Re: [oiic-formation-discuss] My perspective. display perferct?

[robert_weir@us.ibm.com]

Alexander Wright <alexander@silverfish-design.co.uk>
wrote on 07/02/2008 02:54:50 PM:

> On Wednesday 02 July 2008 13:45:48 David Gerard wrote:
> > 2008/7/2 Peter Dolding <oiaohm@gmail.com>:
> > > PDF is a complete pain in a but format developed on the
old ps format
> > > that was also a pain in but for editing.   Reason why
other
> > > typesetting programs exist that translate into PS and PDF.
> > > If ODF turns into PDF pain to edit someone needs killing.
  Latex is
> > > still heavy used in a lot of places due to PS and PDF issues
of
> > > editing and it produces as good as documents and either
PS or PDF can
> > > but is also a lot nicer to edit.
> >
> > Heh, yes.
> >
> > Thomas and Rob explained in some detail why asking for layout-perfect
> > from ODF is asking for a pony.
> >
> > Would it be reasonable for the interop TC to at least address
the
> > issue and why asking for this is asking for a pony? At least
to get
> > the issue dealt with.
> 
> I mentioned this before, but no one picked it up.
> 
> ODF should be able to be used by blind / partially sighted people
> using screen 
> readers. More generally, the TC should probably address the needs
ofthe less 
> able in ensuring that if we do include PDF like formatting elements,they
can 
> be sensibly ignored, while retaining the structure of the document.
> 
> As an example of bad practise, its easy to put an introduction, or
index at 
> the end of a HTML file, then use CSS to position it at the beginning
of the 
> page (in an HTML browser). From the point of view of someone using
a screen 
> reader, this is less than helpful. 
> 
> I'm not blind or partially sighted myself, but I do try to think about
the 
> subject when designing websites.
> 

We have an Accessibility Subcommittee of the ODF TC
that has spent over a year reviewing ODF and proposing enhancements to
the format that increases its ability to work well to screen readers and
other assistive technologies.   Many of their proposals are included
in ODF 1.1.  The SC also created an Accessibility Guidelines document
for ODF implementors.   It is an open question how this work related
to the proposed OIIC TC's work.  

Certainly, wherever the ODF standard requires or recommends
something with respect to accessibility, we should define a test case for
it.  But the ODF specification does not require that conforming ODF
documents follow good accessibility practices, say using header styles
rather than just taking some text, making it bold and 24 point and setting
center alignment.  Things like this are testable.  In fact, IBM
sponsored an ODF Accessibility Coding Challenge back in 2006 that resulted
in several ODF accessibility checkers that you can find on SourceForge.
 

-Rob

-Rob