Well at this point right now it's obviously a bit implausible for a lot of us...technology needs to get a bit further down the road...
Once the technology is there, obviously it would be nice to provide the blind with a way to view all of our sites...my gripe is with being REQUIRED to; I'm not saying it's not rude to ignore the blind when designing sites...but FORCING us to make it compatible with everything doesn't sit well with me.
If someone owns something like a website, they should be allowed to do whatever they want...if they ignore blind people, they take the flack for doing so...
I don't think your reading what I am saying. No technology is involved for you to make your site accessible to the handicap. All it takes is a little extra time in designing and creating your website. Which if the time is used wisely would enable you to reap untold benefits in usability, return visits and potential profits. How that is not in your interest, I don't know.
The amount of time FP saves me with things like page includes allows me to do things like sleep.. otherwise I'd be up all night changing one word on 15 different pages.
Wluke: can you explain to me which things on a site doesn't work with such an text-to-speech browser? I've heard that frames doesn't really work, but are there more things?
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote/font><HR>Originally posted by temis: you are right, you can't FORCE anyone to do anything, but its very considerate to make a website accessible to everyone, and its also a good business practice. disabled people are still people and they are still your customers.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Actually you can force people...and they likely WILL force people...I just don't recommend it.
It may be in their best interest...doesn't matter if it's in the businesses interest or not, they ought to have the choice. My sympathy goes out to all disabled people, and it's the courteous thing to do to design for them and make the necessary changes...but as I've said before, forcing people is a TERRIBLE idea, and isn't consistent with what I (and probably others) think American stands for.
It may sound dramatic to say something like that, but it's true. People can be jerks if they want, they can be annoying, they can be racist, they can discriminate if they want...it's not a nice thing to do, but they ought to be allowed nontheless.
It's clear graphics and multimedia files like flash4 won't work too.... This means we cannot make any 'cool' and 'groovy' designs or presentations. But anyhow, is a blind person going to learn a webpage? How can he code? Speak the codes in? The software still makes mistakes... So the page will ook ridiculous... So I guess nobody can sue me if my site isn't accessable to disabled. Still my site is quite accessable for disabled persons.
Two short lines of code won't even slow down the page for 0.1 second, maybe if you're on a 28.8 connection. When I'm surfing I don't feel any difference between when I had a 56kb modem and now with the cable. Still th new connection is 100x faster. Most of the time the computer and the browser (altough I browsing with fastest of you all (IE 5.5) unless you have it installed too) will slow down page loading.
And how can Microsoft keep track over who uses their program? Are they going to scan the billions of pages of the web? Seems kinda ridiculous... Wouldn't it be moreconvenient that they just track their sales number? Of course there are copied versions (not mine) but still, that won't be as much as there have been sold.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote/font><HR>Originally posted by freesources: oh aidan... we even get 56.000kb connection on a free provider :P<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Yeah, there are free providers in the USA too. It's not the provider's fault, I've heard it is to be blamed on bad wiring. My friend who lives about 2 miles away can connect at 56kbps. I have dialed into MSN, AOL, Altavista, Netzero, White Horse, and a few other providers - most that say they offer 56k. But on my 56k modem, I have never reached over 28,800bps.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote/font><HR>Originally posted by freesources: But anyhow, is a blind person going to learn a webpage? How can he code? Speak the codes in? The software still makes mistakes... So the page will ook ridiculous...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>I have never heard of a blind person coding a site, but it does happen.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote/font><HR>Two short lines of code won't even slow down the page for 0.1 second, maybe if you're on a 28.8 connection<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>You must remember: most users still do dial in UNDER 56K. I dial in at 26.4 myself. Yes, most of the SitePoint Forum members are cable/dsl+ users, but most of the world isn't.
Still, the added generator code that FP has added is useless to the user (unless they are that .0001% who want to find out what editor everyone uses is). I am not saying that FrontPage is the only editor to blame (in fact most editors do the same thing) but it is still not a good thing.
Computers with 28.8 kb/s modems are almost none-existing in Belgium... So I thought in America everyone would have something like that.. I guess Belgium is more sophisticated So is FP2000/ ;P
Wayne: Okay, for some it may be easy...I can't be sure until I try...my point is that FORCING people to is not the way to go...it would probably to be rude to exclude blind people from viewing our sites...but I don't like being forced to be nice...
This is not implying that I do not have sympathy for the disabled or that I want to make this harder on them, but the government shouldn't force people to do things with their PRIVATE organizations unless they wish to...if it's in their interest then they'll do it anyway...the law should only apply to government-funded sites.
I see this sort of discussion a lot, and it never ceases to amaze me. Frankly, I agree that it shouldn't be a legal issue, but I don't grok why your clients aren't slapping you and saying, "You idiot! What do you mean blind people can't access my site? I'm not paying you to lock people out of the store!"
The lawsuits shouldn't be coming from the blind customers or the DOJ -- they should be coming from the companies whose sites are being built to exclude people.
Wow.. Elledan: Microsoft doesn't FORCE anyone! Microsoft Internet Explorer is by far the fastest on the browser market. Windows is of Microsoft and Microsoft has the right to include IE. You can download and install Netscape Navigator at any time. It's not like they have put some code in it that you can't install anything made by Netscape. That WOULD be forcing. But they don't so it's not. You can also choose which operating ssytem youuse when you go in the shop. You KNOW that with Windows there is IE. When you don't want IE buy something else. But because there isn't one platform that supports so many applications as Windows you probably buy Windows.
And if NS was programmed on Windows, ho wmany people would be complaining that two browser is waiste of disk space? The ones would want IE away the others (the most) would want NS away... Logically they choose IE than.
Christophe
But this topic is about FP2000 and not about Microsoft nor accessability of disabled persons. So please go on about FP2000.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote/font><HR>
This is not implying that I do not have sympathy for the disabled or that I want to make this harder on them, but the government shouldn't force people to do things with their PRIVATE organizations unless they wish to...if it's in their interest then they'll do it anyway...the law should only apply to government-funded sites.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I find it interesting that you feel this way. The laws in this country (U.S.) are reactive, this means they wait until there is a problem and then try to fix it.
Access for disabled persons was never thought about and never implemented until the late 70's and early 80's. Is it because there never were disabled people before then? No that isn't it. Companies always knew they were there but why spend an extra $45,000 for Disabled access in a building because of a small percentage of the population? There are no visible monetary rewards to doing something like this, is why. When you build a building, parking lot or street you have a budget that is immediate and hard-written, it immediately effects the bottom line.
You can't think of well if I slope this sidewalk, in 10 years I'll make the money back for it. Everyone still shops at Joe's down the street and he doesn't have disabled access because his store was built 10 years ago. If he doesn't need it then neither do I.
This had been going on since the beginning of this country. I can't say that all companies are like this but the majority of them are. What made Congress enact the Americans with Disabilities Act... Simply put War. In the late 60's early 70's we were at war (err.. I mean Police Action) with Vietnam. 50,000 people died and hundreds of thousands were maimed or disabled for life. This visible and vocal reminder of disabilities is what brought about the law. The fact of the matter is that if we didn't have this law most, if not all, commercial establishments would still not have access for disabled Americans.
You can dispute it all you want but if businesses were in general more proactive then we wouldn't need these laws to require compliance. The proof is right there in your words, even though it would help your business and design skills in the long run, your resistive because the businesses before you did not care about a small percentage of the overall population and a reactive law had to be developed.
I didn't say I wouldn't do it...I will as soon as I get all the other work I've got on my lap done with...but I don't see you addressing my point...which is that no private business should be forced to do anything. Is it a bit rude for people to build stores without wheelchair-entrances? Yeah, seems like it is to me...but this is America...LET THEM be rude!
Forcing people is not the answer. I understand why we have this law...they think we need to give this generation of disabled people a way to get around...and it is common courtesy (in my opinion) to do so...but they should NOT force people.
It's the same way with so many things now...racial and minority quotas companies have to make sure no racist acts take place. Racism is horrible...it's a shame it's come into our world...but the government has no place telling businesses what they have to build for or who they have to hire...it makes no sense.
You can't force people to be nice...remember the Mayor in "Ghostbusters"? -- "It's every New Yorkers God-given right to treat everyone else like dirt."...if racism is truly frowned upon (we all know it is), then businesses that obviously practice racist hiring methods will be singled out...as they are even now with these laws!
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote/font><HR>Originally posted by freesources: Computers with 28.8 kb/s modems are almost none-existing in Belgium<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>They are non-existant in USA too, but the wiring in my house/city isn't too good, limiting my connection to 26.4kbps
twt, making a site accessible only means more careful coding and planning, i.e ALT tags for EVERY image on the page and text descriptions where possible. go to http://www.bobby.org and read about it. you are right, you can't FORCE anyone to do anything, but its very considerate to make a website accessible to everyone, and its also a good business practice. disabled people are still people and they are still your customers.
Instead of killing each other because some loves FP, another ones DW and the other ones NotePad, you should make a small competition:
Make the same site in FP and DW and compare them (the source, loading time, browser compatibility and more of that stuff)
One remark: It depends on the site you want to make, if it's a simple site, both editors will succeed, but if it's get complicated, you'll see who's the strongest.
Even though I have FP2K, I've never used it (it came with Office 2000) and don't intend to. I previously had FP98 and was basically shocked bu all the rubbish it put in the pages I wrote. When you wrote a page in another editor and opened it in FP, then it mucked that up totally.
I am not saying FP2k is bad, because I don't know, and I don't intend to find out because of the bad experiences I had with earlier versions.
If an editor is bad to start with, then its reputation will never improve to the level it could have been.
First things first, I dislike Microsoft to the extreem so this is going to have a lot of bias.
If you are experienced enough with FP** to create a good page then good for you, though do not let novice people create pages and then try to upload them to a URL.
The reason for this is that they will probably create a whole site and then all the links are pointing to directories and files on there computers hard disk drive.
This is anoying when you then have to go around and fix up their pages for them!
By the way Microsoft Products are okay though they are designed to work with other Microsoft Products and not with any other products. THis is just another way for them to make more money!
Thanks, Any flaming can be directly e-mailed to me at webmattd@hotmail.com
/font><HR>Originally posted by temis:
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