W3C recommends: Avoid ASCII Art

Read on http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/WD-WAI-PAGEAUTH-0203.html, the
World Wide Web Consortium's new Web Accessibility Initiative Draft
Guidelines:

>6.[RECOMMENDED] 
>Avoid ASCII art. Replace it with an image and alternative text.
>Common typographic characters or constructions to be avoided are
>emoticons, arrows consisting of dashes and greater than
>signs (e.g., -->), etc.

Ouch ;)

-- 
Lennert Stock
Demon Internet - http://www.demon.nl/
Smash forehead on keyboard to continue...

lst...@lstock.demon.nl (Lennert Stock) wrote:

>Read on http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/WD-WAI-PAGEAUTH-0203.html, the
>World Wide Web Consortium's new Web Accessibility Initiative Draft
>Guidelines:

 >6.[RECOMMENDED] 
 >Avoid ASCII art. Replace it with an image and alternative text.
 >Common typographic characters or constructions to be avoided are
 >emoticons, arrows consisting of dashes and greater than
 >signs (e.g., -->), etc.

>Ouch ;)


<!-- :D)-->


_____________________________________________mic at dataweb dot nl

Lennert Stock (lst...@lstock.demon.nl) wrote:
: Read on http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/WD-WAI-PAGEAUTH-0203.html, the
: World Wide Web Consortium's new Web Accessibility Initiative Draft
: Guidelines:

: >6.[RECOMMENDED] 
: >Avoid ASCII art. Replace it with an image and alternative text.
: >Common typographic characters or constructions to be avoided are
: >emoticons, arrows consisting of dashes and greater than
: >signs (e.g., -->), etc.

Oh well, it was bound to happen. The philosophies behind ascii art and
HTML are so nearly opposite. The HTML standard puts emphasis on marking
the logical content of the document, and letting the browser take care
of the layout.

Ascii art, meanwhile, is almost purely layout - try feeding your favorite
ascii picture to a speech synthetizer, and you'll see the point of that
guideline. In fact, an extreme view of ascii art would consider it to be
merely abuse of a coincidence, which makes some characters line up on
some fonts. "Based on unsupported and unrealiable assumptions."

The PRE-element, which has been around since the first versions of HTML,
is so useful that it is usually considered a "good thing". Still, it is
a layout element. Another part of the same document discourages the use
of PRE for tables. The same point applies here. If you use PRE to create
for example multicolumn layout, a speech synthetizer or a search engine
is just going to ram the columns together.

Of course, this isn't the end or the content-layout dilemma. Unicode,
as well as plain old ASCII, contains a lot of characters that express
layout. Intrinsic directionality is obviously a layout thing, yet quite
necessary for mixing, say, latin and hebrew text. Soft hyphens are
layout codes - there's even a (netscape proprietary) HTML tag to do
their funtion, <wbr>.

Even just capitalization is a conflict, brought to surface by the CSS
attribute "text-transform: uppercase". (or something like that - I
don't have a CSS reference around) So is strictly speaking punctuation
as well. The HTML 4.0 standard draws the line, quite wisely IMHO, at
the level of <Q>, which may or may not add quotation marks. if the line
were drawn at grammar level, we'd be writing a lot differently.

<sentence>this is how it would look like, if punctuation and
capitalization were handled at tag level</sentence>
<sentence type=question>would you prefer this</sentence><sentence>i
wouldn't</sentence>

  Just remember, it's only a recommendation. No-one is saying ascii-art
  should not be used. Just don't put it in places were it might reduce
  accessibility. Figletized titles migth seem like a fancy idea, but
  even if you never get blind visitors, no indexing 'bot is going to
  make head or tail of some mess of /\|()[]{}.

--
 .    _, .. j u s t.  h o w l.i n g   i n  .t h e   n.i g h t .. ._,   .
,    )''        .       /\_    .     '     ,/\   .          ,    ``(  ,
_\__/ |__.'\._______,--;_'_`-.___,.______,/_,_`.__,-.__'__,/`-._,_| \____
 ,_f_)\. Ilmari Karonen  ilt...@sci.fi  http://www.sci.fi/~iltzu/  /(_|_,.

On 8 Feb 1998 18:06:30 GMT, ilt...@sci.fi (Ilmari Karonen) wrote:

>Dave Bird---St Hippo of Augustine (Dev...@xemu.demon.co.uk) wrote:
>: In art<6bhpv4$2js$1...@tron.sci.fi>, Ilmari Karonen <ilt...@sci.fi> writes
>: >Lennert Stock (lst...@lstock.demon.nl) wrote:
>: >: Read on http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/WD-WAI-PAGEAUTH-0203.html, the
>: >: World Wide Web Consortium's new Web Accessibility Initiative Draft
>: >: Guidelines:
>: >:
>: >: >6.[RECOMMENDED] 
>: >: >Avoid ASCII art. Replace it with an image and alternative text.
>: >: >Common typographic characters or constructions to be avoided are
>: >: >emoticons, arrows consisting of dashes and greater than
>: >: >signs (e.g., -->), etc.
>
>: Perhaps someone should reply if they are looking for comment?
>: All they mean is  "Do not mix ascii-art into ordinary HTNL text
>: (such drawings belong in separate preformatted blocks), because it
>: may clash with HTML elements:  smileys :-> and arrows --> using
>: the greaterthan sign are particularly disruptive.  Replace them with
>: an image and alternative text."
>
>No, I don't think that's it. The document from which the excerpt is taken
>is about making web pages accessible to people with disabilities etc.
>Ascii art doesn't do well on a non-textual medium. It sounds horrible
>when read by a speech synthetizer, and I suspect it appears no better on
>a braille terminal. And of course, search engines are effectively blind,
>so the same considerations apply.
>
>What they mean is "Using ascii art on pages may make then inaccessible
>to blind readers." Arrows are fine from an HTML point of view, as long
>as you remember to use &gt; and &lt;.

Making them 'accessible' by turning the ASCII pictures into images
would have the benefit of total font control.
Besides that, I can only think of negatives.. there's a large amount of
'defeating the purpose' in here, images are slower to load, etc.

In the long term theoretical kind of way the W3C excels in, what would
perhaps be interesting is the CSS solution. Define a class for visual
clients, e.g. 'asciiartclass', then <SPAN> the ASCII art with it.

-- 
Lennert Stock
lst...@lstock.demon.nl
ASCII Art Hideout!
http://www.lstock.demon.nl/aas.html

Lennert Stock <lst...@lstock.demon.nl> wrote:
> In the long term theoretical kind of way the W3C excels in, what would
> perhaps be interesting is the CSS solution. Define a class for visual
> clients, e.g. 'asciiartclass', then <SPAN> the ASCII art with it.

It should be set up so "ALT" text for images can be an ascii version!

I have little respect for W3C-- eg their mistaken preference for "EM"
instead of "I"...

-- 
"Tell me, Eutrapelus, which is the weaker person: 
he that yields to another, or he that is yielded to?"  --Erasmus

Lennert Stock <lst...@nospam.demon.nl> wrote:
> Hey, I like <EM>..

Briefly:  almost all formatting is 'emphasis'.  The particular styles
chosen in any given situation aren't related to the semantics of the
text.  (If I want twenty different size/color combos on a page, that's
none of W3C's business!)  So 'EM' is no different than 'SPAN' and it's
more efficient to just say 'I' (or whatever).


j
-- 
"Tell me, Eutrapelus, which is the weaker person: 
he that yields to another, or he that is yielded to?"  --Erasmus

Veronica Karlsson <dre...@on.spammer> wrote:
> I definitely don't see why it
> should be avoided on the internet, since it is "lean" and compatible
> even with the oldest/simplest computers.

YES!

It might be a good time to mention the <PRE><IMG ALT={}></PRE> trick--
some browsers will display ascii-art-as-alt okay if it's put there where
I have "[]".


j

In art<6bhpv4$2js$1...@tron.sci.fi>, Ilmari Karonen <ilt...@sci.fi> writes
>Lennert Stock (lst...@lstock.demon.nl) wrote:
>: Read on http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/WD-WAI-PAGEAUTH-0203.html, the
>: World Wide Web Consortium's new Web Accessibility Initiative Draft
>: Guidelines:
>:
>: >6.[RECOMMENDED] 
>: >Avoid ASCII art. Replace it with an image and alternative text.
>: >Common typographic characters or constructions to be avoided are
>: >emoticons, arrows consisting of dashes and greater than
>: >signs (e.g., -->), etc.
>
>Oh well, it was bound to happen. The philosophies behind ascii art and
>HTML are so nearly opposite. The HTML standard puts emphasis on marking
>the logical content of the document, and letting the browser take care
>of the layout.

Perhaps someone should reply if they are looking for comment?
All they mean is  "Do not mix ascii-art into ordinary HTNL text
(such drawings belong in separate preformatted blocks), because it
may clash with HTML elements:  smileys :-> and arrows --> using
the greaterthan sign are particularly disruptive.  Replace them with
an image and alternative text."


                                            |~/           |~/
~~|;'^';-._.-;'^';-._.-;'^';-._.-;'^';-._.-;||';-._.-;'^';||_.-;'^'0-|~~
P |      Woof Woof, Glug Glug               ||____________||      0  | P
O |   Who Drowned the Judge's Dog?          | . . . . . . . '----. 0 | O
O |         answers on                  *---|_______________  @__o0  | O
L |{a href="news:alt.religion.scientology"}{/a}_____________|/_______| L
and{a href="http://www.xemu.demon.co.uk/clam/lynx/q0.html"}{/a}XemuSP4(:)

Dave Bird---St Hippo of Augustine (Dev...@xemu.demon.co.uk) wrote:
: In art<6bhpv4$2js$1...@tron.sci.fi>, Ilmari Karonen <ilt...@sci.fi> writes
: >Lennert Stock (lst...@lstock.demon.nl) wrote:
: >: Read on http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/WD-WAI-PAGEAUTH-0203.html, the
: >: World Wide Web Consortium's new Web Accessibility Initiative Draft
: >: Guidelines:
: >:
: >: >6.[RECOMMENDED] 
: >: >Avoid ASCII art. Replace it with an image and alternative text.
: >: >Common typographic characters or constructions to be avoided are
: >: >emoticons, arrows consisting of dashes and greater than
: >: >signs (e.g., -->), etc.

: Perhaps someone should reply if they are looking for comment?
: All they mean is  "Do not mix ascii-art into ordinary HTNL text
: (such drawings belong in separate preformatted blocks), because it
: may clash with HTML elements:  smileys :-> and arrows --> using
: the greaterthan sign are particularly disruptive.  Replace them with
: an image and alternative text."

No, I don't think that's it. The document from which the excerpt is taken
is about making web pages accessible to people with disabilities etc.
Ascii art doesn't do well on a non-textual medium. It sounds horrible
when read by a speech synthetizer, and I suspect it appears no better on
a braille terminal. And of course, search engines are effectively blind,
so the same considerations apply.

What they mean is "Using ascii art on pages may make then inaccessible
to blind readers." Arrows are fine from an HTML point of view, as long
as you remember to use &gt; and &lt;.

  --&gt; like this &lt;--

One-line ascii pics such as smileys are merely the most common ones.
Read the whole document before commenting on it, please. (Near the end it
specifically advises against using <PRE> for tables and such.)

--
 .    _, .. j u s t.  h o w l.i n g   i n  .t h e   n.i g h t .. ._,   .
,    )''        .       /\_    .     '     ,/\   .          ,    ``(  ,
_\__/ |__.'\._______,--;_'_`-.___,.______,/_,_`.__,-.__'__,/`-._,_| \____
 ,_f_)\. Ilmari Karonen  ilt...@sci.fi  http://www.sci.fi/~iltzu/  /(_|_,.

On Sun, 8 Feb 1998 16:42:34 -0500, jor...@mcs.com (Jorn Barger) wrote:

>Lennert Stock <lst...@lstock.demon.nl> wrote:
>> In the long term theoretical kind of way the W3C excels in, what would
>> perhaps be interesting is the CSS solution. Define a class for visual
>> clients, e.g. 'asciiartclass', then <SPAN> the ASCII art with it.
>
>It should be set up so "ALT" text for images can be an ascii version!

Interesting ;) It would be a nice LOWSRC too.

>I have little respect for W3C-- eg their mistaken preference for "EM"
>instead of "I"...

Hey, I like <EM>..

-- 
Lennert Stock
lst...@lstock.demon.nl
ASCII Art Hideout!
http://www.lstock.demon.nl/aas.html

Jorn Barger wrote:
> Lennert Stock wrote:
> > In the long term theoretical kind of way the W3C excels in, what would
> > perhaps be interesting is the CSS solution. Define a class for visual
> > clients, e.g. 'asciiartclass', then <SPAN> the ASCII art with it.
> 
> It should be set up so "ALT" text for images can be an ascii version!
> 

Which you should have been able to do with "OBJECT" in html 4.0, people
tell me. Unfortunately, the same people tell me that IE4 made a mess of
this and that OBJECT should now be avoided like the plague...  :(

> I have little respect for W3C-- eg their mistaken preference for "EM"
> instead of "I"...
> 

:)

(I feel like I'm in the wrong newsgroup, the tunes I hear here now
remind me more of news:comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html than aaa...)

I would like to look at ascii art not as text but as an image format,
just like gif or jpeg, but with the special properties that it can be
included in a text file, along with text. I definitely don't see why it
should be avoided on the internet, since it is "lean" and compatible
even with the oldest/simplest computers. With all this talk about
"marking up content", why not do exactly that and mark up our ascii art
as _ascii_art_, not just "preformatted text"?! Like this for example:


<asciiart alt="my ascii self portrait"><pre>
    |||||
   ||. .||
  |||\=/|||
  |.-- --.|
  /(.) (.)\
  \ ) . ( /
  '(  v  )`
    \ | /
    ( | )
    '- -`
</pre></asciiart>


Note that the <pre> is still necessary, or the page won't work in old
(read "real", since this is just a product of my imagination) browsers.
The <asciiart> tag is there to inform the reader that what comes next is
an ascii image and those who don't want to try to "read" it can instead
read the "ALT" text.

Also note that there is nothing stopping us from doing this (today, if
we like, if I have understood all of this correctly, please shout if I'm
wrong). The only thing that should happen is that browsers should treat
it the way they treat all tags they don't recognise, i.e. ignore it.

Here's my example "in action":

http://jota.sm.luth.se:80/~e93-vkn/pics/ascii/asciiarttag.html

-- 
              _                                         _
  __   ___.--'_`.  __   __                _           .'_`--.___   __
 ( _`.'. -   'o` ) \ \ / /__ _ _ ___ _ _ (_)__ __ _  ( 'o`   - .`.'_ )
 _\.'_'      _.-'   \ V / -_) '_/ _ \ ' \| / _/ _` |  `-._      `_`./_
( \`. )    //\`      \_/\___|_| \___/_||_|_\__\__,_|    '/\\    ( .'/ )
 \_`-'`---'\\__,                                       ,__//`---'`-'_/
  \`        `-\    uggc://jjj.yhqq.yhgu.fr/hfref/ix/    /-'        '/
   ` _____________________ r93...@fz.yhgu.fr ____________________ '
        LIKE MY SIG? GO HERE: http://www.surfplaza.com/figlet/

ilt...@sci.fi (Ilmari Karonen) wrote:

  Dave Bird---St Hippo of Augustine (Dev...@xemu.demon.co.uk) wrote:
 : In art<6bhpv4$2js$1...@tron.sci.fi>, Ilmari Karonen <ilt...@sci.fi>
writes
 : >Lennert Stock (lst...@lstock.demon.nl) wrote:
 : >: Read on http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/WD-WAI-PAGEAUTH-0203.html, the
 : >: World Wide Web Consortium's new Web Accessibility Initiative Draft
 : >: Guidelines:
 : >:
 : >: >6.[RECOMMENDED] 
 : >: >Avoid ASCII art. Replace it with an image and alternative text.
 : >: >Common typographic characters or constructions to be avoided are
 : >: >emoticons, arrows consisting of dashes and greater than
 : >: >signs (e.g., -->), etc.

>: Perhaps someone should reply if they are looking for comment?
>: All they mean is  "Do not mix ascii-art into ordinary HTNL text
>: (such drawings belong in separate preformatted blocks), because it
>: may clash with HTML elements:  smileys :-> and arrows --> using
>: the greaterthan sign are particularly disruptive.  Replace them with
>: an image and alternative text."

>No, I don't think that's it. The document from which the excerpt is taken
>is about making web pages accessible to people with disabilities etc.
>Ascii art doesn't do well on a non-textual medium. It sounds horrible
>when read by a speech synthetizer, and I suspect it appears no better on
>a braille terminal. And of course, search engines are effectively blind,
>so the same considerations apply.

Yes, these guidelines do make sense with your remarks in mind.

>What they mean is "Using ascii art on pages may make then inaccessible
>to blind readers." Arrows are fine from an HTML point of view, as long
>as you remember to use &gt; and &lt;.

>  --&gt; like this &lt;--

Now I'm confused again.
I reckon a speech synthesizer will make this sentence sound like "hyphen
hyphen right angle bracket like this left angle bracket hyphen hyphen"
or "dash dash waka like this waka dash dash" - depending on the model.
So shouldn't the use of &gt; and &lt; in this way be discouraged too?
Shouldn't it be recommended the &gt; and &lt; must only be used in
equations?

>One-line ascii pics such as smileys are merely the most common ones.

Maybe the use of --> is explicitly discouraged because it resembles the
ending comment tag.

bye,
mic

Jorn Barger wrote:
> Veronica Karlsson wrote:
> > I definitely don't see why it
> > should be avoided on the internet, since it is "lean" and compatible
> > even with the oldest/simplest computers.
> 
> YES!
> 
> It might be a good time to mention the <PRE><IMG ALT={}></PRE> trick--
> some browsers will display ascii-art-as-alt okay if it's put there where
> I have "[]".
> 

Have you seen what the latest version of netscape does to that?!  :(

If I was a newbie and found that sort of thing on a page I would think
that the author was mad and move out of there quickly...  :(

Here's an example:

http://www.ludd.luth.se/users/vk/pics/rubbish/alt/

I made this for a similar discussion in another newsgroup and it
contains two versions of the same situation, the one I used to have on
one of my pages is duplicated in "pre.html". It is the situation you
describe. The other example is the way I do it today, with a link from
the image to the ascii version. That second example is the file called
"link.html".

-- 
              _                                         _
  __   ___.--'_`.  __   __                _           .'_`--.___   __
 ( _`.'. -   'o` ) \ \ / /__ _ _ ___ _ _ (_)__ __ _  ( 'o`   - .`.'_ )
 _\.'_'      _.-'   \ V / -_) '_/ _ \ ' \| / _/ _` |  `-._      `_`./_
( \`. )    //\`      \_/\___|_| \___/_||_|_\__\__,_|    '/\\    ( .'/ )
 \_`-'`---'\\__,                                       ,__//`---'`-'_/
  \`        `-\    uggc://jjj.yhqq.yhgu.fr/hfref/ix/    /-'        '/
   ` _____________________ r93...@fz.yhgu.fr ____________________ '
        LIKE MY SIG? GO HERE: http://www.surfplaza.com/figlet/

>From: ilt...@sci.fi (Ilmari Karonen)
>Date: Sun, Feb 8, 1998 13:06 EST
>Message-id: <6bks76$5bt$1...@tron.sci.fi>

> The document from which the excerpt is taken
>is about making web pages accessible to people with disabilities etc.
>Ascii art doesn't do well on a non-textual medium. It sounds horrible
>when read by a speech synthetizer, and I suspect it appears no better on
>a braille terminal.

I do have to giggle right here-- I have heard from a
sight-impaired person who uses a speech synthesizer--
and he LOVES the ASCII art--  he loves how it 'freaks'
his sighted friends out when the picture is described.
He is on an ASCII art mailing list-- (Maria Zorka's
thought& ASCII  of the day) so he must like it.
-joan
--
     _______
     `-----.\       _____,
      `---- \\  .-./.---`
    ,__`---. `-`  '>---`      joan stark       .-.
    `,_.-.       /`.-`    spu...@juno.com  <'  )
          ',___.'                              /  \
            "       ASCII ART GALLERY:        | /  \
         http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/7373/   \\_, \
   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~'--'\\~~~~~
   ~~~jgs~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\\~~~~

miK (mmi...@dataweb.nl) wrote:
: ilt...@sci.fi (Ilmari Karonen) wrote:
: >What they mean is "Using ascii art on pages may make then inaccessible
: >to blind readers." Arrows are fine from an HTML point of view, as long
: >as you remember to use > and <.

: >  --> like this <--

: Now I'm confused again.
: I reckon a speech synthesizer will make this sentence sound like "hyphen
: hyphen right angle bracket like this left angle bracket hyphen hyphen"
: or "dash dash waka like this waka dash dash" - depending on the model.

Indeed. You got the point I was making, I just wasn't being clear enough
in that paragraph. The key is "from an HTML point of view", that is, they
won't be confused with tags, as Dave suggested, if done properly.

On the other hand, I know at least one notorious site which contains a
lot of ascii pictures including lines like "<-- this thing here", all
without the proper entities. I've mailed the owner twice about it, but
while my other input was accepted, it seems some people just think a
simple search-and-replace is too much work..

--
ii 3D .sigXIlmari KaronenAscii 3D .sigIlmari Karonen_Ascii 3D .sigIlmari Kar
fi....@graphic.iltzu@sci.fi.stereo@gra...@sci.fin.stereo@graphicilt
ltzu/ba/http://www.sci.fi/~iltzu/bahttp://www.sci.fi/~iltzu/1bahttp://www.sc
 is a stereogram!><This .sig is a stereogram!><This .sig is a stereogram!><T

Veronica Karlsson wrote in message <34D...@on.spammer>...
>Jorn Barger wrote:
>> Veronica Karlsson wrote:
>> > I definitely don't see why it
>> > should be avoided on the internet, since it is "lean" and compatible
>> > even with the oldest/simplest computers.
>>
>> YES!
>>
>> It might be a good time to mention the <PRE><IMG ALT={}></PRE> trick--
>> some browsers will display ascii-art-as-alt okay if it's put there where
>> I have "[]".
>>
>
>Have you seen what the latest version of netscape does to that?!  :(
>
>If I was a newbie and found that sort of thing on a page I would think
>that the author was mad and move out of there quickly...  :(
>
>Here's an example:
>
>http://www.ludd.luth.se/users/vk/pics/rubbish/alt/
>
>I made this for a similar discussion in another newsgroup and it
>contains two versions of the same situation, the one I used to have on
>one of my pages is duplicated in "pre.html". It is the situation you
>describe. The other example is the way I do it today, with a link from
>the image to the ascii version. That second example is the file called
>"link.html".


The alt= text BLINKS.  OY!!!!

>>BKNambo
--
http://come.to/brocks.place

Veronica Karlsson wrote:
> 
> Jorn Barger wrote:
> > Lennert Stock wrote:
> > > In the long term theoretical kind of way the W3C excels in, what would
> > > perhaps be interesting is the CSS solution. Define a class for visual
> > > clients, e.g. 'asciiartclass', then <SPAN> the ASCII art with it.
> >
> > It should be set up so "ALT" text for images can be an ascii version!
> >
> 
> Which you should have been able to do with "OBJECT" in html 4.0, people
> tell me. Unfortunately, the same people tell me that IE4 made a mess of
> this and that OBJECT should now be avoided like the plague...  :(

No, IE4 should be avoided like the plague. OBJECT is a part of html 4.0,
any browser not capable of using it correctly cannot be called a html 4.0
compatible browser.
 
> > I have little respect for W3C-- eg their mistaken preference for "EM"
> > instead of "I"...
> >
> 
> :)
> 
> (I feel like I'm in the wrong newsgroup, the tunes I hear here now
> remind me more of news:comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html than aaa...)
> 
> I would like to look at ascii art not as text but as an image format,
> just like gif or jpeg, but with the special properties that it can be
> included in a text file, along with text. I definitely don't see why it
> should be avoided on the internet, since it is "lean" and compatible
> even with the oldest/simplest computers. With all this talk about
> "marking up content", why not do exactly that and mark up our ascii art
> as _ascii_art_, not just "preformatted text"?! Like this for example:
> 
> <asciiart alt="my ascii self portrait"><pre>
>     |||||
>    ||. .||
>   |||\=/|||
>   |.-- --.|
>   /(.) (.)\
>   \ ) . ( /
>   '(  v  )`
>     \ | /
>     ( | )
>     '- -`
> </pre></asciiart>
> 

Nope, if you consider ascii-art an image format like gif or jpeg, 
that should offcourse be:

<img src="selfportrait.asc" alt="my self-portrait">

With selfportrait.asc containing the ascii. It would be ridiculous to
add a new tag for every new image format. This would require browsers to
recognise the .asc extension and display it as preformatted text. This
will offcourse not work with older browsers. how about:

<img src="something.gif" ascii="something.asc" alt="something">
 
> Note that the <pre> is still necessary, or the page won't work in old
> (read "real", since this is just a product of my imagination) browsers.
> The <asciiart> tag is there to inform the reader that what comes next is
> an ascii image and those who don't want to try to "read" it can instead
> read the "ALT" text.
> 
> Also note that there is nothing stopping us from doing this (today, if
> we like, if I have understood all of this correctly, please shout if I'm
> wrong). The only thing that should happen is that browsers should treat
> it the way they treat all tags they don't recognise, i.e. ignore it.

but since you're using <asciiart></asciiart> should it ignore the 
contents as well?  It would be nice if it did that with for example
<script></script>. 
 
 
> Here's my example "in action":
> 
> http://jota.sm.luth.se:80/~e93-vkn/pics/ascii/asciiarttag.html
> 

Does that work on all browsers?

Note: the space on this keyboard is real bad, I think I got most errors, 
      but some words may be concatenated.

Greetz,
-- 
                (`.                 ____________________________
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 /,'    ``--.._____\/--''       http://fmf.ml.org/~shimrod ----------

miK (mmi...@dataweb.nl) wrote:
: 2. Indiscriminative because - in my opinion - this "recommendation"
:    just has in mind: the occasional use of ascii-art (like in e-mail)
:    on a webpage. And is unaware of / ignores the fact ascii-art is
:    displayed on webpages being the main topic.

Well, I've personally gotten used to their style - the tendency to use
black-and-white terms without much politeness. All these style guidelines
apply to the average situation. Art galleries, whether of images, music
or ascii art, generally aren't average in their area.

To offer an analogy, putting a 500kb animated GIF on a page isn't
considered good practice - unless the page is about animated GIFs.
Putting a FIGletized title on an ascii art page should be okay - putting
one on a company homepage might cause problems.

: What this W3C WAI-GL working group is doing sounds sympathetic to me,
: but I really don't think they stand a chance against the majority of
: (visually) able Internet users and <H1>.coms</H1> like Microsoft and
: Netscape. :(                        ^
                                      |
error: H1 is not a text-level tag. ---'

Sorry. Couldn't resist. :) Unfortunately, I have to agree with you. But
at least they're trying.

--
ii 3D .sigXIlmari KaronenAscii 3D .sigIlmari Karonen_Ascii 3D .sigIlmari Kar
fi....@graphic.iltzu@sci.fi.stereo@gra...@sci.fin.stereo@graphicilt
ltzu/ba/http://www.sci.fi/~iltzu/bahttp://www.sci.fi/~iltzu/1bahttp://www.sc
 is a stereogram!><This .sig is a stereogram!><This .sig is a stereogram!><T

ilt...@sci.fi (Ilmari Karonen) wrote:

>miK (mmi...@dataweb.nl) wrote:
>: ilt...@sci.fi (Ilmari Karonen) wrote:
>: >What they mean is "Using ascii art on pages may make then inaccessible
>: >to blind readers." Arrows are fine from an HTML point of view, as long
>: >as you remember to use > and <.

>: >  --> like this <--

>: Now I'm confused again.
>: I reckon a speech synthesizer will make this sentence sound like "hyphen
>: hyphen right angle bracket like this left angle bracket hyphen hyphen"
>: or "dash dash waka like this waka dash dash" - depending on the model.

>Indeed. You got the point I was making, I just wasn't being clear enough
>in that paragraph. The key is "from an HTML point of view", that is, they
>won't be confused with tags, as Dave suggested, if done properly.

OK... like any W3C working group - I assume there are more -
this "WAI-GL" restricts itself to "requirements" and
"recommendations" on HTML. No recommendations on textual content
are being made.

What bugs me, is that this particular "recommendation" we are talking
about is both *prohibitive* to and *indiscriminative* of ascii-art.
They just say:

"6.[Recommended] 
     Avoid ASCII art. Replace it with an image and alternative text.
     Common typographic characters or constructions to be avoided
     are emoticons, arrows consisting of dashes and greater than signs
     (e.g., -->), etc."

1. Prohibitive, ofcourse... Permissive, even positive would be to
   propose a new, distinguishing element: the ascii-art tag or class.
2. Indiscriminative because - in my opinion - this "recommendation"
   just has in mind: the occasional use of ascii-art (like in e-mail)
   on a webpage. And is unaware of / ignores the fact ascii-art is
   displayed on webpages being the main topic.

Don't know if the people involved in WAI-GL can be blamed for
neglecting the wishes of ascii-artists. And - to be honest - I think
the demands of (visually) disabled will be tagged equally *marginal*
as "ascii-artists wishes" by the Rulers of the WWW. :(

>On the other hand, I know at least one notorious site which contains a
>lot of ascii pictures including lines like "<-- this thing here", all
>without the proper entities. I've mailed the owner twice about it, but
>while my other input was accepted, it seems some people just think a
>simple search-and-replace is too much work..

"Builders" are encouraged to maintain "bad habits", cos of the browsers
error correction. Why "find and replace" <"&> when MSIE and NN do the
job?

What this W3C WAI-GL working group is doing sounds sympathetic to me,
but I really don't think they stand a chance against the majority of
(visually) able Internet users and <H1>.coms</H1> like Microsoft and
Netscape. :(

    _ 
 /\//_
 `7/\/
 _T_\__X__x__________-^__._____________________ mic at dataweb dot nl


PS I like your style; defending this "recommendation" in the ascii-art
newsgroup! :)

ilt...@sci.fi (Ilmari Karonen) wrote:

 miK (mmi...@dataweb.nl) wrote:
 : 2. Indiscriminative because - in my opinion - this "recommendation"
 :    just has in mind: the occasional use of ascii-art (like in e-mail)
 :    on a webpage. And is unaware of / ignores the fact ascii-art is
 :    displayed on webpages being the main topic.

>Well, I've personally gotten used to their style - the tendency to use
>black-and-white terms without much politeness. All these style guidelines
>apply to the average situation. Art galleries, whether of images, music
>or ascii art, generally aren't average in their area.

 Yep, you're right, i should have known better. This is the manner
 writing of "Standardization".

>: What this W3C WAI-GL working group is doing sounds sympathetic to me,
>: but I really don't think they stand a chance against the majority of
>: (visually) able Internet users and <H1>.coms</H1> like Microsoft and
>: Netscape. :(                        ^
>                                      |
>error: H1 is not a text-level tag. ---'

>Sorry. Couldn't resist. :)

 hehe...

It was supposed to be a tag at company level. On text-level I would
have said <SUB>...</SUB> (but who am I anyway?).

>Unfortunately, I have to agree with you. But at least they're trying.

Didn't know there existed endeavours at making the WWW accessible to the
visually disabled. Your input has "at least" opened *my* eyes. So thanks
again.

mic

Shimrod wrote in message <34E...@wing.rug.nl>...
>No, IE4 should be avoided like the plague.

Unfortunately, as an upgrade to Windows 95, it's very hard to avoid...

>Nope, if you consider ascii-art an image format like gif or jpeg,
>that should offcourse be:
>
><img src="selfportrait.asc" alt="my self-portrait">
>
>With selfportrait.asc containing the ascii. It would be ridiculous to
>add a new tag for every new image format. This would require browsers to
>recognise the .asc extension and display it as preformatted text. This
>will offcourse not work with older browsers. how about:
>
><img src="something.gif" ascii="something.asc" alt="something">


Unfortunately, HTML4.0 encourages use of <OBJECT> even for images, so it
would be something like <OBJECT src="bingo.asc"> (but src= may not be the
right attri....)

For the other example, it would be like,

<object src(orwhatever)="thingy.gif">
  <object src="thingy.asc" alt="(the thingy)">
    Wow, your browser doesn't do images OR asciiart? yeeeks!
  </object>
</object>

Or even:
<object src="image.gif" alt="image">
  [ insert ascii of image here ]
</object>

At least, from reading W3C's html spec, that's how it seems to be.  I
haven't tried any of this yet.

>> Here's my example "in action":
>>
>> http://jota.sm.luth.se:80/~e93-vkn/pics/ascii/asciiarttag.html
>>
>
>Does that work on all browsers?


In Veronica Karlsson's dream reality <g>

>>BKNambo
--
http://come.to/brocks.place

Jorn Barger wrote:
> I have little respect for W3C-- eg their mistaken preference for "EM"
> instead of "I"...

Oh.....


I suggest you keep out of
news:comp.infosystems.www.authoring.site-design and
news:comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html , as you would get so many
flames your insurance company would cancel your fire insurrance......

If you don't have insurrance, I'd recomend stocking up on fire
extinguishers, 'cause you'll need them.....







-- 
--ran...@slip.net  (Randy Gardner)
--http://www.slip.net/~randyg/index.htm  - *New*  Download a maze
  program that lets you actually walk *inside* the maze!!

Randy Gardner <ran...@slip.net> wrote:
> Jorn Barger wrote:
> > I have little respect for W3C-- eg their mistaken preference for "EM"
> > instead of "I"...
> I suggest you keep out of
> news:comp.infosystems.www.authoring.site-design and
> news:comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html , as you would get so many
> flames your insurance company would cancel your fire insurrance......

See my DejaNews profile.


-- 
"Tell me, Eutrapelus, which is the weaker person: 
he that yields to another, or he that is yielded to?"  --Erasmus

Randy Gardner wrote in message <34E...@slip.net>...
>Of course, I refuse to use any physical layout/presentation tags, so
><I> is on my list of big no-no's.....

I feel the same way.

HTML was born to be content presentation, not design presentation.

...which is why, when my webpage is updated, it will be W3C HTML4.0 (which
takes out a lot of the attributes like color= and background=) with W3C
cascading style sheets (which is where those things are *supposed* to go
now).  It will look rather Lynx-ish in non-CSS browsers, but HTML is for
content, and that's what they'll be getting, by Kibo!

>>BKNambo
--

              http://come.to/brocks.place
            Somebody loves you. (Not necessarily me.)

Randy Gardner wrote:
> 
> Jorn Barger wrote:
> > See my DejaNews profile.
> 

Hmmm... how do you make those "DejaNews profiles"?

[ 8< ]
> If I were writeing a speach reader, I would make :-), :), :->, etc...
> just be said as a smiley.
> 
> "Neat!  :-)" would be read as "Neat! Smiley"
> 

Hmmm... In Sweden we often write :- after prises. What happens then when
you mention the prise of something in parentheses? 

...bla bla bla (bla bla bla 15:-) bla bla (bla bla 34:-) bla bla ...

[The US equivalent would be:

...bla bla bla (bla bla bla $15) bla bla (bla bla $34) bla bla ...

so there would be no problem there]


(this is not an unrealistic situation)

-- 
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 ( _`.'. -   'o` ) \ \ / /__ _ _ ___ _ _ (_)__ __ _  ( 'o`   - .`.'_ )
 _\.'_'      _.-'   \ V / -_) '_/ _ \ ' \| / _/ _` |  `-._      `_`./_
( \`. )    //\`      \_/\___|_| \___/_||_|_\__\__,_|    '/\\    ( .'/ )
 \_`-'`---'\\__,                                       ,__//`---'`-'_/
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   ` _____________________ r93...@fz.yhgu.fr ____________________ '
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Jorn Barger wrote:
> See my DejaNews profile.

Oh, I know you post to them!!!!!

I was just being kinda funny....        :-)

I also remember you from comp.ai and comp.ai.alife, both of which
I also read.....

(BTW, I'm planing to do an AI project soon, an a mobile robot, but
you probably knew that, if you read comp.robotics.misc.....)


Of course, I refuse to use any physical layout/presentation tags, so
<I> is on my list of big no-no's.....



Anyway, let's get back to the discussion on why we shouldn't use
ASCII art on web pages....

If I were writeing a speach reader, I would make :-), :), :->, etc...
just be said as a smiley.

"Neat!  :-)" would be read as "Neat! Smiley"

Of course, I doubt this will be done, so smileys are probably a bad
idea. (Yes, I know I use a few on my web page, but anyway, how would
a sight-impaired (blind) person play my 3D mazes?)


I'm tired....  Yawn....  Let's argue tommorow, ok?...      :-)


-- 
--ran...@slip.net  (Randy Gardner)
--http://www.slip.net/~randyg/index.htm  - *New*  Download a maze
  program that lets you actually walk *inside* the maze!!