Re: [office-accessibility] A tweak to the Section 4.5

From
Richard Schwerdtfeger <>
Date
2007-06-26T07:01:34+00:00
ID
Thread
Re: [office-accessibility] A tweak to the Section 4.5
Thank you! I have made all the changes
including those from Janina and Steve. I am just waiting for Peter Korn's
change for section 2.1. Peter may be back from vacation this week. I also
removed a reference to LSR where we refer to Linux ATs.

Here is the latest draft with edits.

Rich

Rich Schwerdtfeger

Distinguished Engineer, SWG Accessibility Architect/Strategist

Chair, IBM Accessibility Architecture Review  Board

blog: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/schwer

"Steve Noble"
<> 

06/21/2007 02:17 PM

To

<>

cc

Subject

[office-accessibility] A tweak to the
Section 4.5

In regards to Section 4.5 "Preservation of MathML
accessibility

information"

We need to change what is now three brief paragraphs, and replace it

with only one paragraph below...

1) The existing (problematic) language:

--begin--

MathML can be exported to XHTML for use by Firefox or Internet Explorer

when used with the (free) MathPlayer plug-in, MathML also  interfaces

with screen readers to make the math accessible. MathML is supported in

HTML by Internet Explorer and in an experimental version of Firefox. 

But in general, MathML support in HTML is problematic if cross-platform

compatibility is  required. For example, one industry approach to

cross-platform compatibility, which has been use by the object tag in

HTML??sentence not clear??.

However, Internet Explorer's implementation of object tag does not

follow the W3C guidelines and its rendering results are poor, so this

approach is discouraged.

--end--

2) Rationale for change:

The first sentence should have another comma, to make it clear

MathPlayer is only required in IE.  Also, to say MathML can be exported

*to* XHTML isn't correct terminology.  We should keep the XHTML and
HTML

statements parallel in that regard, and say "MathML is supported..."
in

both cases. Finally, the object tag reference is not constructive. There

was some past proposal to use object tags for XML "islands" in
HTML, but

that's now been effectively left behind, so there's nothing to gain from

mentioning it here.

3) The suggested revised language:

--begin--

MathML is supported in XHTML by Firefox, or Internet Explorer when used

with the (free) MathPlayer plug-in, which interfaces with screen readers

to make the math accessible. MathML is also supported in HTML by

Internet Explorer and in an experimental version of Firefox, but due to

the lack of universal MathML implementation in all browsers, HTML

cross-platform compatibility is difficult to ensure.

--end--

 

This should do it.

Steve Noble

Director of Accessibility Policy

Design Science, Inc.

E-mail: 

Phone: (502) 969-3088

http://www.dessci.com/accessibility

ODF_Accessibility_Guidelines_25_25Jun2007_mp_rev draft2.odt