- activate
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From User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (2002-12-17)
In this document, the verb "to activate" means (depending on context) either: To execute or carry out one or more behaviors associated with an enabled element.To execute or carry out one or more behaviors associated with a component of the user agent user interface.The effect of activation depends on the type of the user interface control. For instance, when a link is activated, the user agent generally retrieves the linked Web resource. When a form element is activated, it may change state (e.g., check boxes) or may take user input (e.g., a text entry field).
- alert
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From User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (2002-12-17)
In this document, "to alert" means to make the user aware of some event, without requiring acknowledgement. For example, the user agent may alert the user that new content is available on the server by displaying a text message in the user agent's status bar. See checkpoint 1.3 for requirements about alerts.
- animation
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From User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (2002-12-17)
In this document, an "animation" refers to content that, when rendered, creates a visual movement effect automatically (i.e., without explicit user interaction). This definition of animation includes video and animated images. Animation techniques include: graphically displaying a sequence of snapshots within the same region (e.g., as is done for video and animated images). The series of snapshots may be provided by a single resource (e.g., an animated GIF image) or from distinct resources (e.g., a series of images downloaded continuously by the user agent).scrolling text (e.g., achieved through markup or style sheets).displacing graphical objects around the viewport (e.g., a picture of a ball that is moved around the viewport giving the impression that it is bouncing off of the viewport edges). For instance, the SMIL 2.0 [SMIL20] animation modules explain how to create such animation effects in a declarative manner (i.e., not by composition of successive snapshots).
This content type label refers to all of the requirements related to animations (including video and animated images) for the following checkpoints: 3.2, 4.4, and 4.5. When this label is part of a conformance profile, the user agent must implement at least one animation format. Furthermore, when this label is part of a profile, the user agent must satisfy the requirements of checkpoint 3.2 for all implemented animation formats, not just those identified in a conformance profile. The animation requirements apply to animation content that is recognized as distinct and that, according to the encoding format, may be rendered as a coherent unit.
- applet
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From User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (2002-12-17)
An applet is a program (generally written in the Java programming language) that is part of content, and that the user agent executes.
- application programming interface (API), conventional input/output/device API),
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From User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (2002-12-17)
An application programming interface (API) defines how communication may take place between applications. Implementing APIs that are independent of a particular operating environment (as are the W3C DOM Level 2 specifications) may reduce implementation costs for multi-platform user agents and promote the development of multi-platform assistive technologies. Implementing conventional APIs for a particular operating environment may reduce implementation costs for assistive technology developers who wish to interoperate with more than one piece of software running on that operating environment.A "device API" defines how communication may take place with an input or output device such as a keyboard, mouse, or video card.In this document, an "input/output API" defines how applications or devices communicate with a user agent. As used in this document, input and output APIs include, but are not limited to, device APIs. Input and output APIs also include more abstract communication interfaces than those specified by device APIs. A "conventional input/output API" is one that is expected to be implemented by software running on a particular operating environment. For example, the conventional input APIs of the target user agent are for the mouse and keyboard. For touch screen devices or mobile devices, conventional input APIs may include stylus, buttons, and voice. The graphical display and sound card are considered conventional output devices for a graphical desktop computer environment, and each has an associated API.
- assistive technology
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From User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (2002-12-17)
In the context of this document, an assistive technology is a user agent that: relies on services (such as retrieving Web resources and parsing markup) provided by one or more other "host" user agents. Assistive technologies communicate data and messages with host user agents by using and monitoring APIs.provides services beyond those offered by the host user agents to meet the requirements of users with disabilities. Additional services include alternative renderings (e.g., as synthesized speech or magnified content), alternative input methods (e.g., voice), additional navigation or orientation mechanisms, and content transformations (e.g., to make tables more accessible).Examples of assistive technologies that are important in the context of this document include the following:screen magnifiers, which are used by people with visual disabilities to enlarge and change colors on the screen to improve the visual readability of rendered text and images.screen readers, which are used by people who are blind or have reading disabilities to read textual information through synthesized speech or braille displays.voice recognition software, which may be used by people who have some physical disabilities.alternative keyboards, which are used by people with certain physical disabilities to simulate the keyboard.alternative pointing devices, which are used by people with certain physical disabilities to simulate mouse pointing and button activations.Beyond this document, assistive technologies consist of software or hardware that has been specifically designed to assist people with disabilities in carrying out daily activities. These technologies include wheelchairs, reading machines, devices for grasping, text telephones, and vibrating pagers. For example, the following very general definition of "assistive technology device" comes from the (U.S.) Assistive Technology Act of 1998 [AT1998]: Any item, piece of equipment, or product system, whether acquired commercially, modified, or customized, that is used to increase, maintain, or improve functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities.
- attribute
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From User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (2002-12-17)
This document uses the term "attribute" in the XML sense: an element may have a set of attribute specifications (refer to the XML 1.0 specification [XML] section 3).
- audio
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From User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (2002-12-17)
This content type label refers to all of the requirements related to audio for the following checkpoints: 2.5, 2.6, 3.2, 4.4, 4.5, 4.7, and 4.8. When this label is part of a conformance profile, the user agent must implement at least one audio format. Furthermore, when this label is part of a profile, the user agent must satisfy the requirements of checkpoints 3.2 and 4.7 for all implemented audio formats, not just those identified in a conformance profile. The audio requirements apply to audio content that is recognized as distinct and that, according to the encoding format, may be rendered as a coherent unit.
In this document, the term "audio" refers to content that encodes prerecorded sound.An audio-only presentation is content consisting exclusively of one or more audio tracks presented concurrently or in series. Examples of an audio-only presentation include a musical performance, a radio-style news broadcast, and a narration.An audio object is content rendered as sound through an audio viewport. An audio track is an audio object that is intended as a whole or partial presentation. An audio track may, but is not required to, correspond to a single audio channel (left or right audio channel).An audio description (called an "auditory description" in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 [WCAG10]) is either a prerecorded human voice or a synthesized voice (recorded or generated dynamically) describing the key visual elements of a movie or other animation. The audio description is synchronized with (and possibly included as part of) the audio track of the presentation, usually during natural pauses in the audio track. Audio descriptions include information about actions, body language, graphics, and scene changes.
- audio description
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From User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (2002-12-17)
An audio description (called an "auditory description" in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 [WCAG10]) is either a prerecorded human voice or a synthesized voice (recorded or generated dynamically) describing the key visual elements of a movie or other animation. The audio description is synchronized with (and possibly included as part of) the audio track of the presentation, usually during natural pauses in the audio track. Audio descriptions include information about actions, body language, graphics, and scene changes.
- audio track
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From User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (2002-12-17)
An audio object is content rendered as sound through an audio viewport. An audio track is an audio object that is intended as a whole or partial presentation. An audio track may, but is not required to, correspond to a single audio channel (left or right audio channel).
- audio-only presentation
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From User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (2002-12-17)
An audio-only presentation is content consisting exclusively of one or more audio tracks presented concurrently or in series. Examples of an audio-only presentation include a musical performance, a radio-style news broadcast, and a narration.
- author styles
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From User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (2002-12-17)
Authors styles are style property values that come from content (e.g., style sheets within a document, that are associated with a document, or that are generated by a server).
- background image interference
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From User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (2002-12-17)
The requirement of checkpoint 3.1 to allow the user to turn off rendering of background images does not extend to multi-layered rendering.
- captions
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From User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (2002-12-17)
Captions are text transcripts that are synchronized with other audio tracks or visual tracks. Captions convey information about spoken words and non-spoken sounds such as sound effects. They benefit people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing, and anyone who cannot hear the audio (e.g., someone in a noisy environment). Captions are generally rendered graphically superimposed ("on top of") the synchronized visual track. The term "open captions" generally refers to captions that are always rendered with a visual track; they cannot be turned off. The term "closed captions" generally refers to captions that may be turned on and off. The captions requirements of this document assume that the user agent can recognize the captions as such; see the section on applicability for more information.Note: Other terms that include the word "caption" may have different meanings in this document. For instance, a "table caption" is a title for the table, often positioned graphically above or below the table. In this document, the intended meaning of "caption" will be clear from context.
- character encoding
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From User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (2002-12-17)
A "character encoding" is a mapping from a character set definition to the actual code units used to represent the data. Refer to the Unicode specification [UNICODE] for more information about character encodings. Refer to "Character Model for the World Wide Web" [CHARMOD] for additional information about characters and character encodings.
- collated text transcript
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From User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (2002-12-17)
A collated text transcript is a text equivalent of a movie or other animation. More specifically, it is the combination of the text transcript of the audio track and the text equivalent of the visual track. For example, a collated text transcript typically includes segments of spoken dialogue interspersed with text descriptions of the key visual elements of a presentation (actions, body language, graphics, and scene changes). See also the definitions of text transcript and audio description. Collated text transcripts are essential for individuals who are deaf-blind.
- conditional content
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From User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (2002-12-17)
Conditional content is content that, by format specification, should be made available to users through the user interface, generally under certain conditions (e.g., based on user preferences or operating environment limitations). Some examples of conditional content mechanisms include: The alt attribute of the IMG element in HTML 4. According to section 13.2 of the HTML 4 specification ([HTML4]): "User agents must render alternate text when they cannot support images, they cannot support a certain image type or when they are configured not to display images."OBJECT elements in HTML 4. Section 13.3.1 of the HTML 4 specification ([HTML4]) explains the conditional rendering rules of (nested) OBJECT elements. The rules select among ordered alternatives according to user preferences or error conditions.The switch element and test attributes in SMIL 1.0. Sections 4.3 and 4.4, respectively, of SMIL 1.0 [SMIL] explain the conditional rendering rules of these features.SVG 1.0 [SVG] also includes a switch element and several attributes for conditional processing.The NOSCRIPT and NOFRAMES elements in HTML 4 [HTML4] allow the author to provide content under conditions when the user agent does not support scripts or frames, or the user has turned off support for scripts or frames.Specifications vary in how completely they define how and when to render conditional content. For instance, the HTML 4 specification includes the rendering conditions for the alt attribute, but not for the title attribute. The HTML 4 specification does indicate that the title attribute should be available to users through the user interface ("Values of the title attribute may be rendered by user agents in a variety of ways...").Note: The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 requires that authors provide text equivalents for non-text content. This is generally done by using the conditional content mechanisms of a markup language. Since conditional content may not be rendered by default, the current document requires the user agent to provide access to unrendered conditional content (checkpoints 2.3 and 2.9) as it may have been provided to promote accessibility.
- configure, control
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From User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (2002-12-17)
In the context of this document, the verbs "to control" and "to configure" share in common the idea of governance such as a user may exercise over interface layout, user agent behavior, rendering style, and other parameters required by this document. Generally, the difference in the terms centers on the idea of persistence. When a user makes a change by "controlling" a setting, that change usually does not persist beyond that user session. On the other hand, when a user "configures" a setting, that setting typically persists into later user sessions. Furthermore, the term "control" typically means that the change can be made easily (such as through a keyboard shortcut) and that the results of the change occur immediately. The term "configure" typically means that making the change requires more time and effort (such as making the change via a series of menus leading to a dialog box, or via style sheets or scripts). The results of "configuration" might not take effect immediately (e.g., due to time spent reinitializing the system, initiating a new session, or rebooting the system). In order to be able to configure and control the user agent, the user needs to be able to "write" as well as "read" values for these parameters. Configuration settings may be stored in a profile. The range and granularity of the changes that can be controlled or configured by the user may depend on limitations of the operating environment or hardware.Both configuration and control can apply at different "levels": across Web resources (i.e., at the user agent level, or inherited from the operating environment), to the entirety of a Web resource, or to components of a Web resource (e.g., on a per-element basis).A global configuration is one that applies across elements of the same Web resource, as well as across Web resources.User agents may allow users to choose configurations based on various parameters, such as hardware capabilities or natural language preferences.Note: In this document, the noun "control" refers to a user interface control.
- content
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From User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (2002-12-17)
In this specification, the noun "content" is used in three ways: It is used to mean the document object as a whole or in parts.It is used to mean the content of an HTML or XML element, in the sense employed by the XML 1.0 specification ([XML], section 3.1): "The text between the start-tag and end-tag is called the element's content." Context should indicate that the term content is being used in this sense.It is used in the terms non-text content and text content.Empty content (which may be conditional content) is either a null value or an empty string (i.e., one that is zero characters long). For instance, in HTML, alt="" sets the value of the alt attribute to the empty string. In some markup languages, an element may have empty content (e.g., the HR element in HTML).
- device-independence
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From User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (2002-12-17)
In this document, device-independence refers to the desirable property that operation of a user agent feature is not bound to only one input or output device.