Joomla! Discussion Forums

Why is it that the developers of the CMS engine and the developers of the default templates can take the time to make sure thier product passes but those that develop modules (calendar, Newsflash Pro in my case) and components can't take the time.  It's a shame that I could use the default install but can't add anything extra to get even more out of the site.  It's not like html compliance is that hard to get down and Section508 can be a pain at times but it is possible.  Where is the developers pride in developing now a days?  Surely everything isn't being done the Microsoft way is it?

Sorry to gripe but when you want to show someone a better way you get caught up in the mess when they see all the extra candy in the candy jar and you can't let them have it.

So fix the problem and release it .... thats the way of opensource

Louis

what you have to understand is that software like Joomla and OSCommerce began before most of us knew what standards compliance was and before accessibilty became a professional hallmark of our craft. the emphasis in the past was browser compatibility. revising the core modules is being done on several fronts right now, but this represents a LOT of recoding. a REALLY lot of recoding. some things, like the calendar, are so challenging from an accessibility standpoint that we don't have ready solutions. 'equivalent content' is only practicible to a certain extent.

Calendar not accesible markup ? The hcal / ical RFC aims for semantic markup, isn't it?

it sounds great, but i'd have to see an implementation. the basic problem with calendards and accessibility is their visual organization method. tabular data is difficult for sight-challenged persons because it's more difficult to evaluate the data's significance between rows and collums. the effort you refer to may be able to linearize calendar data which will make it more accessible, and this may be about the best we can do for now.

Ripped from the hCalendar spec from here: http://microformats.org/wiki/hcalendar



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It looks like nice, pretty semantic markup in a linearised format.

My suggestion would be to port it across from Midgard:
http://www.midgard-project.org/document ... -calendar/

I also noticed a Drupal component in the works as well.

OTOH, it could be argued that a calendar offers tabular data, and as such, a properly build table is appropriate and accessible. 

Yes, tables are harder to interpret visually, but it should be remembered that not all tables are evil.

I've looked at midgard as an alternative to Joomla, but haven't been able to get past installing it

As for the suggestion to modify modules and components, not everyone's a coder and able to make said changes.

But we're hoping to have better guidelines for developers to follow soon in the new year, which ought to make it easier for them to develp accessible solutions.

And equally not everybody is a designer/experienced with standards, but hopefully working together we can get it right.