EVALUATION
Needed for accessibility
###@###.### 2002-02-13
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Navigation/Version Nested Tables: (top and bottom of each page)
No summary attribute needed for these tables, for
reasons mentioned here:
Earl said if a navigation table has a hypertext link ahead of it
for jumping over the table, with alt text, then the table itself does
not need, and would preferably not have a summary attribute.
Therefore, the navigation tables have no summary.
---------------
Summary Tables:
- Nested Class Summary
- Field Summary
- Constructor Summary
- Method Summary
No summary attribute needed for these tables, for
reasons mentioned here:
The summary tables (listed below) all have a first row
heading that acts as a caption. For example, the table
with heading "Method Summary" would not need a summary
attribute stating "Table with summary of methods", as that
would be redundant. One thing possibly important to
add would be "the first column contains modifiers and return
types, the second columns contains names, parameter lists
and a description". However, page speakers (such as JAWS)
by default don't identify which column you're in -- it
just reads across naturally from left to right columns.
Therefore, it would not help to mention what is contained
in each column. When the table treated as "for format only",
the page speaker results are as desired. Another possible
thing to mention is the name of the class and the scope of
possible access modifier, such as:
"Public and protected methods for String class".
However, the access applies not just to this table, but
to the entire document, so does not need to be repeated
(unless jumping frequently between documents with different
access, which is unlikely). Also, a the word "private"
is spoken when encountering a private member.
There would be value in repeating the class, as sight-impaired
people cannot quickly scan to the top of the page, the
only place where the class is reliably mentioned.
However, the same could be said for chapter titles in
books, and I have seen no such recommendation in the
508 literature for this.
Conclusion: No summary attribute is needed for summary
tables.
-----------
- Nested classes inherited from class X
- Fields inherited from class X
- Methods inherited from class X
No summary needed for these tables, as these headings
are entirely satisfactory, and the tables are simple,
two-cell tables for format only
-----------
- Field Detail
- Constructor Detail
- Method Detail
No summary needed for these, as they are single-cell tables
for format only
------------
Likewise for the table of classes on the package-summary.html
page and table of packages on the overview-summary.html pages.
These are both simple tables for formatting only that read
naturally from left to right.
............
Considered for summary tables and rejected:
summary="This table lists the direct methods of this class,
with modifiers, return type, name and description."
summary="This table lists the direct methods of this class
with declarations and descriptions."
summary="Method table with declarations and descriptions."
summary="Public and protected methods for String class".
Closing out this RFE as "will not fix".
###@###.### 2002-07-12
Earl is recommending we mark tables with:
title=""
to indicate they are for layout only. (We are inquiring with Accessibility
Program Office if summary="" might be better.)
###@###.### 2002-09-12
Alan Sommerer has settled on summary="layout" for the rest
of the department. Because javadoc has so many tables
per page, it would be better for it to be silent.
JAWS 4.0 had a bug where it spoke summary="" as
"summary colon left paren null right paren"
however, in 4.5 this is fixed to be silent.
Home Page Reader is also silent for this (when you
press Alt-F1). Therefore, we are settling on:
summary=""
###@###.### 2002-10-31
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Java
