Posted by Eric Stewart
Mon, 21 Nov 2005 20:53:00 GMT
While I’m on the subject of web accessibility…
If you don’t read Encytemedia, head on over and start reading this series of articles on degradable Javascript. Justin is talking about this technique in general using his new javascript library along with Rails.
This looks to be a promising technique and I can’t wait to try it out. A big part of accessibility for sites that don’t want to skimp on the javascript goodness is making sure that the site degrades nicely and still functions when viewed by a browser (for example, a screen reader) that intentionally doesn’t support all that craziness.
And in addition those crazy people that turn off Javascript for the fun of it will still be supported too.
Posted in Software Development, Ruby, Ruby On Rails | Tags accessibility, javascript, rails, web | no comments
Posted by Eric Stewart
Mon, 21 Nov 2005 20:27:00 GMT
It so happens that much of the web work I have done in the past (and at present) has had a strong accessibility requirement. Most of the standard accessibility techniques are not difficult, improve usability anyway, and encourage use of standards.
Certainly there are many wrenches to through into the accessibility cogs. Javascript and Ajax are two big ones right now that make things more difficult. But from what I can tell they can be utilized also with careful design (and knowledge of degradation techniques).
Read more...
Posted in Software Development, Ruby, Ruby On Rails | Tags accessiblity, ruby, rubyonrails, web | 3 comments
Posted by Eric Stewart
Sun, 20 Nov 2005 04:41:00 GMT
One of the big advantages of Rails and ActiveRecord in particular is the ease of maintenance and small code size when you follow the conventions that ActiveRecord expects.
Over the past 6 months I have read several accounts of people wanting to adapt an existing web application to Rails, preferably preserving the database. A common pain expressed is that you lose many of the benefits of ActiveRecord if you have to configure your application to understand a datase that doesn’t follow the conventions it prefers.
ActiveRecord now has Migrations, which are intended to version and adapt an existing database as your application changes, typicall through development/deployment cycles. But what if we use migrations to adapt the database from another application that we are rewriting in Rails?
Right now it seems very practical if you document the exact version of database from the original application. Because you won’t have ActiveRecord model classes for the original database there will be some direct SQL required in most cases. That might leave you with a nice upgrade path from the original application as well (at least one particular version of it).
My current project hasn’t taken advantage of migrations yet but will soon (more on that later). It is a new project with a new database however.
I have an itch to try porting at least one open source application I use to Rails for my own convenience. Maybe I’ll give this a try. Has anyone done this yet?
Posted in Software Development, Ruby, Ruby On Rails | Tags databases, rails | 3 comments
Posted by Eric Stewart
Sun, 20 Nov 2005 00:22:00 GMT
I’m just doing a little pondering about accessibility. When you think of how many users would be left out of a totally inaccessible site, consider the numbers.
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Posted in Software Development, Technology | Tags accessibility, software, web | no comments
Posted by Eric Stewart
Sat, 19 Nov 2005 20:25:00 GMT
I’m a little surprised it was AOL, but looks like a major site has finally done something to make CAPTCHA’s accessible.
A CAPTCHA is one of those graphics that contain letters and numbers that are presumably difficult for an automated system to read, thus foiling automated spammers. But it’s obvious that most CAPTCHAs you see are not accessible.
There are some proposals on how to make these accessible. I even notice Google had a wheelchair graphic next to some of its CAPTCHAs, but all it appears to do it pop up the same CAPTCHA graphic in a new window. I haven’t seen yet how that makes it accessible.
In any case, way to go AOL. I wouldn’t consider saying that on most any other day, and if it weren’t for this weblog I’d deny ever having said it.
Posted in Software Development, Technology | Tags accessibility, web | no comments
