Where's the HTML and where's the structure?

[StevenWWinters]

Well, it looks like it's a time to talk about concepts.

Hi John,

I understand fully the goals of XWD. As one who leans toward coding because it gives ultimate control of the outcome, I'm torn. Nonetheless, I respect what you are trying to accomplish. Like it or not, some things in XWD are just plain convoluted or at best clumsy. But the fact that a non-coder can accomplish them, is saying something. Those who know code and expect any tool to create code that is as concise and efficient as what can be hand coded, are always going to be disappointed. This is a visual tool. Period. What's under the hood doesn't matter, as long as the car gets you there...

However I do think you need to distinguish between tables and bulleted lists as structure tools v.s. design elements. All modern publishing tools give you the ability to easily create bulleted lists or to display tabular data. Xara is much less friendly and intuitive in these areas and I think in time you will need to address it. Whether the underlying code is an html table or bulleted list, is irrelevant. But the ability to create them on screen is not. Consider that the infamous "text underline" was only recently added to Xara, as well as spell check. Both are common tools for document creation that Xara recognized as necessary components of "design".

[covoxer]

Yes, as I say - it's a first step.

[dogbertbh]

Just like we all learn from the childhood. If you want to see something - draw it! That simple.

THIS is what I like about the whole process.

I can't code, but that doesn't mean I'm not creative enough to draw.

[MikeM]

It is really simple to sort this, design and build the site exactly how you want it, QUICKLY, save it and open it up again in DW or EWeb to do any tweaks you fancy. This works perfectly.

[Hexen53]

My arguments are not about whether it is better to be able to code by hand or use a WYSISYG app. Whichever method you use there will be an HTML page, full of code. My argument is about the lack of HTML and structure in WXD pages.

The W3C develop the HTML language and they determine what the vocabulary is and how it should be used. They give us ways to identify headings, bullets, tabular data etc. The tags are there for good reason.

XWD has done away with the vocabulary of HTML and just uses positioning divs and fixed font sizes. So, why is that a problem?

I stated earlier that most people would be able to determine headings, bullet points, structure etc of a web page just by looking at it and that has been pointed out again in a few other posts. However, there are many people who can't look at a web page - no matter how big the font is. Blind and seriously visually impaired people use screen reading software to help them get content from the web - screen reading software actually reads the HTML content of the web page, not the screen itself - see the link below as to why we need to have headings, bulleted lists etc and why structure is important.

http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-fr...-readers.shtml

It is also worth mentioning that in many cases it is a legal requirement to make websites accessible - see the RNIB site http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups...legalcase.hcsp

MikeM - I tried exporting and then editing in EW2 but I won't be doing that again

Covoxer - You make a lot of good points but why should I have to draw my own bullets when HTML provides nestable ordered and unordered lists with definable bullet characters, including images? Xara make a point of avoiding bullets in their software - you can't DTP them either!

• Bulleted lists
• are great
• and even
• this editor supports them!

as easy as

1. one
2. two
3. three

Ron

[Charles Moir]

No one argues that having automatic bullet or numbered lists would be a worthwhile addition. It's on the wish-list. It will get done at some point.

But I'd argue that the point about HTML structure is not valid. The tags only exist because back-along you created websites by hand, hacking the HTML and the only way to add a heading (or something as simple as italic) was by adding embedded tag commands. They only exist through a dint of history. It was the exactly same with old word processors, before they went WYSIWYG. Same with DTP programs, but how many people use TeX now? WYSIWYG design tools have made the whole manual mark-up redundant.

There is no value in having HTML 'structure'. Search engines do not use it - they care only about the text (some people mistakenly believe, and spread the myth, that is matters to search engines - it does not). All they care about is that text. By all accounts Google doesn't even look at very specific metadata, the keywords metatag, so they are not going to pay attention to <H1>. There is no value in the 'vocabulary of HTML' as you put it.

So in fact as and when we implement easy bullet lists we probably will not do it with the <li> tag even, but our own way so that designers have accurate, predictable, WYSIWYG lists. I can see little value in using the <li> when what people really care about is that the lists looks right, and exactly as they intend on all browsers.

As to the 'accessibility' point this is mute point as all mainstream browsers have moved to full page zoom where everything on the page zooms (like in Xara). This is a better solution for everyone, blind or not, because then everything gets bigger in proportion and you can zoom into graphics, photos and text. And designers are happy because their page remains completely intact as intended, just bigger.

So the only browser that do not implement full page zoom (Chrome and Safari) are switching to it real soon now. Problem solved.

[remi]

As to the 'accessibility' point this is mute point as all mainstream browsers have moved to full page zoom where everything on the page zooms (like in Xara). This is a better solution for everyone, blind or not, because then everything gets bigger in proportion and you can zoom into graphics, photos and text. And designers are happy because their page remains completely intact as intended, just bigger.

Ron (Hexen33) was talking about blind people. Blind people will not zoom (they are not able to interprete your generated DIV tag soap, if they zoom in or out, because they are blind).

Remi

[nickydude]

I thought that was a bit of an odd paragraph. 'As long as you can zoom right in, blind people should be ok.' http://www3.b92.net/ipb_images/style...efault/huh.gif

[Charles Moir]

Yeah, sorry I really meant 'visually challenged' which is actually a pretty significant proportion of the population, who like to magnify things.

For really blind, let's assume they are using computer readers, then I think the same point still applies, they read the text in the HTML and will ignore pretty much all the HTML structure.

Alt tags on pictures or graphics are one of the few bits of meta information that really are valuable, to search engines and readers alike. But we have an easy way of adding those to pictures.

[remi]

For really blind, let's assume they are using computer readers, then I think the same point still applies, they read the text in the HTML and will ignore pretty much all the HTML structure.

Sorry, but that's wrong. You should do your homework, because "a growing number of countries around the world have introduced legislation which either directly addresses the need for websites and other forms of communication to be accessible to people with disabilities, or which addresses the more general requirement for people with disabilities not to be discriminated against.

In the UK, the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) does not refer explicitly to website accessibility, but makes it illegal to discriminate against people with disabilities. The DDA applies to anyone providing a service; public, private and voluntary sectors. The Code of Practice: Rights of Access - Goods, Facilities, Services and Premises document[8] published by the government's Disability Rights Commission to accompany the Act does refer explicitly to websites as one of the "services to the public" which should be considered covered by the Act." [source: Wikipedia article about Web accessibility]

Remi