Posted by TaliesinSoft on 02/18/07 16:06

On Sat, 17 Feb 2007 10:44:39 -0600, Jonathan N. Little wrote (in article
<3a76a$45d730e0$40cba7b7$3833@NAXS.COM>):

[commenting on my Ansel Adams website found at
<http://homepage.mac.com/taliesinsoft/Adams/>]

> 1) bloats the bandwidth of the document

Agreed that having the text rendered as images as opposed to text does
increase the bandwidth of the document. But doing so allows me to have
absolute control over the appearance of the page, something important to me.
I have compared the download time with a great many websites such as those
from Apple, Adobe, and Microsoft, and it compares favorably.

> 2) provides no info for search engines

I have set the "alt text" property in Freeway Pro for each of the text blocks
in the site. The description in the Freeway Pro help states....

It is good practice to set meaningful alt (or alternative) text for each of
the graphics on your site. This is displayed to users who choose not to
display the graphics, and provides information that can help your site get
indexed by search engines.

> 3) provides no way to scale text for visually impaired, your can be
> impaired but still like to look at photos! As text once can zoom it and
> since your use pale grey on white. Viewing with style disabled would mean
> text would be default black on white and more legible, but AH! You're page
> is all images as text! AND all pixel perfect absolute positioned mess that
> when the style is disabled degrades to a complete mess

Trying to accommodate the visually impaired with actions directly provided by
the browser in response to constructs in the website to me is the wrong
solution to a right intent. In my mind it would be far better for the needs
of the visually impaired to be addressed directly within the receiving
computer's operating environment. Apple has made a good start with the
ability to magnify an modify the received image. What I would like to see in
addition is what I'll call a floating magnifying glass which follows the
cursor about the screen, the size of the glass and the degree of modification
within being under the user's control. As for enlarging text within the
browser it seems that every website that I've tried that uses this technique
does not apply it to all text and the text to which it is applied falls apart
into a useless array of clutter if the degree of magnification becomes too
large.

As an aside, having been married for over 40 years to a person with severe
physical disabilities, accommodating such is something to which I'm
especially sensitive.

> 4) limited eye-sighted folks may use a screen reader to assist, but ditto
> on above!

See my comment above.

> Use text, find a handful of possible fonts that are likely to be on
> visitors systems and use that...A logo, maybe use graphics to match a font
> but not for the page's text...

Again see my comment above.

--
James Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft@mac.com

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