Joomla! Discussion Forums

Thanks for that bluesaze.  I think I'll sticky this thread and invite others to post links that fit this.

I suggest:
http://www.w3.org/WAI/guid-tech.html - WAI Guidelines and Techniques.

Thank you a good Idea .......  ......

A few more of my favourites:

http://www.zeldman.com
http://www.simplebits.com
http://www.456bereastreet.com

Great site to check website Accesibility........

http://www.tawdis.net/taw3/cms/en

That's an automatic checker I didn't know about.  I'll have to look at it a bit more, but at first glance, it's not very user friendly.  While it might be helpful to have pointers as to where on the page there is a possible fail, the way they graphically represent it is less than useful.

The list at the bottom of the page is better, as it points out line numbers.  Just seems cumbersome.

But in the end, there is only so much an automatic check can do.  In fact, TAW shows a majority of "manual checks".  All checkers, such as Cynthia Says, or Bobby (which stinks since watchfire took over years ago), end up referring youto manual checks.

If you're going to have to manually check anyway, you're just as well to not bother with the automatic check and run a manual check yourself on the whole thing. 

http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/full-checklist.html

My 2 cents

Thanks I am looking at some of the sites you mentioned .........

When I first started looking at accessability, this article was a real eye opener as to why you need to use more common sense that just following a set of standards:

It is a great example of how wrong it can go if you just focus on getting a PASS on the auto checker.

http://www.jimthatcher.com/whatnot.htm

Yeah.  Good point toubkal.  You can have a compliant site that is just *so* not usable that it's not even funny.

That's why it's important to understand what each requirement is there for and who it's there to help (they are doing a bit of that in WCAG 2.0).

Hi, i've found this on the www about standras, i think it's good a good work:

http://www.7nights.com/asterisk/archive ... onsibility

See you!

http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/2 ... he_tables/

Interesting article on doing tables the right way

Dive into Accessiibility is a great resource

http://diveintoaccessibility.org/

There's also a free to use accessibility statement template I use for all the websites I develop.

Great article:

http://www.digital-web.com/articles/ten ... ssibility/

Thanks for that link Oskr, good article indeed

I have to agree with the "people don't complain" bit.  That's where I get really angry at the disability community.  If they raised their voice each time they encountered a non-accessible site, we'd see a bit more movement I think...



I particularly like his conclusion

Hi, thought I would add a few.

One of the industry gurus: Jakob Nielsen. http://www.useit.com/

I currently studying for my MSc Internet Systems Development and we have just completed our module Interactive web design, which covers SUA in depth. JN and his views are major part of the course, he may not always be 100% agreeable with, but his points of view certainly make you think when it comes to usability and accessibility. Well worth every minute spent on his site.

Another is Steve Krug "Dont make me think" - Although only in print format http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0789723107/104-6710088-4103959?v=glance this is a must for any web designer or would be web designer. I have even started giving a copy to each of my clients. As it makes there interaction with the design process so much smoother. A sample chapter can be found http://www.sensible.com/chapter.html

Another is http://www.usabilitynet.org/home.htm - Great for research of usability methods and a whole host of other information.

And last but not least: A very light hearted, but with a serious message on usability. http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/ Before you decide to put a web page live, have a read, 1000s of designers pages have gone before, and 1000s will follow, here is hoping none of yours end up here.

2XS

I was going to ad http://www.digital-web.com/ but it's linked already, so just don't miss out on all the other good stuff there!
Maybe http://www.cooper.com has some usefull ideas too.. not really accessibility, more usability..

Here's two nice site for the french speaking members here
http://www.opquast.com
http://openweb.eu.org/

I had a look at the TAW site, and unlike Vavroom I actually like using them. I dont think they are a substitute for manual checking, but I do like running my site through them and seeing what they output particularly if I am reviewing a site. They can sometimes help spot problems the best of us might overlook by accident.

I also like gimmicks There is a Firefox extension for TAW which is a nice little addition to have.


NOTE: I dont advocate using ONLY automatic checkers, they are good tool to have in your toolbox but they dont replace manual checks. Not that I have to say that in here, but hey you never know.

hehehehe hotnuts, I'll admit to sometimes running things past automated checkers, as a starting point, but tend to find them a waste of time, particularly if it's a site I created.  That said, it might just be that I've been working with the standards so long that I "get" what they say enough to be expedient in my reviews.  Who knows?

Hello guys!

I would like to add very useful tool http://www.nils.org.au/ais/web/resources/contrast_analyser/ which allow to set better colours for template. It's available in several languages.

I have been looking at lots of interesting CSS sites over the past year and have a good list at http://del.icio.us/bongiben/css Ihave a good set of links for mambo also at http://del.icio.us/bongiben/mambo
If you are going to buy any book on writing CSS may I suggest stylin with css http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321305256/qid%3D1128605012/026-5279678-4458821
it will explain a lot of the tricks to getting CSS to work well.

let me know what you think

A friend has a great site if you want to understand accessibility issues http://www.mcu.org.uk/
he has a content management system that is accessible at http://www.qnecms.co.uk/
and has created an organisation called http://www.gawds.org/

I would say that until Joomla is able to say it is accessible there is little point in trying to style up a site. I am happy to wait until there is a standard way to write the css for Joomla e.g. H1 for article names, DIV tags round content, components and modules. The faster the better I say as I need to start developing the template for my site and see no other good way than CSS. Joomla is open source therefore the main market is going to be charities, small businesses and enthusiasts. These people need to have accessible sites and understand the needs more than any other group. Until that time I find it difficult to build sites for charities using Joomla when they require accessibility compliance.

If there was an easy way to get started developing CSS only driven Joomla sites I would hapily design templates and extra parts like calendar styling for the community to use, until the CSS is all being driven from one file (or if it is seperate files then they should be for CSS filtering) from one central place, the task of decifering the code is mammoth. I imagine the CSS location for all components would need to be hacked to get this to work properly (surely this could be added somehow to the CSS of the main template on upload or at least be held in a similar folder). This is all presuming the DOC type of transitional actually has valid code e.g. proper closed tags. It might even be a good idea for the accessibility/CSS camp at Joomla to go through all extras and rate them for accessibility to encourage other developers to stick to these standards.

Advice, where do I get started when it comes to Joomla, is the accessible version of mambo the best option at the moment.

I would disagree with you about the fact that because we're open source only small businesses, charities and enthusiast will use our system.  There are many BIG charities looking at/using our system.  There also are some big business (like, Porsche Brazil), using it. 

There are many people who've managed to make compliant joomla/mambo, through the use of hacks and modification.  I've tried the 508Hack on a test site and while far from perfect, it's pretty good.  Please make sure you back your files up before you install it: http://www.run-digital.com/download/cat_view_23.html

But out of the box, Joomla meets most of wcag 1.0 priority 1, soooo, you can really do a lot as is.  Design a CSS driven template, call your modules to display without tables, and the only tables you have left, pretty much, are those for mosMainBody.  You still don't necessarily have the proper semantic order of headers, but at least, you're a good ways away.

Another trick is to set all your items not to display the title, and in the intro text, use a h2 as the first line

Cheers

Not really having a go saying charities and I know that the system is good for big scale sites, what I meant more was that charities and small business are often nearer to their public and so accessibility is often more of an issue.

I think mambo is a great system and wouldnt be using it if I didnt think so, however am not a PHP coder, more a designer/artist with an interest and knowledge of CSS. I can imagine there are many other people developing sites in the same way.

So I was more looking for some advice. How would I "call your modules to display without tables" is it possible in the mambo backend or is it code driven?

My point was really that it isn't easy to style Joomla like a blog system such a word press and so until it is I am going to develop a simpler template for a blogger with the intention to develop it up into a mambo site at a later stage. a good article by jeffrey veen http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000365.php
I am also going to try to develop some generic items like forms and search forms and calendars (after reading lots of good articles elsewhere) but think it best to start on simple HTML and then try to find the right CSS styling the relevant components. Have a look if you want at a CSS driven gallery I developed at www.luxonline.org check out the artists pages and the pics link to the right. This is the type of thing I would love to develop for Joomla using a modified version of the zoom gallery.


For the basic styling of the core mambo system, I can see that there is enough to work with:
The 508 hack removes tables (which when I applied to the solarflare design ended up with the ul and li tags and therefore the navagation design being messed with through inheritance).
The Absolom access key solution is really great as well as it creates css suckerfish menus (even if it is in a seperate css file) and access keys
The trick for H2 is one I am already using. It would be good to get the H2 to come up for blog and sections but to change over to H1 for main article page headings (for SEO)
The ability to call classes and ids in articles is good but it should be easier to change from a span and should apply to other tags e.g. without having to go into the HTML (more of a problem with the HTML editors than Joomla)
I can always develop menus that are absolutely positioned to wherever I want in the document and are placed at the end of the html.

Alright, here we go. I've added references above so you know what I'm talking about.
1) To get a module to display without a table, call it with -2 as the second parameter.
2) It might have been a reasonable article when Veen wrote it almost a year ago, but Joomla (and previously Mambo) made incredible strides since then to address those concerns. Joomla, sadly, is about as easy to install without shipping you a ready-built webserver. And administration, for all the gripes, is really easy too.
3) Create this as a CSS class style and you should be able to access it directly from tinyMCE without going into the HTML editor.
4) Point is it's still fundamentally inaccessible. You should want a logical semantic order. Why have a screenreader read the menu last?

Regards,
DC

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This is the better sites that I know. I visit it dayly. All galleries shows Web Standards based sites.

Great thread,

Just wondering if anyone can recommend a good CSS forum.

Thanks.

Great link, the Site Point forums are excellent, as I have found out today:

http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/

Thanks.

Jeffrey Veen, myself and the J! core team have talked at length since this article was written. The last time Jeffrey and myself discussed this whole aspect of what makes a CMS worthwhile was at We05 back in September when we were still Mamboing. Recommendations were taken on board in early 2005 (before we05) and I do believe the other CMS has now dropped the ball in this regard, so all the collective knowledge now resides here..