<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; " class="">Hi Leif,<div class="" style=""><br class="" style=""><div style=""><div class="" style="">On Aug 20, 2008, at 3:35 PM, Leif Halvard Silli wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" style=""><blockquote type="cite"><div class="" style="">Robert J Burns 2008-08-20 13.46:<br class="" style=""><blockquote type="cite"><br class="" style=""></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">On Aug 20, 2008, at 2:13 PM, Leif Halvard Silli wrote:<br class="" style=""></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br class="" style=""></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">However, I don't think the use of the OBJECT element is as complicated <br class="" style=""></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">as you're making it out here. In other words the fallback semantics <br class="" style=""></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">are very well defined. So in your example:<br class="" style=""></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br class="" style=""></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><object data=movie.mov ><br class="" style=""></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><img src=src alt=alt ><br class="" style=""></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><object><p>mark-up<br class="" style=""></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></p></object></object><br class="" style=""></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br class="" style=""></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br class="" style=""></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">the IMG element element does not serve as another fallback level. <br class="" style=""></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Rather both the IMG and the second OBJECT together form the fallback <br class="" style=""></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">for the initial OBJECT. Their can only be one fallback level once the <br class="" style=""></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">contents of an object includes anything other than an OBJECT or a <br class="" style=""></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">PARAM element. <br class="" style=""></blockquote><br class="" style=""><br class="" style=""><br class="" style="">Hm. So, in that case, the nested OBJECT would instantiate an <br class="" style="">independent, /new/ OBJECT with its own fallback treatment, <br class="" style="">independent form the top-level OBJECt, then I guess:<br class="" style=""><br class="" style=""> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><object data=one-movie.mov ><br class="" style=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><!-- all this is fallback for 'one movie': --><br class="" style=""> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><img src=src alt='Fallback for IMG, as part of<br class="" style=""> fallback for one-movie.' ><br class="" style=""> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><object data=another-movie.mov ><br class="" style=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Fallback for 'another movie', which again is<br class="" style=""> fallback for one-movie.<br class="" style=""> <!-- end of fallback for 'one movie' --><br class="" style=""> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></p></object></object><br class="" style=""><br class="" style="">But this, then -- again -- illustrates how the fallback of OBJECT <br class="" style="">isn't geared at screen readers, as the fallback itself can contain <br class="" style="">both text and movies, simultanously.</div></blockquote><div style=""><br class="" style=""></div><div style="">Well it is still geared at screen readers as long as each bit of embedded non-text media has some text fallback. In your example everything is covered in terms of alt text / text equivalents.</div><br class="" style=""><blockquote type="cite"><div class="" style=""><br class="" style=""><br class="" style=""><blockquote type="cite">Your construction doesn't cause a validator flag, but I <br class="" style=""></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">think if definitely should. Or perhaps even two validator flags, one <br class="" style=""></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">because an OBJECT is included in the ultimate text fallback and also <br class="" style=""></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">because the IMG (another non-text media element) is included in the <br class="" style=""></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">ultimate text fallback of the OBJECT element. So the way OBJECT is <br class="" style=""></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">supposed to work (and maybe you're saying that the HTML 4.01 <br class="" style=""></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">recommendation doesn't make this clear enough) is that the OBJECT <br class="" style=""></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">element can only contain 1) any number of PARAM child elements <br class="" style=""></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">followed by one OBJECT element or 2) any number of PARM elements <br class="" style=""></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">followed by FLOW content (but no OBJECT element).<br class="" style=""></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br class="" style=""></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">I'll have to take a look at HTML 4.01 to see if this is explicit, but <br class="" style=""></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">HTML5 should definitely make this clear.<br class="" style=""></blockquote><br class="" style="">Must give this more thought. But I feel what you say suppports <br class="" style="">what I've said about how OBJECT is lacking an actual description <br class="" style="">of how it, in the "real world", is going to be used. There is to <br class="" style="">much high level "it is superior" thinking going on, without <br class="" style="">looking at the details of how it should be used, is my view.<br class="" style=""></div></blockquote><br class="" style=""></div><div style="">Yeah, I think you're partially right. I took a look at the HTML 4.01 prose[1] and DTD[2] and the DTD fails to give unambiguous normative guidance on precisely how this should work. The prose on the other hand do explain it, but there could still be some ambiguities that I'm missing. It doesn't have the normative language that the HTML5 draft should include. It should be made clear that every object element should include an ultimate fallback object element containing FLOW content minus any other embedded non-text media elements. (IMG, CANVAS, APPLET, EMBED, VIDEO, AUDIO, OBJECT).</div><div style=""><br class="" style=""></div><div style="">I think your example is still a bit unorthodox however, since normally the content model should be (PARAM* , OBJECT) or (PARAM* , (&flow;)* - [embedded media elements]). In other words either object fallback or flow fallback with no embedding. I think the conformance checker should check for this. And in cases other than role='decorative', the conformance checker should throw errors for missing text fallback (or throw warning for role='photo').</div><div style=""><br class="" style=""></div><div style="">BTW, further reflection on your earlier quote form the Microsoft IE Blog[3], leaves me a little stunned if this is actually true. Does anyone have IE (any version) handy to test this? As Leif quoted earlier:</div><div style=""><br class="" style=""></div><div style=""><pre class="" style=""><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; white-space: normal;"> "<OBJECT> is not parsed in a cross-browser compatible way
(parsing stops at the OBJECT, whereas other browsers continue
parsing all the fallback content and make it available. No support
for this parsing behavior is planned for IE8; I'll take this
opportunity to ask for real-world scenarios that can help me
prioritize this feature."</span></font>
</pre></div><div style="">I find it hard to believe that the content of the OBJECT element are not parsed. Is it simply thrown away? Is it added to the DOM as plain text? Or does it mean that the more sophisticated fallback mechanism enabled by the OBJECT element is not supported so that IE simply handles only the first embedded content and ignores the remaining content. Does IE have a DOM browser like the other browsers? I guess you could always view it at Hixie's DOM viewer[4]. If the tree of OBJECT elements is shown properly nested with the fallback text in a text node within the second object than the IE blog entry is incorrect.</div><div style=""><br></div><div style="">Take care,</div><div style="">Rob</div><div style=""><br class="" style=""></div><div style="">[1]: <<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/objects.html">http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/objects.html</a>></div><div style="">[2]: <<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/sgml/dtd.html">http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/sgml/dtd.html</a>></div><div style="">[3]: See "Known issues we are not planning to change in IE8" in the official Internet Explorer blog. <<a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/04/10/html-and-dom-standards-compliance-in-ie8-beta-1.aspx">http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/04/10/html-and-dom-standards-compliance-in-ie8-beta-1.aspx</a>></div><div class="" style="">[4]: <<a href="http://software.hixie.ch/utilities/js/live-dom-viewer/?%3C!DOCTYPE%20html%3E%0A%3Cobject%20data%3D'http%3A%2F%2Flists.w3.org%2FArchives%2FPublic%2Fwww-archive%2F2007Aug%2Fatt-0027%2FTestVideo.3gp'%20%3E%0A%20%20%20%20%20%3Cobject%20data%3D'http%3A%2F%2Flists.w3.org%2FArchives%2FPublic%2Fwww-archive%2F2007Aug%2Fatt-0026%2Fimage.gif'%20%3Esome%20fallback%3C%2Fobject%3E%0A%3C%2Fobject%3E">http://software.hixie.ch/utilities/js/live-dom-viewer/?%3C!DOCTYPE%20html%3E%0A%3Cobject%20data%3D'http%3A%2F%2Flists.w3.org%2FArchives%2FPublic%2Fwww-archive%2F2007Aug%2Fatt-0027%2FTestVideo.3gp'%20%3E%0A%20%20%20%20%20%3Cobject%20data%3D'http%3A%2F%2Flists.w3.org%2FArchives%2FPublic%2Fwww-archive%2F2007Aug%2Fatt-0026%2Fimage.gif'%20%3Esome%20fallback%3C%2Fobject%3E%0A%3C%2Fobject%3E</a>></div></div></body></html>