[Webdev] style sheet oddness

[John Kelly]

On Tue, Mar 26, 2002 at 05:28:11PM +0000, John P. Looney wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 26, 2002 at 05:26:36PM +0000, Kae Verens mentioned:
> > 5.1 For data tables, identify row and column headers. [Priority 1]
> > For example, in HTML, use TD to identify data cells and TH to identify 
> > headers.
>  
>  The only visual difference is that Mozilla seems to centre-justify text
> in the cells. 
> Is this standard ? 

Yes, this is standard - it's probably about the only visual difference it
makes.  However - to someone with a screenreader, there is a major
difference.

For those that don't quite know what the TH tag is used for, I'll give a
quick example, to help demonstrate why it should be used (To find out HOW
you should use it, check out
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-HTML-TECHS/#data-tables)

For example, let's say you had a table such as:

Name:     Age:
Alice     24
Bob       32
Carol     17

If you used ordinary td/tr combinations, for someone using a screenreader,
this would be read as:
"name, age, alice, 24, bob, 32, carol, 17"
This is fine when we have two columns, but when we have three or four
columns, or colspans, this can be very confusing. 

However, if you use TH, this would be read as:
"name alice, age 24, name bob, age 32, name carol, age 17", which is a lot
more logical for the brain to understand, especially as tables get more
complex.

- John

---
I like that boulder . . . that is a nice boulder
http://www.fuckcuntandbollocks.com