508 Compliance?

[patrickq]

Originally posted to the XMetaL and DITA yahoo user group lists.

I’m using XMetaL 5.1 / Enhanced PDF. I’d like to add alternate text to note images, based on the type of note, as part of 508 compliance. I know that commons.xsl places the note graphic with this line:

<fo:external-graphic src="{concat($file_prefix,$artworkPrefix, '/', $noteImagePath)})" xsl:use-attribute-sets="image"/>

and that commons-attr.xsl contains the image attribute set (which is empty), as well as attributes for each note type. I was thinking that I’d add the alt attribute to the image set, use the value of a new  $notealt parameter stored in xm_baseline_attrs.xsl. Then define $notealt to test which note type it is.  That’s when my (limited) xsl knowledge fails me—or maybe it failed me prior to that :-).

What could I test? What does the processing know about the note when the graphic is placed?
Anyone know if 508 compliance is on the radar for the DITA spec? Thanks in advance for any insights.

[Su-Laine Yeo]

Hi Patrick,

I don't know XSL or the Open Toolkit well enough to know how you'd put Alt text on the icon that appears in a note. However, the default behaviour in all output formats is to display text describing the note type anyway, either beside the icon or instead of an icon, right? Doesn't that suffice for Section 508?

[patrickq]

We took out the note text, and are just using images. Looks nicer in our style, but isn't compliant.