Quote Originally Posted by covoxer View Post
Who? Me not happy of people asking questions? You must be kidding, right?

Here's the short reconstruction of this debate:

user: Where's the html code? I don't see it.
covoxer: You are not supposed to see it.
expert: Yes... This is bad!
Okay so my original thread was closed and now this one carries on the same stuff and often misses my original point.

I can see the html - at least the small part of html that WD uses. My concern is that a lot of the tags that make up the HTML language are not implemented in WD.

When you look at a web page and that has multi-columns your eye can quickly scan the page and tell you that the item you are interested in is down there in column 2, so that's where you start reading. A blind person using a screen reader would have to wade though all the stuff from the beginning until he finds the bit he wanted.

A proper screen reader can parse the HTML in the page and allows the blind user to listen to the headings and choose the article that he wants. Headings at different levels give an indication of importance.

HTML can give structure and many people believe that the correct use of tags like <h1> can help with search engine ranking. People look at web pages - search engines, screen readers and the like look at html.

When you design in WD and say you type in "My Vacation" and make it 24pt and stick it where you like and then put a para below it you have created a wee structure. However, behind the scenes the heading you created is effectively just the same as the para following it. Some designers only care about what's on the surface but for others what lies below may be just as important.

For my work I have to make an effort to keep my web pages structured and accessible and this is also true for government sites and companies across the world as there are legal requirements on Service Providers' sites.

Here's a quote relating to websites and the Disability Discrimination Act (UK)

"Can you be sued? Basically, yes. The RNIB has approached two large companies with regard to their websites. When they raised the accessibility issues of the websites under the DDA, both companies made the necessary changes, rather than facing the prospect of legal action (in exchange for anonymity)."

"The courts will also no doubt take guidance from the outcome of an Australian case in 2000, when a blind man successfully sued the Sydney Olympics15 organising committee over their inaccessible website. (The Australian Disability Discrimination Act quite closely resembles that of the UK's.) UK courts may also take into account the New York case against Ramada.com and Priceline.com16, who were also successfully sued over the accessibility of their websites."

Here's an excerpt from the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative:

"For Web developers using today's authoring tools, development of accessible Web sites first requires an awareness of the need for Web accessibility, then a deliberate effort to apply WCAG 1.0. It may require working around features of authoring tools that make it hard to build accessible Web sites. For instance, some authoring tools still produce non-standard markup, which can be a barrier for accessibility. Authoring tools that conform to ATAG 1.0 provide built-in support for production of accessible Web sites."

In the other thread there were references to luddites and it was suggested that Xara might develop WDanal for people like me. You may not like what I say but look around the web community and see what others say on accessibility, document structure and html. Go to Adobe, try Microsoft, check out the best developer/designer site http://www.sitepoint.com/ - don't just take what is said on these forums as gospel or good practice.

I have stated that I think WD can do some fantastic things but for my day job it is not really suited. I have not asked for my money back. For many years I have been using Xara products - Webstyle, Xara X1, Xara3D 6, Xtreme Pro 4 and I bought WD without a trial because I trust Xara products.

For many people WD is the perfect tool and maybe it will be for me one day.

Thanks for listening

Luddite Ron