[thelist] Table Summary Attribute

[Niklaus Haldimann]

Hi list

An accessibility consultant on a project is advising me to use summary
attributes in table tags to differentiate tables used solely for layout
purposes from those used to display content. Huh? Having never used the
summary attribute I can't make much sense of the documentation I found
via Google http://www.google.com/search?q=table+summary+attribute .

As I understand "summary" is for tables what "alt" is for images. So I
should use empty summary attributes in tables used for layout purposes
and try to summarize the content of the other ones, right? What kind of
browser do actually use the summary attribute and how do they use it?
Like, text-to-speech browsers will read it out before reading the
content of a table?

I am all for accessibility but I am having a hard time trying to figure
out how browsers can actually benefit from this attribute ...

--
Niklaus Haldimann, Frontend Engineer
At Work: http://www.rosa.com
At Play: http://www.ubique.ch
--
log-power to the WAP-people: http://www.waplog.ch