Summary
.
The Project Seven Glide Panel Magic widget meets anylevel of Web standards and best practice technicalspecification and consideration.
Its
CSS
based design is highly configurable that enablesthe widget to accommodate any sound HTML design. Multiplewidgets can exist on the same content page. The widget's menustructure can be horizontal or vertical and can be locatedseparate from the content that the widget controls. The CSSdegrades gracefully in older browsers. It can be adjustedto accommodate and/or coexist with external style sheets thatcontrol primary content for all devices that support CSSand supported CSS media types.
The JavaScript is clean and succinct. For devices and useragents that do not support JavaScript or for Web visitors whodisable JavaScript, the widget content is highly structuredand usable.
It is how and in the manner which the JavaScript for thiswidget has been coded that allows the JavaScript to impactthe
DOM
ofany modern Web browser regardless of the Web page'srecognized MIME type. It further allows the script to makethe required adjustments to the DOM prior to the Web pagebeing parsed. This allows the content page to successfullyrender within the browser for either of the MIME types of
text/html
or
application/xhtml+xml
.
True
XHTML
.
True XHTML content that is delivered with a
MIME
content–type of
application/xhtml+xml
isproblematic because Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browserdoes not support the
application/xhtml+xml
MIME type.
The beauty of this Project Seven widget is that it doessupport true XHTML and allows for its use within frameworks,such as .NET, that use content negotiation to deliver theappropriate MIME type to a specific browser. For InternetExplorer browser, content is delivered to it in
text/html
. For other modern browsers, it isdelivered as
application/xhtml+xml
and is,subsequently, parsed as
xml
.
This Project Seven widget can be used in
ASP.NET
Webapplications. Please understand that this particular versionof the widget is still in beta tests. However, based uponmy tests and evaluations within ASP.NET, this widget functionsflawlessly within all modern browsers.
Accessibility
.
Content and developer skill dependent, this widget meetsall levels of the
WCAG
version 1.0 as published by the
W3C
As I said,it meets all levels:Priority One, Priority Two andPriority Three. This includes the United States Americanswith Disabilities Act Section 508 Accessibility Guidelines.
This content page has been machine validated against theWCAG 1.0 standard using Hiawatha's AccVerify and Watchfire'sWebXact products. No errors are reported at Priority 1,Priority 2 or Priority 3 levels.
SEO
Performance
.
The content within the widget is exposed fully to searchengines provided that the specific content is not excluded bytechnique, e.g. robot text file exclusion.
This ability is superior over standard
AJAX
techniquesthat are used to present content within a collapsible content‘fold’.
Exposing content to search engines and having the contentconveniently available to users via ‘click through’of the search engine link are distinct and separate issues.The Web developer must be cognizant of these issues. Specifictechnique and suggestions are provided within the
Application Test
content page ofthis Web site and address these issues.