[odf-discuss] Documenting support for ODF 1.1?

[Daniel]

M. Fioretti wrote:
> with respect to the "Applications" page at
> http://opendocumentfellowship.org/applications:
> 
> all the information refers to support for ODF 1.0 only, right? If so,
> maybe it should be said explicitly in the page.

The question never arose. Are you convinced that the differences between 
ODF 1.0 and ODF 1.1 are so great that they would impact anything on that 
page? Please name one difference that could reasonably alter the status 
of a single application on that page. Please do take a look at the 
application page and understand the status indicators before answering.

> The reason of the question and the suggestions is that ODF 1.1 is the
> only version in which disabled users (and the lawmakers, lobbyists and
> programmers working for them) are interested, in the sense that it is
> the only one which is good enough from the accessibility point of
> view, see for example

Sigh... Ok, please tell me what accessibility additions appeared in ODF 
1.1. Then show me one application that implements accessibility at the 
level of 1.0 or higher.

Let me explain what I'm getting at:

1) In which sense is a format "accessible?"

It's the application that is accessible, not the file format. The most 
that the file format can do is allow the insertion of accessibility 
information. The classical example is how, in HTML, the <img> tag has an 
"alt" attribute which a screen reader can use. But this doesn't make 
either web browsers or web pages inherently accessible. You need a web 
author willing to use those tags and use them in the way they were 
intended and you need a web browser that can connect to a screen reading 
application (I've had a hell of a time trying to accomplish this in 
Linux). But the unexistence of these things (ie inaccessible pages and 
inaccessible browsers) doesn't make the browser "not HTML compliant".

Incidentally, when one says "accessibility information" 90% of the time 
that means having an alt-type of attribute to carry a text alternative 
for a non-text object.

2) Now, back to ODF:
ODF 1.0 already included a lot of accessibility information. Images and 
objects could already carry text equivalents. What is new about ODF 1.1 
is adding similar text attributes to other elements. You could say that 
ODF 1.0 had enough to make 90% of the non-text information in a document 
accessible through text tags and ODF 1.1 added features for the other 
10%. But do you know of any application that already gives you any level 
of accessibility at the 1.0 level? Can you hook up OOo to a screen reader?

On the authors end, how many people know how to insert accessibility 
information for an image using OOo? Do you?

Best,
Daniel.