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	<title>Joe Dolson Accessible Web Design &#187; Browsers</title>
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		<title>Review of &#8220;Mobile Web Development&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/04/review-of-mobile-web-development/</link>
		<comments>http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/04/review-of-mobile-web-development/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:31:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Dolson</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Browsers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Web Development]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mobile design]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mobile web]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wcss]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[xhtml-mp]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.joedolson.com/articles/?p=239</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This new book from Packt Publishing &#38; Nirav Mehta is a quick and effective introduction to developing websites specifically targeted at mobile device users. I say &#8220;users&#8221; for a reason&#8201;&#8212;&#8201;one of the strongest advantages to the book is a strong focus on considering your user and their needs as a key element of mobile web&#160;development. [...]<p><strong><a href="http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/04/review-of-mobile-web-development/">Review of &#8220;Mobile Web Development&#8221;</a></strong><br /><small>Copyright 2004&thinsp;&ndash;&thinsp;2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web Design</small></p>
]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1847193439/joedolsonacce-20"><img src="/images/mobile-web-development.jpg" alt="Mobile Web Development, by Nirav Mehta" class="floatleft" /></a>This new book from <a href="http://www.packtpub.com/">Packt Publishing</a> <span class="amp">&amp;</span> <a href="http://www.mehtanirav.com/">Nirav Mehta</a> is a quick and effective introduction to developing websites specifically targeted at mobile device users. I say &#8220;users&#8221; for a reason&thinsp;&#8212;&thinsp;one of the strongest advantages to the book is a strong focus on considering your user and their needs as a key element of mobile web&nbsp;development.</p>
<p>My overall reaction to this book was positive. It covers a wide variety of key issues for mobile web programming in an easily understood manner. The book is targeted primarily at developers who already have some experience at web development and design, so it doesn&#8217;t delve into any serious detail when it comes to server-side programming or <abbr title="HyperText Markup Language">HTML</abbr> coding, but instead makes a point of emphasizing places where the mobile web is different from internet interaction on a desktop&nbsp;device.</p>
<p>Mehta goes out of his way on many occasions to emphasize the serious importance of considering who (and what!) will be using your mobile web&nbsp;application. </p>
<blockquote><p>
<span class="dquo">&#8220;</span>Any website accessed from a mobile device is mobile web&thinsp;&#8212;&thinsp;whether it&#8217;s been tailored to work on a mobile or not!&#8221; <cite><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1847193439/joedolsonacce-20">Mobile Web Development</a>, Nirav Mehta, page&nbsp;10</cite>
</p></blockquote>
<p>The book covers a wide range of issues&thinsp;&#8212;&thinsp;from developing for mobile devices using a &#8220;lowest common denominator&#8221; plan to implementing highly dynamic mobile applications which adapt automatically to the device currently in use. The text is easy to understand and follows a logical progression, starting with the mobile web development practices which are most similar to the development of standard web applications before moving into the areas which are very specifically targeted towards mobile&nbsp;devices.</p>
<p>This isn&#8217;t to say that the book doesn&#8217;t have a few flaws. I identified three areas where I really would have liked to seen better&nbsp;work.</p>
<h3>Editing</h3>
<p>In general, the copy editing on this text was pretty poor. The editing improved as I got further into the book (or I became more oblivious to it), but the introductory chapters had a lot of problems. There weren&#8217;t a lot of typos&thinsp;&#8212;&thinsp;but the grammar was noticeably lacking. The book is rife with sentences like&nbsp;this:</p>
<blockquote><p>
<span class="dquo">&#8220;</span>We will need a recharge of patience if we wanted to watch a movie preview on low speed mobile&nbsp;networks.&#8221;
</p></blockquote>
<p>I&#8217;m not a member of the <a href="http://www.grammarpolice.org/">grammar police</a>, but I&#8217;m certainly sympathetic. Professionally published books simply shouldn&#8217;t contain the kinds of errors found in this&nbsp;book.</p>
<h3>Code&nbsp;Examples</h3>
<p>The author talks about following web standards as a critical element of mobile web development. That&#8217;s great. It is, however, a serious pet peeve of mine to see code examples which don&#8217;t reflect the text of the book. The very first code example in the book is&nbsp;this:</p>

<div class="wp_syntax"><div class="code"><pre class="html4strict" style="font-family:monospace;"><span style="color: #009900;">&lt;<span style="color: #000000; font-weight: bold;">link</span> <span style="color: #000066;">rel</span><span style="color: #66cc66;">=</span><span style="color: #ff0000;">&quot;stylesheet&quot;</span> <span style="color: #000066;">type</span><span style="color: #66cc66;">=</span><span style="color: #ff0000;">&quot;text/css&quot;</span> <span style="color: #000066;">media</span><span style="color: #66cc66;">=</span><span style="color: #ff0000;">&quot;handheld&quot;</span> <span style="color: #000066;">href</span><span style="color: #66cc66;">=</span><span style="color: #ff0000;">&quot;mobile.css&quot;</span>&gt;</span></pre></div></div>

<p>The text preceding it states &#8220;Here&#8217;s how you can add an alternative stylesheet link in your <abbr title="eXtensible HyperText Markup Language - HTML reformulated as XML">XHTML</abbr> page.&#8221; <em>I see a problem here</em>. Yes, the author does explain at a later point in the book that all <abbr title="eXtensible HyperText Markup Language - HTML reformulated as XML">XHTML</abbr> elements must be closed: but it&#8217;s a simple fact of life that most people referencing this book will be far more likely to simply reference the code as is. This is simply a mistake; but it&#8217;s not one that should have made it through a review of the&nbsp;book. </p>
<p>I&#8217;ll admit that I haven&#8217;t gone through and checked the validation of every code example. Most of them seemed solid and accurate. There are definitely examples which wouldn&#8217;t be valid under the <abbr title="eXtensible HyperText Markup Language - HTML reformulated as XML">XHTML</abbr> DocType, but I&#8217;m not adept enough with <abbr title="eXtensible HyperText Markup Language - HTML reformulated as XML">XHTML</abbr>-MP to know off-hand if the same is true within the mobile profile&nbsp;DocType. </p>
<h3>Appendices</h3>
<p>Simply put, there aren&#8217;t any. There were numerous points in the book where I thought to myself that an appendix would be great. A list of resources cited by topic, a section summarizing the syntax of <abbr title="voice extensible markup language"><abbr title="Voice eXtensible Markup Language">VXML</abbr></abbr>, tables showing the differences between <abbr title="eXtensible HyperText Markup Language - HTML reformulated as XML">XHTML</abbr> and <abbr title="eXtensible HyperText Markup Language - HTML reformulated as XML">XHTML</abbr>-MP or between <abbr title="Cascading Style Sheets">CSS</abbr> and WCSS. These kinds of resources would have been tremendous benefits to the overall reference value of the&nbsp;text. </p>
<h3>Overall</h3>
<p>This is a worthwhile book. Even though I wouldn&#8217;t recommend trusting the code examples, the truth is that you should never simply take code examples as written&thinsp;&#8212;&thinsp;you learn best by taking an example and re-purposing it for your own needs. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1847193439/joedolsonacce-20">Mobile Web Development</a> will introduce you to the key issues for mobile web programming and design in a manner which can give you a quick start on mobile web application&nbsp;development.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/04/review-of-mobile-web-development/">Review of &#8220;Mobile Web Development&#8221;</a></strong><br /><small>Copyright 2004&thinsp;&ndash;&thinsp;2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web&nbsp;Design</small></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>What is &#8220;Cross-browser compatibility?&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/03/what-is-cross-browser-compatibility/</link>
		<comments>http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/03/what-is-cross-browser-compatibility/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 29 Mar 2008 21:00:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Dolson</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Browsers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Usability]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Web Development]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[browser compatibility]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mobile design]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/03/what-is-cross-browser-compatibility/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Here&#8217;s the first clue: it&#8217;s not creating a pixel-perfect replication of your ideal version of a site in all&#160;browsers. In fact, cross-browser compatibility ultimately has very little to do with what a web site looks like, and a lot more to do with how it functions. It also has relatively little to do with browsers, [...]<p><strong><a href="http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/03/what-is-cross-browser-compatibility/">What is &#8220;Cross-browser compatibility?&#8221;</a></strong><br /><small>Copyright 2004&thinsp;&ndash;&thinsp;2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web Design</small></p>
]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Here&#8217;s the first clue: it&#8217;s <em>not</em> creating a pixel-perfect replication of your ideal version of a site in all&nbsp;browsers. </p>
<p>In fact, cross-browser compatibility ultimately has very little to do with what a web site looks like, and a lot more to do with how it functions. It also has relatively little to do with browsers, and perhaps could better be explained as multiple user-agent&nbsp;compatibility.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">&#8220;</span>Compatibility&#8221; (in this context) is not a term which means &#8220;looks and behaves identically&#8221;&thinsp;&#8212;&thinsp;instead, it may be better described as &#8220;performs equivalently under alternative conditions.&#8221; But developers and designers tend to most immediately seize upon appearance as the guiding line for cross-browser&nbsp;compatibility.</p>
<p>Of course, let&#8217;s be honest: there are a lot of very good reasons for this. Completely disregarding what we may know about the behavior of a site, clients tend to be very visually oriented. They pop their new site open at home one day during development and notice a whole variety of differences which they&#8217;re suddenly concerned about.  If you&#8217;re lucky, they&#8217;re opening up Internet Explorer 6 <em>after</em> you&#8217;ve gone through the painstaking process of correct its inability to cope with standards-compliant code, rather than before you&#8217;ve gotten around to it. That can be&nbsp;awkward&#8230;</p>
<p>Another good reason is that despite what I&#8217;ve stated above, making the design behave more-or-less identically between different browsers is actually quite desirable. From a usability perspective, a seamless change in interactivity between different user-agents is very desirable. If you&#8217;ve ever tried to guide somebody through using a website which delivers a different experience to their browser than to yours, you are intimately familiar with one reason it&#8217;s a very bad&nbsp;idea.</p>
<p>But the absolute key to cross-browser compatibility is simply <em>functionality</em>. A lack of cross-browser compatibility doesn&#8217;t mean that something looks different; it means that it <strong>doesn&#8217;t&nbsp;work</strong>. </p>
<p>And a good thing, too. Otherwise, compatibility would be pretty well impossible between desktop browsers and mobile browsers. <img src='http://www.joedolson.com/articles/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>With web design, it&#8217;s occasionally entirely possible to make two browsers render a design exactly the same&#8230;if you assume certain factors will remain constant, such as the user settings described in <a href="http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/03/refining-text-presentation/">my last post</a>. If any of those have been changed, everything pretty well goes out the window. As desirable as it is to make your designs look as similar as possible between the various desktop browsers, it always has to be acknowledged that there are&nbsp;limits. </p>
<p>There&#8217;s nothing at all that you can do to actually guarantee the same view for everybody; instead, you need to guarantee an equivalent view for everybody. Equivalent in that they will be able to get the same information and use the functions of the site to perform the same&nbsp;actions. </p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/03/what-is-cross-browser-compatibility/">What is &#8220;Cross-browser compatibility?&#8221;</a></strong><br /><small>Copyright 2004&thinsp;&ndash;&thinsp;2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web&nbsp;Design</small></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>6</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Refining Text Presentation with your Web Browser: Windows</title>
		<link>http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/03/refining-text-presentation/</link>
		<comments>http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/03/refining-text-presentation/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 16 Mar 2008 23:13:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Dolson</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Accessibility]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Browsers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tutorials]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[browser controls]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[firefox]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ie6]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ie7]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ie8]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[internet explorer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[opera]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[safari]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[text-resizing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[user interface design]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/03/refining-text-presentation/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It wasn&#8217;t long ago that I wrote an article on authoring an effective text-resizing widget. In that article, I made a point not to espouse the use of text-resizing tools, since it&#8217;s generally more effective to allow people to use their browser&#8217;s built-in text-resizing&#160;functionality. In fact, browser&#8217;s allow you a great deal more control than [...]<p><strong><a href="http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/03/refining-text-presentation/">Refining Text Presentation with your Web Browser: Windows</a></strong><br /><small>Copyright 2004&thinsp;&ndash;&thinsp;2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web Design</small></p>
]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>It wasn&#8217;t long ago that I wrote an article on <a href="http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/02/developing-an-effective-text-resizing-widget/">authoring an effective text-resizing widget</a>. In that article, I made a point not to espouse the use of text-resizing tools, since it&#8217;s generally more effective to allow people to use their browser&#8217;s built-in text-resizing&nbsp;functionality. </p>
<p>In fact, browser&#8217;s allow you a great deal more control than simply <em>size</em>. Modern browsers can give you extensive control over website text, including dictating background colors, text color, base text size, minimum text size, and link attributes. This post is intended to provide a quick overview of the specific controls for most modern&nbsp;browsers.</p>
<p>Most browsers have fundamentally the same options, although the interface and location in menus is quite variable. Some are more intuitive than others, and some interfaces simply don&#8217;t quite work&nbsp;right&#8230;</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="/articles/2008/03/refining-text-presentation/#firefox23">Firefox, versions 2 and 3, Netscape&nbsp;9</a></li>
<li><a href="/articles/2008/03/refining-text-presentation/#opera9">Opera&nbsp;9</a></li>
<li><a href="/articles/2008/03/refining-text-presentation/#safari3w">Safari&nbsp;3</a></li>
<li><a href="/articles/2008/03/refining-text-presentation/#ie678">Internet Explorer&nbsp;6/7/8</a></li>
<li><a href="/articles/2008/03/refining-text-presentation/#ie78">Internet Explorer, features specific to versions&nbsp;7/8</a></li>
<li><a href="/articles/2008/03/refining-text-presentation/#ie6">Internet Explorer, features specific to version&nbsp;6</a></li>
<li><a href="/articles/2008/03/refining-text-presentation/#customcss">Custom&nbsp;Stylesheets</a></li>
</ul>
<p><span id="more-220"></span></p>
<h3 id="firefox23">Firefox, versions 2 and&nbsp;3</h3>
<p><em>Main Options: Tools &raquo; Options &raquo;&nbsp;Content</em></p>
<p><a href='http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/03/refining-text-presentation/firefox-text-configuration-options-dialogue/' rel='attachment wp-att-221' title='Firefox text configuration options dialogue'><img src='http://www.joedolson.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/firefox-2.thumbnail.jpg' alt='Firefox text configuration options dialogue' class='floatleft' /></a>Options for text configuration in Firefox are split between three menus, as is the case in most browsers. In addition to the basic options (setting your default font and font size), you can open up menus to configure preferred browser colors, link behavior options,&nbsp;etc.</p>
<p><em>Advanced Options: Tools &raquo; Options &raquo; Content &raquo;&nbsp;Advanced</em></p>
<p><a href='http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/03/refining-text-presentation/firefox-advanced-text-configuration-options/' rel='attachment wp-att-222' title='Firefox advanced text configuration options.'><img src='http://www.joedolson.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/firefox-2-adv.thumbnail.jpg' alt='Firefox advanced text configuration options.'  class='floatleft' /></a>In the advanced menu, Firefox gives you the options to set preferred fonts for Proportional, Serif, Sans-serif, and Monospace fonts&thinsp;&#8212;&thinsp;this can be useful, if you know what they mean, but is primarily a decorative decision. However, they also give you the ability to set your minimum font-size AND to dictate whether or not web pages will be allowed to over-ride your own browser settings for font face. The minimum font-size can be a very powerful tool for accessibility&thinsp;&#8212;&thinsp;it allows you to easily prevent any website from ever producing text at a size you are unable to&nbsp;read. </p>
<p><em>Color Options: Tools &raquo; Options &raquo; Content &raquo;&nbsp;Colors</em></p>
<p><a href='http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/03/refining-text-presentation/firefox-text-color-options-dialogue/' rel='attachment wp-att-223' title='Firefox text color options dialogue.'><img src='http://www.joedolson.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/firefox-2-colors.thumbnail.jpg' alt='Firefox text color options dialogue.' class='floatleft' /></a>Text color options are fairly straightforward. Firefox doesn&#8217;t provide an extensive list of choices: you have only four generic objects you can choose color for. Links, visited links, text, and overall background. Importantly, however, it gives you the power to enforce your choice of text and background colors, overriding any web site text or background colors. (For the record, it does also override background images, so no worry that you&#8217;ll be left with black-on-black purely because the site is using an image for the background&nbsp;text.</p>
<p>Netscape 9 uses the same options menu as Firefox, and this will not change, since Netscape was officially killed as of March 1st, 2008. <abbr title="Rest in peace">RIP</abbr>,&nbsp;Netscape.</p>
<h3 id="opera9">Opera&nbsp;9</h3>
<p><em>Basic Options: Tools &raquo; Preferences &raquo; Web&nbsp;Pages</em></p>
<p><a href='http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/03/refining-text-presentation/opera-9-font-configuration-settings/' rel='attachment wp-att-224' title='Opera 9 font configuration settings.'><img src='http://www.joedolson.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/opera-9.thumbnail.jpg' alt='Opera 9 font configuration settings.' class='floatleft' /></a>The options in Opera 9 are much the same as Firefox, with a significantly different organization&thinsp;&#8212;&thinsp;and a couple of glaring omissions. The first omission noted is that while Opera provides you with the option to change the default background color, it does <em>not</em> give the option to change the corresponding default <em>text color</em>. This could easily cause problems, and makes it much more difficult to choose as your preference a light-on-dark color scheme, for example. The second omission is the lack of an option to have Opera override the text colors set by the web site. The options provide are merely to configure pages without a specific style applied&thinsp;&#8212;&thinsp;leaving you with less than ideal options when it comes to preferences on a less than ideal site. In general, the basic options are extremely weak in&nbsp;Opera.</p>
<p><em>Advanced Options: Tools &raquo; Preferences &raquo; Advanced &raquo;&nbsp;Fonts</em></p>
<p><a href='http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/03/refining-text-presentation/opera-9-advanced-font-options/' rel='attachment wp-att-225' title='Opera 9 advanced font options.'><img src='http://www.joedolson.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/opera-9-adv.thumbnail.jpg' alt='Opera 9 advanced font options.' class='floatleft' /></a>The advanced options in Opera, while providing extensive options for configuring font colors, sizes, and faces, are perhaps a bit confusing to operate. They may be a bit on the overwhelming side for some users. However, they do also give you a lot of choices. You&#8217;re presented with a list of 23 separate types of on-page text which you can modify. Rather than simply setting one base font size or face, you can individually configure settings for browser menus, toolbars, web page text, headings, and form&nbsp;input. </p>
<p><a href='http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/03/refining-text-presentation/opera-9-text-element-configuration/' rel='attachment wp-att-226' title='Opera 9 text element configuration.'><img src='http://www.joedolson.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/opera-9-font.thumbnail.jpg' alt='Opera 9 text element configuration.' class='floatleft' /></a>The one complication is that not all fields give you the same set of options. While at first glance, it&#8217;s very nice that they provide options to change browser menus, in fact they have not provide the option to change the text <em>size</em> for those elements. Ah, well. The menu to configure those text elements which are fully configurable is straight-forward and&nbsp;logical. </p>
<p>How these text presentation choices actually function, however, is perhaps a little bit mysterious. It&#8217;s not 100% accurate to say that these are choices specific to text elements. The organization doesn&#8217;t make this clear, and there&#8217;s no text to describe it, but if you change the option &#8220;Web page normal text,&#8221; this will effect <em>all</em> text on the page. This option appears to be inclusive of all the element-specific configurations expressed below. Changing this option will override whatever text-size choices the website has made. This is not apparently true of the other options: changing the specified size for <code>h1</code> did NOT override the website specifications in my&nbsp;testing.</p>
<h3>Safari 3.0 for&nbsp;Windows</h3>
<p><em>Main Options: Edit &raquo; Preferences &raquo;&nbsp;Appearance</em></p>
<p><a href='http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/03/refining-text-presentation/safari-30-text-options/' rel='attachment wp-att-227' title='Safari 3.0 Text Options'><img src='http://www.joedolson.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/safari-3.thumbnail.jpg' alt='Safari 3.0 Text Options' class='floatleft' /></a>The basic options in version 3.0 of Safari are pretty simple, at first glance. You can pick the basic options (font face and font size) for standard and fixed-width fonts. If you want to change the default font size to one of the options provided (9-14, 16, 18, 24, 36, 48, 64, 72, 96, 144 or 288 pixels), you simply select that size and you&#8217;re set. If you want a size <em>not</em> in that list, however, you&#8217;re in for a&nbsp;surprise. </p>
<p><a href='http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/03/refining-text-presentation/safari-30-text-options-controls/' rel='attachment wp-att-229' title='Safari 3.0 Text options (controls)'><img src='http://www.joedolson.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/safari-3-text.thumbnail.jpg' alt='Safari 3.0 Text options (controls)' class='floatleft' /></a>First, Safari 3 for Windows does not provide any kind of control to save or commit your changes. They are intended to be committed immediately, with no need to save. This is counter-intuitive in the Windows operating system paradigm, particularly when making a change which is not immediately visually apparent. In the case of font changes, fortunately, as long as you have a web page open behind the control panel, you will see the results&nbsp;immediately.</p>
<p>But&#8230;if you type in the size you would like to see (in the editable text field in the upper right corner), it does not immediately take effect. This is because the change is actually implemented as soon as you <em>remove focus</em> from the text box. So, if you edit the text box manually and then close, the change will <em>not</em> be saved. If, instead, you edit the text box and then move the focus to any other field, your edit will then be&nbsp;committed.</p>
<p>The other option for freely changing text size is a vertically oriented slide control. This would be reasonably logical if it weren&#8217;t for the list of font sizes right next to it&thinsp;&#8212;&thinsp;the select control is listed from smallest to largest, but the slide control moves the opposite direction: the largest sizes at the top. Still, once you get the hang of the controls, it&#8217;s not difficult&thinsp;&#8212;&thinsp;just not really&nbsp;intuitive.</p>
<p><em>Advanced Options: Edit &raquo; Preferences &raquo;&nbsp;Advanced</em></p>
<p><a href='http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/03/refining-text-presentation/safari-30-advanced-text-options/' rel='attachment wp-att-228' title='Safari 3.0 Advanced Text Options'><img src='http://www.joedolson.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/safari-3-adv.thumbnail.jpg' alt='Safari 3.0 Advanced Text Options' class='floatleft' /></a>The Safari advanced options provide only one additional text refining feature: the ability to set the minimum font size rendered. This is also where you can attach a custom stylesheet; but this type of feature will be discussed later. You may also note at this point that Safari offers <em>no</em> options for altering text colors, background colors or link&nbsp;colors.</p>
<h3 id="ie678">Internet Explorer&nbsp;6/7/8</h3>
<p><em>Main Options: Tools &raquo; Internet Options &raquo; General &raquo;&nbsp;Fonts</em></p>
<p><a href='http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/03/refining-text-presentation/internet-explorer-versions-6-8-general-text-options/' rel='attachment wp-att-230' title='Internet Explorer (versions 6-8) General text options'><img src='http://www.joedolson.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/ie7.thumbnail.jpg' alt='Internet Explorer (versions 6-8) General text options' class='floatleft' /></a>The general font options in all version of Internet Explorer are quite basic&thinsp;&#8212;&thinsp;the only option available is to choose the font faces which will be provided for web page or plain text fonts. Straight forward, simple&thinsp;&#8212;&thinsp;and doesn&#8217;t do very much. For the most part, this is not likely to provide any additional accessibility, unless you happen to spend a lot of time on the web sites which have not specified a font face and have difficulty reading <em>Times New&nbsp;Roman</em>.</p>
<p><em><span class="dquo">&#8220;</span>Accessibility&#8221; Options: Tools &raquo; Internet Options &raquo; General &raquo;&nbsp;Accessibility</em></p>
<p><a href='http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/03/refining-text-presentation/internet-explorer-versions-6-8-accessibility-options/' rel='attachment wp-att-231' title='Internet Explorer (versions 6-8) accessibility options'><img src='http://www.joedolson.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/ie7-access.thumbnail.jpg' alt='Internet Explorer (versions 6-8) accessibility options' class='floatleft' /></a>I put this section into quotes because I find the categorization of these options as being specifically &#8220;accessibility&#8221; options is a bit specious. What is actually provided under the accessibility menu are the options for allowing Internet Explorer to use your color and font settings to override web site settings. It should be noted that Internet Explorer allows you to ignore the font sizes specified on a web page, but does NOT allow you to change your own base font setting. (You can change this setting in your Windows appearance options, and it will effect web pages if the &#8220;Ignore Font Sizes&#8221; setting is&nbsp;checked.)</p>
<p>One sadly missing feature in all versions of Internet Explorer is the ability to set a minimum font-size&thinsp;&#8212;&thinsp;a feature which, in my opinion, adds great value to other&nbsp;browsers.</p>
<h3 id="ie78">Internet Explorer&nbsp;7/8</h3>
<p><em>Colors Options: Tools &raquo; Internet Options &raquo; General &raquo;&nbsp;Colors</em></p>
<p><a href='http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/03/refining-text-presentation/internet-explorer-versions-7-8-color-options/' rel='attachment wp-att-232' title='Internet Explorer (versions 7-8) Color options'><img src='http://www.joedolson.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/ie7-color.thumbnail.jpg' alt='Internet Explorer (versions 7-8) Color options' class='floatleft' /></a>With Internet Explorer 7 and, so far, version 8 as well, the color choice menu has been redesigned from version 6. It has not been designed <em>for the better</em>, mind you. The interface is, to say the least, confusing. There are two check boxes in the new interface: &#8220;Use Hover Color&#8221;, and &#8220;Use Windows Colors&#8221;. &#8220;Use Hover Color&#8221; is fairly straightforward, although the way the interface is designed makes it unclear what color will in fact be&nbsp;used. </p>
<p><span class="dquo">&#8220;</span>Use Windows Colors,&#8221; however, is quite confusing. Unfortunately, if you have the option checked, the color selections are grayed out: giving you, in effect, no idea what &#8220;Windows Colors&#8221; will actually be. This may not be a problem in a default set up; but if you have changed your Windows Color, you may have no idea what to expect. When you uncheck the option, the color fields once again light up and give you your options to&nbsp;change.</p>
<h3 id="ie6">Internet Explorer&nbsp;6</h3>
<p><em>Colors Options: Tools &raquo; Internet Options &raquo; General &raquo;&nbsp;Colors</em></p>
<p><a href='http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/03/refining-text-presentation/internet-explorer-6-color-options/' rel='attachment wp-att-233' title='Internet Explorer 6 Color Options'><img src='http://www.joedolson.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/ie6-color.thumbnail.png' alt='Internet Explorer 6 Color Options' class='floatleft' /></a>Although fundamentally a very similar interface to the later versions, the color selection tools in <abbr title="Internet Explorer">IE</abbr> 6 are, to me, much clearer than the later events. The grouping of features makes more sense, as does the indication of current defaults&thinsp;&#8212;&thinsp;which are at least available for link colors, if not for text and background&nbsp;colors.</p>
<p>One of the biggest problems, in my opinion, with the design of the Internet Explorer interfaces (all of them) is that rather than giving you the option to override web page settings at the same time you establish your settings, you have to create the settings and set the override selection in separate menus. In <abbr title="Internet Explorer">IE</abbr> 7 and 8, adding insult to injury, the interface takes up space to link to instructions on how to ignore presets&thinsp;&#8212;&thinsp;space which could just as easily have been occupied by a checkbox to perform that&nbsp;action. </p>
<h3 id="customcss">Custom&nbsp;Stylesheets</h3>
<p>Most browsers allow you to attach your own custom style sheet. These style sheets use the Cascading Style Sheets format to allow you very fine control over how web sites you visit will display. They are, however, somewhat beyond the skill level of the average web user. Nonetheless, it&#8217;s valuable to know that the feature is available&thinsp;&#8212;&thinsp;if you are unable to enable your browser to provide what you need, you may be able to accomplish it with custom&nbsp;styles.</p>
<p><em>Opera Custom CSS: Tools &raquo; Quick Preferences &raquo; Edit Site Preferences &raquo;&nbsp;Display</em></p>
<p><a href='http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/03/refining-text-presentation/opera-9-custom-stylesheet-interface/' rel='attachment wp-att-234' title='Opera 9 Custom Stylesheet Interface'><img src='http://www.joedolson.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/opera-css.thumbnail.jpg' alt='Opera 9 Custom Stylesheet Interface' class='floatleft' /></a>The richest options available at this time are for the Opera browser. Opera allows customization on a site-specific level, allowing you to specify detailed characteristics for each site you&nbsp;visit.</p>
<p><em>Firefox Custom CSS: Complicated by hand, easy with&nbsp;plugins&#8230;</em></p>
<p>In it&#8217;s default installation, Firefox simply doesn&#8217;t offer a practical way to install custom styles. However, the easy extensability of Firefox through browser add-ons solves this problem readily. The most popular and easiest to use option is the <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2108">Stylish</a> add-on, which provides functionality to add custom styles at the site level or the global level. Additionally, Stylish maintains an <a href="http://userstyles.org/">online repository of user-created&nbsp;styles</a>. </p>
<p><em>Safari Custom CSS: Edit &raquo; Preferences &raquo;&nbsp;Advanced</em></p>
<p>You&#8217;ve already seen this menu above, and it seems fairly straightforward. I will say, however, that I had a great deal of difficulty managing style sheets. The behavior of the interface was quite buggy. It&#8217;s difficult to describe, except to say that the differentiation between selecting to <em>choose</em> a style sheet and loading a <em>new</em> style sheet was extremely weak. It was not uncommon for them to behave in a different manner from what I expected. Altogether, at this time I&#8217;d say that the functionality is <em>present</em>, but at least in my installation, nearly&nbsp;unusable.</p>
<p><em><abbr title="Internet Explorer">IE</abbr> 6/7/8 Custom CSS: Tools &raquo; Internet Options &raquo; General &raquo;&nbsp;Accessibility</em></p>
<p>Unlike Opera by default and Firefox with the Stylish plugin, Internet Explorer offers only a single global custom stylesheet to be added. Nonetheless, there&#8217;s a lot you can do with global styles: and at least the interface&nbsp;works. </p>
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
<p>Most modern browsers provide the user with the ability to set their preferred default font size, text and background colors, and link colors and decoration. Some browser provide much richer features than that, allowing site-specific options and setting a minimum base font size to prevent microscopic text. In general, browser options tend to be richer and more reliable than the same functionality provided by any web-site based text widget; but may be significantly less apparent to the&nbsp;user. </p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/03/refining-text-presentation/">Refining Text Presentation with your Web Browser: Windows</a></strong><br /><small>Copyright 2004&thinsp;&ndash;&thinsp;2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web&nbsp;Design</small></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Why the DOCTYPE switch isn&#8217;t broken</title>
		<link>http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/01/why-the-doctype-switch-isnt-broken/</link>
		<comments>http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/01/why-the-doctype-switch-isnt-broken/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:24:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Dolson</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Browsers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Web standards]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[doctype]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ie8]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[legacy browsers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[quirks mode]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[standards]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/01/why-the-doctype-switch-isnt-broken/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[(Or, more accurately, why the DOCTYPE is no more broken than any other potential switching&#160;mechanism.) In a recent article, &#8220;Beyond DOCTYPE: Web Standards, Forward Compatibility, and IE8&#8220;, Aaron Gustafson states that &#8220;the DOCTYPE [is] unsustainable as a switch for standards&#160;mode.&#8221; His argument is based on the problem that many developers and authoring tools now make [...]<p><strong><a href="http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/01/why-the-doctype-switch-isnt-broken/">Why the DOCTYPE switch isn&#8217;t broken</a></strong><br /><small>Copyright 2004&thinsp;&ndash;&thinsp;2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web Design</small></p>
]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>(Or, more accurately, why the DOCTYPE is no <em>more</em> broken than any other potential switching&nbsp;mechanism.)</p>
<p>In a recent article, &#8220;<a href="http://www.alistapart.com/articles/beyonddoctype">Beyond <code>DOCTYPE</code>: Web Standards, Forward Compatibility, and IE8</a>&#8220;, Aaron Gustafson states that &#8220;the <code>DOCTYPE</code> [is] unsustainable as a switch for standards&nbsp;mode.&#8221;</p>
<p>His argument is based on the problem that many developers and authoring tools now make use of correct <code>DOCTYPE</code>s despite the fact that they are not <em>in fact</em> using standards-based, valid code. Therefore, you can not actually assume that a valid <code>DOCTYPE</code> actually indicates the presence of the type of <abbr title="HyperText Markup Language">HTML</abbr> code it&nbsp;claims.</p>
<p>Yes. This is&nbsp;true.</p>
<p>However, he then continues to state that a reasonable solution for this issue is to create <em>yet another</em> standards-based rendering switch. How is this&nbsp;logical? </p>
<p>Let&#8217;s review: the reason the current <code>DOCTYPE</code> switching mechanism is broken is because developers and authoring tools don&#8217;t use it correctly. The solution? Create a new switch which&#8230;can also be misused very&nbsp;easily.</p>
<blockquote><p>
&#8230;we&#8217;re really only left with one option for guaranteeing a site we build today will look as good and work as well in five years as it does today: define a list of browser versions that the site was built and tested on, and then require that browser makers implement a way to use legacy rendering and scripting engines to display the site as it was intended—well into the future. <cite>Aaron&nbsp;Gustafson</cite>
</p></blockquote>
<p>That&#8217;s a great idea, except for the minor flaw that there&#8217;s absolutely nothing stopping developers from misusing it in <em>exactly</em> the same way they have misused the <code>DOCTYPE</code>. Authoring tools may add an auto-generated list of default browsers, developers may cut and paste from other sites without understanding what they are using (much like some currently do) or (undoubtedly) new browsers will be developed which either ignore these switches or mis-interpret&nbsp;them. </p>
<p>I think that there&#8217;s a certain amount of sense in stating the exact state of browsers when your site was launched. I can see distinct value to being able to state that your site was developed and tested on Firefox 3, Internet Explorer 8 and Opera 9.732. I can certainly understand that this can help future browsers understand how to interpret your older code: when Firefox 14 is released, it will (hypothetically) simply incorporate the rendering rules from version 3, apply them, and there you are: a perfectly rendering web site. Complete with all the limitations it had when it was built, and incapable of taking advantage of any superior changes in rendering that a well-authored and standards compliant site perhaps could have benefited&nbsp;from.</p>
<p>I do feel that it is a serious mistake to consider this to be any kind of long-term solution, however. In reality, it&#8217;s just another requirement which can be mis-used exactly like any&nbsp;other. </p>
<p>The solution (which is not, of course, a popular one) is actually attentive developers who are prepared to make changes to their sites when new browsers are released. Developing to standards is a great way to ensure minimum requirements for redevelopment: why should we add yet another feature to pander to developers who refuse to observe basic minimum standards of coding?
<p><strong><a href="http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/01/why-the-doctype-switch-isnt-broken/">Why the DOCTYPE switch isn&#8217;t broken</a></strong><br /><small>Copyright 2004&thinsp;&ndash;&thinsp;2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web&nbsp;Design</small></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>IBM Building Accessible Multimedia Browser</title>
		<link>http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2007/03/ibm-building-accessible-multimedia-browser/</link>
		<comments>http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2007/03/ibm-building-accessible-multimedia-browser/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 31 Mar 2007 00:01:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Dolson</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Accessibility]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Browsers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Web Development]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2007/03/ibm-building-accessible-multimedia-browser/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[IBM, a company which has long had a strong commitment to accessibility, is in the final stages of developing a new accessible web browsing product with a focus on&#160;multimedia. From &#8220;IBM Helps Blind &#8216;See&#8217; Video, BBC&#160;News: Using the A-Browser, a vision-impaired person can control media content by using predefined shortcut keys, rather than having to [...]<p><strong><a href="http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2007/03/ibm-building-accessible-multimedia-browser/">IBM Building Accessible Multimedia Browser</a></strong><br /><small>Copyright 2004&thinsp;&ndash;&thinsp;2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web Design</small></p>
]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>
IBM, a company which has long had a strong commitment to accessibility, is in the final stages of developing a new accessible web browsing product with a focus on&nbsp;multimedia.
</p>
<p>
From &#8220;<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6507189.stm">IBM Helps Blind &#8216;See&#8217; Video</a>, BBC&nbsp;News:
</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
Using the A-Browser, a vision-impaired person can control media content by using predefined shortcut keys, rather than having to look for the control buttons using a&nbsp;mouse.
</p>
<p>
The browser also allows video to be slowed down, speeded up and can accommodate an additional audio description or narration track that is often included to make films and television programmes more comprehensible to blind&nbsp;people.
</p>
<p>
The volume controls also allow the user to adjust the sound of various sources independently&thinsp;&#8211;&thinsp;for example the main audio track, an audio description track and output from a screen&nbsp;reader.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
Obviously, the product isn&#8217;t yet unleashed for world-wide testing; but it is available for speculation!  I&#8217;m not sure exactly how much extra functionality this will add when a user is encountering video without audio description or a narration track, but the simple fact of making existing resources more usable for users with visual impairments is a good&nbsp;start.
</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2007/03/ibm-building-accessible-multimedia-browser/">IBM Building Accessible Multimedia Browser</a></strong><br /><small>Copyright 2004&thinsp;&ndash;&thinsp;2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web&nbsp;Design</small></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Molly Holzschlag Working with Internet Explorer</title>
		<link>http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2007/01/molly-holzschlag-working-with-internet-explorer/</link>
		<comments>http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2007/01/molly-holzschlag-working-with-internet-explorer/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 31 Jan 2007 16:27:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Dolson</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Browsers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Web standards]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2007/01/molly-holzschlag-working-with-internet-explorer/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As announced on the IEBlog today, web standards guru Molly Holzschlag will be working as a contractor to try and get at IE&#8217;s standards and interoperability issues. This is pretty exciting news for web standards: Molly is a very highly qualified advocate of web standards, and with any luck she&#8217;ll be able to pound her [...]<p><strong><a href="http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2007/01/molly-holzschlag-working-with-internet-explorer/">Molly Holzschlag Working with Internet Explorer</a></strong><br /><small>Copyright 2004&thinsp;&ndash;&thinsp;2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web Design</small></p>
]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>
<a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/01/30/working-together-for-a-better-web.aspx">As announced on the IEBlog today</a>, web standards guru <a href="http://www.molly.com">Molly Holzschlag</a> will be working as a contractor to try and get at <abbr title="Internet Explorer">IE</abbr>&#8217;s standards and interoperability issues. This is pretty exciting news for web standards: Molly is a very highly qualified advocate of web standards, and with any luck she&#8217;ll be able to pound her message through the bureaucratic net at&nbsp;Microsoft.
</p>
<p>
I&#8217;m not one of those people who believes that Microsoft actually doesn&#8217;t care about web standards, or that Microsoft is willfully ignorant&thinsp;&#8212;&thinsp;or even that Microsoft intentionally perverts web standards in their products in order to increase market control.  I think that Microsoft&#8217;s main problem has to do with scope: the fact that they&#8217;ve intertwined Internet Explorer so deeply into the operating system makes for a lot of extra problems in making the major changes required to get any significant change accomplished. Molly is a very dedicated and knowledgeable web standards guru, and I have high hopes that she can accomplish something&nbsp;substantial.
</p>
<p>
I&#8217;m looking forward to seeing what will&nbsp;happen!
</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2007/01/molly-holzschlag-working-with-internet-explorer/">Molly Holzschlag Working with Internet Explorer</a></strong><br /><small>Copyright 2004&thinsp;&ndash;&thinsp;2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web&nbsp;Design</small></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>What we want in IE &#8220;Next&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2006/12/what-we-want-in-ie-next/</link>
		<comments>http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2006/12/what-we-want-in-ie-next/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 14 Dec 2006 01:07:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Dolson</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Browsers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Web standards]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2006/12/what-we-want-in-ie-next/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[IE, the Next Generation. I know&#8201;&#8211;&#8201;version 7 has only been available for a month and here we standards guys are, whining about it&#8217;s flaws. Let&#8217;s face it, though: IE 7, though better than it&#8217;s predecessor, is ultimately just a clumsy patch&#160;job. Roger Johansson has written up his big wishes, asking for some pretty wishful thinking [...]<p><strong><a href="http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2006/12/what-we-want-in-ie-next/">What we want in IE &#8220;Next&#8221;</a></strong><br /><small>Copyright 2004&thinsp;&ndash;&thinsp;2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web Design</small></p>
]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>
<abbr title="Internet Explorer">IE</abbr>, the Next Generation.  I know&thinsp;&#8211;&thinsp;version 7 has only been available for a month and here we standards guys are, whining about it&#8217;s flaws.  Let&#8217;s face it, though: <abbr title="Internet Explorer">IE</abbr> 7, though better than it&#8217;s predecessor, is ultimately just a clumsy patch&nbsp;job.
</p>
<p>
Roger Johansson has <a href="http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200612/10_must_haves_in_ie_next/">written up his big wishes</a>, asking for some pretty wishful thinking options such as &#8220;Rewrite or replace the layout engine.&#8221;  That&#8217;s a huge demand, and personally, I won&#8217;t be holding my breath.  Nonetheless, the fundamental principle is right on: Trident is buggy.  Other engines are <em>less&nbsp;buggy</em>.
</p>
<p><span id="more-101"></span></p>
<p>
In general, I&#8217;m hesitant what to ask for in <abbr title="Internet Explorer">IE</abbr> Next.  Do I really want the next version of <abbr title="Internet Explorer">IE</abbr> to be the perfect browser?  What would the consequences of that kind of performance be for the minority browsers such as Firefox and Opera?  I want standards-compliant support for <abbr title="Cascading Style Sheets">CSS</abbr> 3, frankly.  Will the next version of <abbr title="Internet Explorer">IE</abbr> provide this?  Probably not.  But then, neither will the next version of Firefox, most&nbsp;likely.
</p>
<p>
It&#8217;s a tricky question&thinsp;&#8211;&thinsp;on the one hand, Firefox has little motivation to work on implementing these features.  All they&#8217;d really accomplish would be to allow Firefox geeks to brag that <em>their browser</em> could use <abbr title="Cascading Style Sheets">CSS</abbr> 3.  Nobody would actually program a website which required them as long as no other browsers use them.  If <abbr title="Internet Explorer">IE</abbr> 7 had brought support for any significant part of <abbr title="Cascading Style Sheets">CSS</abbr> 3, on the other hand, it would have created major pressure for other browser developers to move forward with their own&nbsp;support.
</p>
<p>
Personally, I&#8217;m satisfied for the moment with <abbr title="Internet Explorer">IE</abbr> 7&#8242;s insufficient improvements.  I have hope that, once <abbr title="Internet Explorer">IE</abbr> 6 users have shifted over (fingers crossed this will be at least <em>reasonably</em> quick), my development life will become much easier.  I also hope that <abbr title="Internet Explorer">IE</abbr> 7&#8242;s low bar for implementation of usability as well as standards support won&#8217;t do anything to slow the continued growth of Firefox as a competitive minority browser.  Frankly, I hope that Opera also continues to improve and grow&thinsp;&#8211;&thinsp;they have a terrific product, even though I&#8217;m personally more comfortable with&nbsp;Firefox.
</p>
<p>
I guess it&#8217;s just a wait and&nbsp;see&#8230;
</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2006/12/what-we-want-in-ie-next/">What we want in <abbr title="Internet Explorer">IE</abbr> &#8220;Next&#8221;</a></strong><br /><small>Copyright 2004&thinsp;&ndash;&thinsp;2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web&nbsp;Design</small></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>IE7 and Assistive Technology</title>
		<link>http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2006/11/ie7-and-assistive-technology/</link>
		<comments>http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2006/11/ie7-and-assistive-technology/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 07 Nov 2006 20:38:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Dolson</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Accessibility]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Browsers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Software]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2006/11/ie7-and-assistive-technology/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Kelly Ford, from the IE Accessibility Team, posted today in the IEBlog about IE7&#8242;s expected behavior with a variety of commercial screen readers and screen&#160;magnifiers. The general sound of things is that IE7 will be compatible (or mostly compatible) with the most recent versions of most assistive technology&#160;software. Although the number of products detailed on [...]<p><strong><a href="http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2006/11/ie7-and-assistive-technology/">IE7 and Assistive Technology</a></strong><br /><small>Copyright 2004&thinsp;&ndash;&thinsp;2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web Design</small></p>
]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>
Kelly Ford, from the <acronym title="internet explorer"><abbr title="Internet Explorer">IE</abbr></acronym> Accessibility Team, posted today in the IEBlog about <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/11/07/ie7-and-various-screen-readers-and-screen-enlargers.aspx">IE7&#8242;s expected behavior with a variety of commercial screen readers and screen&nbsp;magnifiers</a>.
</p>
<p>
The general sound of things is that IE7 will be compatible (or mostly compatible) with the most recent versions of most assistive technology&nbsp;software.
</p>
<p>
Although the number of products detailed on the IEblog is quite small, it does cover the better known products in assistive technology, all of which either are currently compatible with IE7 or will be patched for compatibility within the next&nbsp;month.
</p>
<p>
The information in the post is brief and provides little information about any kind of advanced functionality: however, if you want to verify whether your assistive technology will be compatible with IE7 it&#8217;s probably best that you check this out&thinsp;&mdash;&thinsp;<em>before</em> you install&nbsp;IE7!
</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2006/11/ie7-and-assistive-technology/">IE7 and Assistive Technology</a></strong><br /><small>Copyright 2004&thinsp;&ndash;&thinsp;2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web&nbsp;Design</small></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>What I Love About IE</title>
		<link>http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2006/09/what-i-love-about-ie/</link>
		<comments>http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2006/09/what-i-love-about-ie/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 26 Sep 2006 15:38:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Dolson</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Browsers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Web Development]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2006/09/what-i-love-about-ie/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#160;Foreword: No way. I&#8217;m NOT writing this&#160;article. Seriously! There is no way I&#8217;m going to do&#160;this! You&#8217;ve kidnapped my mother? Nope. Still not doing&#160;it. You&#8217;ll take away my browser? Erp&#8230;Fine. But I won&#8217;t like&#160;it. Seriously, there is one tiny thing that I really love about IE: conditional comments. Admittedly, their main function is to make [...]<p><strong><a href="http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2006/09/what-i-love-about-ie/">What I Love About IE</a></strong><br /><small>Copyright 2004&thinsp;&ndash;&thinsp;2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web Design</small></p>
]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&nbsp;Foreword:
</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
<em>No way. I&#8217;m NOT writing this&nbsp;article.</em>
</p>
<p>
<em>Seriously! There is no way I&#8217;m going to do&nbsp;this!</em>
</p>
<p>
<em>You&#8217;ve kidnapped my mother?  Nope.  Still not doing&nbsp;it.</em>
</p>
<p>
<em>You&#8217;ll take away my browser?  Erp&#8230;Fine.  But I won&#8217;t like&nbsp;it.</em>
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
Seriously, there is one tiny thing that I really love about IE: conditional comments.  Admittedly, their main function is to make it possible for me to fix the piles of other problems <abbr title="Internet Explorer">IE</abbr> causes, but I nonetheless find them to be really fantastic.  In fact, I wish that every browser had its own version of conditional&nbsp;comments.
</p>
<p><span id="more-73"></span></p>
<p>
The fact is that all rendering engines are different.  Some of them are similar enough that you can generally get away with the same valid code and <abbr title="Cascading Style Sheets">CSS</abbr>&thinsp;&#8211;&thinsp;but they won&#8217;t behave quite the same.  <em>And this isn&#8217;t going to change.</em> As close to the standards any engine gets, there will always be differences of interpretation. But when Internet Explorer screws with me, I have an easy way to deal with&nbsp;it:
</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
<code><br />
&lt;!--[if lt <abbr title="Internet Explorer">IE</abbr> 7]&gt;&lt;style type="text/css"&gt;@import "ielt7.css";&lt;/style&gt;&lt; ![endif]--&gt;<br />
</code>
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
Nice and simple: <abbr title="Internet Explorer">IE</abbr> makes a drop by my conditional makeup counter, fixes itself up, and goes along for its business meeting with my site visitors.  (I&#8217;m assuming it&#8217;s having business meetings; if it&#8217;s having dates, I don&#8217;t really want to&nbsp;know.)
</p>
<p>
But what do you do if you&#8217;ve got a bug in Opera, for example?  They&#8217;re relatively rare; but this just makes them more difficult to deal&nbsp;with.
</p>
<p>
You can use hacks, of course.  There are <a href="http://www.stylegala.com/resources/css_hacks.htm">a lot of them</a>, and some of them are designed for passing specific styles to Opera or preventing Opera from seeing&nbsp;them.
</p>
<p>
But I don&#8217;t like using hacks.  I used to use them, but have lately found that using conditional comments is much more&nbsp;convenient.
</p>
<p>
You can use JavaScript browser sniffing, as well.  Again&thinsp;&#8211;&thinsp;it&#8217;s a method I really don&#8217;t like.  It&#8217;s fussy, it&#8217;s ineffective&thinsp;&#8211;&thinsp;and it doesn&#8217;t work at all if you&#8217;ve got a user with JavaScript disabled.  Javascript browser sniffing is easy&thinsp;&#8211;&thinsp;it&#8217;s extremely simple to find out what browser your visitor is using.  Unfortunately, it&#8217;s more complicated to make use of that information.  You have to write fairly complex code in order to separately determine the browser and the version and deliver an appropriate&nbsp;stylesheet.
</p>
<p>
I think that a feature like conditional comments in each browser could make life much easier for the developer.  It&#8217;s the one small feature in <abbr title="Internet Explorer">IE</abbr> that I&#8217;m really thankful&nbsp;for.
</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2006/09/what-i-love-about-ie/">What I Love About <abbr title="Internet Explorer">IE</abbr></a></strong><br /><small>Copyright 2004&thinsp;&ndash;&thinsp;2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web&nbsp;Design</small></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Internet Explorer 7: Irritation of the Day</title>
		<link>http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2006/09/internet-explorer-7-irritation-of-the-day/</link>
		<comments>http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2006/09/internet-explorer-7-irritation-of-the-day/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 21 Sep 2006 16:05:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Dolson</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Browsers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Personal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Software]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tutorials]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2006/09/internet-explorer-7-irritation-of-the-day/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This post has nothing to do with IE7&#8216;s support for CSS, adherence to web standards, or general functionality. Instead, it&#8217;s a general complaint about one specific annoyance: why did Microsoft&#8217;s IE development team want IE7 to&#160;&#8220;click&#8221;? I mean, as a marketing metaphor, it&#8217;s great. Everybody wants their product to &#8220;click&#8221;. However, in this case I [...]<p><strong><a href="http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2006/09/internet-explorer-7-irritation-of-the-day/">Internet Explorer 7: Irritation of the Day</a></strong><br /><small>Copyright 2004&thinsp;&ndash;&thinsp;2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web Design</small></p>
]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>
This post has nothing to do with <acronym title="internet explorer, version 7">IE7</acronym>&#8216;s support for <abbr title="Cascading Style Sheets">CSS</abbr>, adherence to web standards, or general functionality.  Instead, it&#8217;s a general complaint about one specific annoyance:  why did Microsoft&#8217;s <abbr title="Internet Explorer">IE</abbr> development team want IE7 to&nbsp;&#8220;click&#8221;?
</p>
<p>
I mean, as a marketing metaphor, it&#8217;s great.  Everybody wants their product to &#8220;click&#8221;.  However, in this case I think they&#8217;ve taken it a bit too&nbsp;literally.
</p>
<p><span id="more-72"></span></p>
<h3>The&nbsp;Problem</h3>
<p>
On installation, IE7 automatically turns on the Windows Explorer click sound&thinsp;&#8211;&thinsp;this effect a wide variety of actions, particularly including opening folders and <em>clicking on links</em>.  Believe it or not, these are activities I do a lot&thinsp;&#8211;&thinsp;but I like them&nbsp;silent.
</p>
<p>
One of the first things I always do with a new computer is turn off <strong>all</strong> of the default sounds.  So why does IE7 think that upgrading Internet Explorer also means I&#8217;ve changed my normal preferences about&nbsp;sounds?
</p>
<p>
I have trouble thinking of many reasons this would be done which make any serious&nbsp;sense:
</p>
<ol>
<li>It&#8217;s a bug.  Somehow, all the bug testers have their sounds turned on and nobody ever noticed this. Alternately, it actually occurs very rarely&thinsp;&#8211;&thinsp;but somehow has occurred to me on all three of my computers every single time I&#8217;ve installed it, with every beta version or release candidate I&#8217;ve looked&nbsp;at.</li>
<li>It&#8217;s a feature.  IE7 comes with a BRAND NEW Windows Explorer click sounds, and they want to make sure everybody gets to hear&nbsp;it.</li>
<li>It&#8217;s a feature.  They&#8217;re concerned that some users may not notice that they&#8217;ve clicked on links in web pages unless they receive an aural notification.  (This is, of course, true&thinsp;&#8211;&thinsp;however, those users undoubtedly are using screen readers&nbsp;anyhow.)</li>
<li>It&#8217;s not really happening.  It&#8217;s entirely in my imagination, since I&#8217;m obviously searching for excuses to be upset with&nbsp;Microsoft.</li>
</ol>
<p>
The most probable of these is that it&#8217;s actually a rare bug&thinsp;&#8211;&thinsp;but given the number of times it&#8217;s happened to me, I&#8217;m personally disinclined to consider that.  The idea that the development would intentionally program some &#8220;feature&#8221; in IE7 which actively alters a user&#8217;s settings, however, is sounding quite likely. But&nbsp;why?
</p>
<h3>The&nbsp;Solution</h3>
<p>
Assuming that you haven&#8217;t been won over by IE7&#8242;s fabulous clicking sound, you may want to turn it off.  Well, actually this is exceptionally simple&thinsp;&#8211;&thinsp;it&#8217;s just silly that you have to do it at&nbsp;all.
</p>
<p>
On Windows XP&nbsp;SP2:
</p>
<ol>
<li>Control Panel&nbsp;&rarr;</li>
<li>Sounds and Audio Devices&nbsp;&rarr;</li>
<li>Sounds&nbsp;&rarr;</li>
<li>Select &#8220;Start Navigation&#8221; in the <em>Program Events</em> selection area&nbsp;&rarr;</li>
<li>Select your sound of choice (&#8220;None&#8221;, for example) from the drop down menu below.&nbsp;&rarr;</li>
<li>Click&nbsp;&#8220;OK&#8221;</li>
</ol>
<p>
If you like the &#8220;No Sounds&#8221; option, like me, you can do this more quickly. You&#8217;ll just want to switch your Sound scheme to the default setting briefly, then switch it back to &#8220;No Sounds&#8221;.  That&#8217;ll turn everything on and off&thinsp;&#8211;&thinsp;kind of like a cold reboot for your sound&nbsp;scheme.
</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2006/09/internet-explorer-7-irritation-of-the-day/">Internet Explorer 7: Irritation of the Day</a></strong><br /><small>Copyright 2004&thinsp;&ndash;&thinsp;2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web&nbsp;Design</small></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>56</slash:comments>
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