submitted for your approval, the attached, also perusable at:
http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/wai/references/qtform.html
the reformatted form validates against the W3C HTML Validator
and the CSS Validator
i think that the overall flow of the form is improved by a
slight shifting of explanatory materials, and, of course,
benefits enormously from the addition of LABELs, ACCESSKEYs,
and the like...
not too much of a departure from what you originally outlined,
daniel, but i find the attached much easier to use in an
environment that supports
i commented as i went along, and the following change/issue log
was copied and pasted from the inline comments that are still
extant in the attached document source
1. added LANG attribute to HTML declaration
2. added the following to the STYLE rules defined for the document:
BODY
.skip { margin-left:2.5%; margin-right:2.5%; font-weight:bold; font-size:90%; }
.invisible { display : none; }
.explanation { margin-left:5%; margin-right:5%; }
fieldset { padding : .25%; }
.input-grouping { margin-left : 2.5%; margin-right : 2.5%; }
dt.list-header { font-weight:bold;font-size:110%; }
3. added an additional META tags (description, as follows:
4. added MAP containing 2 links: one which allows you to skip directly to
the form (bypass front matter) and one that leads to the list of ACCESSKEYs
defined for the form
5. while i have chosen to replace the asterisk, which is used as token
denoting a required field, with an explicit text string indicating that
the field is required, i could retain the token (which would be rendered)
and span the explicit text with a display:none style rule as i did to add
extended semantic information to the LABELs i associated with the Quantity
radio buttons, namely that the numbers mean number of cards -- for example:
6. added TITLEs to all HRs
7. added LABELs and ACCESSKEYs to form controls
8. mnved P from outside first FIELDSET to inside the FIELDSET and used
stylesheets to control format
9. Question: since it isn't legal to append an ACCESSKEY to a FIELDSET,
should i have appended the ACCESSKEY to the LEGEND rather than the first
input field contained in the FIELDSET? philosophically, i'd prefer
appending the ACCESSKEY to the FIELDSET (ok, LEGEND), since the FIELDSET
contains linked/related input fields which are grouped under the LEGEND
'Address'; however, i think it more practical to appending the ACCESSKEY
to the first input field, as (a) that's where the FIELDSET actually
starts and (b) those UAs which support ACCESSKEY do so more
uniformly/consistently when the ACCESSKEY is associated with an
interactive element, rather than an anchor/non-interactive element
10. Implementation Bummer: no screen reader that i am aware of properly
processes FIELDSETs, that is, provide the user with the option to
configure the screen reader so that, when it is in a FIELDSET, it reads
the FIELDSET's LEGEND before reading the label associated with a form
control, so as to provide context for the form elements contained in
the FIELDSET (as well as cognizance of the existence of FIELDSETs as
logical groupings
11. had to append the ACCESSKEY to the LABEL i defined for the 2 form
fields that are SELECT OPTION fields, as the Geraldizer (a.k.a. the W3C
Validator) barked at me when i attempted to append it to the SELECT
element, as well, i suppose it should, as the SELECT element isn't listed
in the HTML4 spec as one of the elements for which ACCESSKEY is a valid
attribute, but i wonder why...
12. again, upon encountering the second FIELDSET, i have the same
philosophical quandry: should the ACCESSKEY for this FIELDSET be
appended to the FIELDSET element or to the first interactive element in
the FIELDSET? for consistency's sake, i i have appended the ACCESSKEY to
the radio button marked as the default
13. UA Implementation Bug Warning: since IE5/IE 5.5 use ALT+D as an
accellerator that allows one to jump to the 'Address' bar, some IE5 users
may end up in the 'Address' bar when they attempt to trigger the ACCESSKEY
defined for 'Deadline'; although 3 out 5 tests led to the input field for
which 'd' was defined as an ACCESSKEY and only twice was the input routed
to the 'Adress' bar; i'm inclined to leave the ACCESSKEY defined for the
'Deadline' field as 'd', as the conflict is the result of a UA
implementation bug
14. removed 2 BRs and enclosed the Submit mechanism and explanatory text
in a P container
15. Question: by moving the explanation of what happens when the 'Submit'
button is activated, am i justified in replacing the verbiage (or at least
preceding it) with a 'Reset' button
16. Question: should the list of ACCESSKEYs defined for the form be listed
in the physical/structural/logical order in which they are encoded, or
should they be listed alphabetically? i have chosen the latter, as is my
personal wont
17. ENDMATTER: added HREFLANG attribute to INRIA and Keio links, and provided
an expansion for INRIA, and, by appending the LANG attribute to the ACRONYM
element, i was also able to demarcate the text as french; also provided
expansions for W3C and MIT, and replaced extended ASCII?/ANSI character for
copyright with corresponding character entity