Re: Browser Support Policy revisited

I think this Policy statement nicely meets the design goals of clear and 
concise, and potentially these are achievable compliance levels.  I think 
the levels are quite well chosen as useful demarcations.

What are the pros and cons of leaving the CSS specification as a "currently 
reigning" moving target, as opposed to stating the spec at this point in 
time?

At least as something of a more useful compromise, I would like having in 
the same place as the Policy a clear statement of what precise specs 
currently reign, with references for reading them, and a date given.  Such 
a "Current State of Compliance" statement could be added to the policy in 
the same way that a history file serves a program... read the most recent 
status and changes at the top, and work downward for a clear documentation 
of the path this has taken.  It leaves the "moving target" approach in 
place, but makes it perfectly clear what we need to shoot at for each Plone 
release.

There could be a comparable Browser Listing, updated as necessary with new 
browser releases.  This would simply be a useful item for us all, not a 
necessary part of the Policy, by any means.

=Paul
Smoothstone Systems

At 04:32 PM 5/25/2004 -0400, Chad Whitacre wrote:
>Designors,
>
>Now that we have let the Plone Browser Support Policy stew for a couple 
>months, I propose that we revisit it and hammer out a final version.
>
>Contrary to what I was saying before, I think we should keep the main 
>document pretty concise; we can address specific technologies and browsers 
>in a separate document. The reason is that we want our policy to stay 
>pretty constant, while technologies and brower support levels are going to 
>change over time (e.g., Konqueror has added XMLHttpRequest support since 
>our last go-round).
>
>I suggest that we gather feedback from everyone, and that we publish the 
>document when Alex, Geir, Joe, Michael, Tom and I arrive at a consensus.
>
>Thanks.
>
>
>
>chad
>
>P.S. I would put this on plone.org but we don't have logins right now so 
>we can handle slash- and CA-dotting. :)
>
>
>###
>
>
>Plone Browser Support Policy
>1st edition, June 2004
>
>Plone strives, through standards-compliance, to be accessible to as many 
>users through as many browsers as possible. The Plone User Interface 
>Team's specific commitments are as follows. These commitments refer to the 
>core Plone product out-of-the-box, but we encourage their adoption for 
>third-party products and customized implementations of Plone.
>
>
>Level 1 - Universal Information Access
>--------------------------------------
>   All information for anonymous Plone will be accessible using any
>   browser.
>
>
>Level 2 - Graphical Styling
>--------------------------------------
>   All style for anonymous Plone will be consistently displayed across
>   all browsers that support the current reigning CSS specification.
>   Plone will degrade for non-supporting browsers.
>
>
>Level 3 - Basic UI Features
>--------------------------------------
>   Basic UI features for authenticated Plone will be available using
>   any browser that supports the current reigning DOM specification ("the
>   DOM"). These features may or may not degrade for non-supporting
>   browsers.
>
>[FLAG: Does this account for disabled content managers (as opposed to 
>disabled anonymous visitors)? I think we want to support blind folks up to 
>this level, but I don't know enough about ECMAScript support in screen 
>readers. Tom?]
>
>
>Level 4 - Advanced UI Features
>--------------------------------------
>   Advanced UI features for authenticated Plone will be available using
>   browsers that support them. These features will degrade to Level 3 for
>   browsers that support the DOM but that do not support these advanced
>   features; they may or may not degrade for browsers that do not support
>   the DOM.
>
>
>###
>
>
>
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