[thelist] Table Summary Attribute

Niklaus Haldimann runciter at rosa.com
Thu Jun 14 09:44:07 CDT 2001


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

aardvark wrote:
> it isn't for browsers, it's for users... if you are surfing in a non-table-
> capable browser (Lynx, screen readers), the concept is that
> 'summary' will tell you what the table data is, so even if you can't
> read it, you at least know what it is...

Hmm. When my whole page consists of nothing but tables it's sort of
futile to provide a description of these tables to browsers that cannot
read their content. I always assumed non-table-capable browsers would
just output text in the order of appearance within the table. Lynx does
this, right? I don't think any real world browser can afford to ignore
tables altoghether. I think I'm ditching the summary 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




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