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(see this topic)

Missing alt tags I see:

Forum Summary:
"Light Bulbs" to the left of topics
"note with pushpin" to the right of number of posts
"UBB Graphic" says 'forum home'

Individual Forum Display:
"folder" to the left of the topic title
"UBB Graphic" says '(name of bulletin board)'
"Icon Legend" has 2 graphics for "new posts" and "no new posts" ???

Topic (individual post) Display:
"printer friendly view" graphic
tiny "note" preceding 'posted date/time'
"board title" in bar above post = 'forum home'

General:
I noted the UBB graphic because its(I'd say) correct in the forum display, but not in the forum summary or topic(individual post) display.
For consistency, "post a poll" button should read 'post new poll'

If anyone can think of or find any more, please add them here, thx <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

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Bill
Disabilities Bulletin Board

[This message was edited by Charles Capps on August 19, 2002 at 10:18 AM.]

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Here is what I found:

New and Old post indicatior Icons on public_forum_summary.pl

Old Topic Folder, New Topic Folder, Hot New Topic Folder, Hot Old Topic Folder, Old Locked Folder, New Locked Folder, Old Poll Folder, New Poll Folder, Old Locked Poll Folder, and New Locked Poll Folder on public_forum_page.pl

UBBFriend Mini Icon and Print Topic Icon on public_topic_page.pl

Author Rating - 1, Author Rating - 2, Author Rating - 3, Author Rating - 4, Author Rating - 5

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[]http://www.bowlingfans.com/ubb/icons/icon911.gif[/] Steve
Moderator - UBBâ„¢Central's Advanced UBB Forum

BowlingFans.comâ„¢ &#0124; BowlingCommunity.comâ„¢
Sorry, I won't answer support questions by e-mail, PM, or IM.

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Great, thank you.

Some of these are covered by title attributes in <acronym> - I take it that text browsers / screenreaders find <acronym> as useless as regular browsers? <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

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Charles Capps
Programmer, Infopop Corporation
Please do not contact me privately for support - post on the board or open a support ticket instead!

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I'm not sure, to be honest. I've never heard of <acronym>. Is that new? (or old? or just something I *should* know about but don't?)

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Bill
Disabilities Bulletin Board

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It's an HTML4-ism. In compliant browsers it displays some variety of text decoration with the marked up text. In Mozilla, it's a dotted underline. In IE5 Mac, it's a dotted underline + small caps.

I have NO idea why we're using it - it's the wrong tag for the purpose. The title attribute can go anywhere in proper HTML - it provides descriptive text... IE 5.5 & 6 as well as Mozilla use this as the tooltip text.

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Charles Capps
Programmer, Infopop Corporation
Please do not contact me privately for support - post on the board or open a support ticket instead!

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Quote
Some of these are covered by title attributes in <acronym> - I take it that text browsers / screenreaders find <acronym> as useless as regular browsers?
Yes, that is the case. <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

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[]http://www.bowlingfans.com/ubb/icons/icon911.gif[/] Steve
Moderator - UBBâ„¢Central's Advanced UBB Forum

BowlingFans.comâ„¢ &#0124; BowlingCommunity.comâ„¢
Sorry, I won't answer support questions by e-mail, PM, or IM.

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Charles, I don't know if this is of any help, but this link is for a site that has a link you can place in your browser, that when clicked, will analyze the current web page and note all the alt tags (or lack of same).

Might save you some time <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

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Bill
Disabilities Bulletin Board

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No DNS. <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

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Charles Capps
Programmer, Infopop Corporation
Please do not contact me privately for support - post on the board or open a support ticket instead!

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A good number of these images have literal nothing set as alt rather than no alt - I take it that this is a problem? Most of them are set that way on purpose or due to troubles that could be caused otherwise (i.e. difficulty coming up with Wordlets that describe functionality, icons that have no real purpose or that have descriptions that would be so long as to be rather useless...)

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Charles Capps
Programmer, Infopop Corporation
Please do not contact me privately for support - post on the board or open a support ticket instead!

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Literal nothing, hmm. Yup, that's a problem.

As far as coming up with wordlets, I'm sure we'd all be glad to offer suggestions if you're really stuck! <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> 'Sides, if you can name a field pntf, I'd think anything would be okay for the wordlet. <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> As far as the tag itself, my experience is that it usually isn't necessary to be overly wordy, you're mainly just trying to give people a *clue* what the graphic is for, not an in depth explanation with all its nuances.

{silly}
But ya got me on the icons that have no real purpose. You mean, someone spent all that time to come up with a graphic, and you guys just randomly placed them on the page? eek
{/silly}

Seriously, though, Steven_M posted that he had hacked his UBB to do it, maybe he'd consider sharing with you to save some development time?

Quote
Wow, over a year has past since I last brought this up. During this time I resorted to hacking to bring this functionality to my community. But, unfortunately 6.2 introduced new javascript for displaying the icons that represent new/old/hot/closed topics and I cannot wrap my head around how to edit that new script to add the alternative text to those icons.
Come on Charles, please modify the JS and add wordlets for New, New/Closed, New/Hot, Old, Old/Closed, etc. For something that is so important it seems to be very easy to add.
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Bill
Disabilities Bulletin Board

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I simply named the graphics with their name in the Style Templates. I don't feel they have to be named with any more detail than that:

Quote
Old Topic Folder, New Topic Folder, Hot New Topic Folder, Hot Old Topic Folder, Old Locked Folder, New Locked Folder, Old Poll Folder, New Poll Folder, Old Locked Poll Folder, and New Locked Poll Folder on public_forum_page.pl

UBBFriend Mini Icon and Print Topic Icon on public_topic_page.pl

Author Rating - 1, Author Rating - 2, Author Rating - 3, Author Rating - 4, Author Rating - 5
The most useless graphics to name are the message icons. IIRC, I think I just a "-" for them.

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[]http://www.bowlingfans.com/ubb/icons/icon911.gif[/] Steve
Moderator - UBBâ„¢Central's Advanced UBB Forum

BowlingFans.comâ„¢ &#0124; BowlingCommunity.comâ„¢
Sorry, I won't answer support questions by e-mail, PM, or IM.

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Yes, the message icons would be 'useless icons'... i.e. those with no purpose to non-graphical clients.

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Charles Capps
Programmer, Infopop Corporation
Please do not contact me privately for support - post on the board or open a support ticket instead!

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Er, um, then maybe we don't need them and you could just take them out?

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Bill
Disabilities Bulletin Board

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No need to remove them from UBB...they could be turned off in the General Display Settings of the Control Panel, if you don't want them. <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Look for Allow Posting Icons.

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[]http://www.bowlingfans.com/ubb/icons/icon911.gif[/] Steve
Moderator - UBBâ„¢Central's Advanced UBB Forum

BowlingFans.comâ„¢ &#0124; BowlingCommunity.comâ„¢
Sorry, I won't answer support questions by e-mail, PM, or IM.

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Right - message icons now have alts (a wordlet then the icon number)... images that are simply there for the effect (i.e. the folded sheet post icon, the print topic icon, images users inline, graemlins) now have an alt text of " - "

Oh, as for real accessability...

It's my understanding that table based layouts are confusing to screenreaders - perhaps you guys should team up and make a 'better' set of templates for those with impaired vision and the like. It'll be a heck of a lot easier to get this done properly in 6.3. <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

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Charles Capps
Programmer, Infopop Corporation
Please do not contact me privately for support - post on the board or open a support ticket instead!

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The only thing about tables is to use a table summary and table header (<TH> ) so the screenreader won't get confused. Here's a nice clear example and explanation: http://bobby.cast.org/bobby/html/en/gls/g113.html
The screenreaders only cause trouble if you "short cut" the table definition by just using the (<TD> ) like some html editors do.

I wasn't too concerned about the message icons, 'cause I've already turned them off (that was the first act of "customization" I performed! <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> )

Right, Charles! "Folded sheet post icon"! I wasn't sure if I'd described that one well enough anyone would even know what I meant <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

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Bill
Disabilities Bulletin Board

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Well, based on my admittedly limited knowledge of Section 508 compliance issues (i.e., I'm just going by "Bobby Section 508 compliance"), it appears to me that the "Forum Summary" page is compliant with all the Section 508 "accessibility" guidelines.

The forum display and topic display still need to explicitly associate form controls and their labels with a "LABEL" statement. (I believe this is in reference to the "show topics" and "hop to" functions), but that *sounds* like a fairly small change compared to what's already been done.

Although there are a number of "user checks" listed for the various pages, I don't believe that they apply to the implementation in UBB.classic. Most pages I check have these, since they aren't triggered by an actual accessibility "hurdle", but rather are points based on a judgement call that can't be determined by a programmatic analysis, and I don't believe they are a problem in this case.

I'd imagine it's not *too* difficult to insert the label statements needed, so I'm assuming UBB.classic will be 508 compliant very soon now. <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

I'd just like to say that I sincerely appreciate the effort you, Charles, have put into getting these changes implemented. I also appreciate StevenM's input on this, and everyone else that has contributed.

FYI, there are only a very few issues that would preclude the World Wide Web Consortium's WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative) compliance as well. These are the use of absolute sizing (font and width/height) rather than relative sizing (font size="+1", or width="5%"). However, I'm not sure what issues those would raise as far as usability across different browsers, and I know that's a definite concern.

Again, I just want to thank everyone for the effort you've put into this "project".

Um, without being too "pushy", Charles, and fully realizing I don't have a *clue* how hard it's going to be to implement, can you give us an idea of when we might see the "label" statements?

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Bill
Disabilities Bulletin Board

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<label> has undesired side-effects in Mozilla. I've been looking into it recently for the control panel, actually. Until I can figure out a way around the problems, we'll be unable to use it safely...

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Charles Capps
UBB.classic™ Developer
Having problems? Open up a support ticket!


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