. Currently, the ODF spec. only highlights an example where is-subtable was used for merging. We have been following the discussion and there is an indication that table:is-subtable is used for other purposes. Can the group provide some woking examples as we are not aware of problems of it's use elsewhere?

Hiro Takagi and Pete Brunet have offred to attend attend TC call to discuss the topic - just provide them the call logistics. I will be traveling to W3C meetings next week.

Thanks,

Rich


Rich Schwerdtfeger
Distinguished Engineer, SWG Accessibility Architect/Strategist
Chair, IBM Accessibility Architecture Review Board
blog: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/schwer
Michael Brauer - Sun Germany - ham02 - Hamburg <Michael.Brauer@Sun.COM>

Michael Brauer - Sun Germany - ham02 - Hamburg <Michael.Brauer@Sun.COM>
Sent by: Michael.Brauer@Sun.COM

06/21/2007 01:38 AM

To	dwheeler@dwheeler.com
cc	office@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject	Re: [office] Recommendation to deprecate the is-subtable attribute

Hi,

I have just noticed that my mail was confusing:

First, I wrote:

> What I'm wondering is whether we should
> deprecate the attribute in general, or whether we should only deprecate
> the use of this attribute for the purpose of merging cells.

Later on, I wrote:

> What the attribute does is to visually merge nested tables into the
> surrounding table. If we consider this to be a reasonable feature, then
> we should only deprecate the use of this feature to represent merged
> cells. If we think no one ever needs this feature, then we may deprecate
> it in general. I actually have a slight preference for the first option,

That means, I have changed the order of option:-(

So, my preference is to deprecate the feature only to represent merged
cells, too.

Michael

David A. Wheeler wrote:
> Michael Brauer:
>> my understanding of the request is that the use of the is-subtable
>> attribute defined in section 8.2.6 should be deprecated, but not sub
>> tables in general.
>>
>> The reason is that, if this attribute is used in combination with
>> sub-tables to represent merged cells, that these tables are not accessible.
>>
>> I do understand that argument, and therefore support the request to
>> deprecate the attribute. What I'm wondering is whether we should
>> deprecate the attribute in general, or whether we should only deprecate
>> the use of this attribute for the purpose of merging cells.
>
> I recommend #2.
>
> I believe this attribute should be "deprecated" only in the sense that it should not be used to merge cells when spanning was intended instead.  But it should NOT be truly deprecated (option #1), because having a table merge into a larger table is semantically different, and it's a useful sementic differentiation to make.  The problem is not that the concept (fully merged subtables) is useless; the problem is overuse of one construct (subtables with hidden borders) when spanning was intended instead.
>
> --- David A. Wheeler


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