I'd like to talk please about the following points :
1. Date Ok, for example Aug. 15th, 2006. From my point of view, I'm thinking of use: <abbr title="August">Aug.</abbr> <abbr title="fifteenth">15th</abbr>, 2006 seems to be appropriate abbr is not supported by IE. Does it mean not for screen readers too ?
2. Off-left Limit The tip from Incutio (http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=ScreenreaderVisibility) is really useful. However, if the parent container for example was given a position, higher screen resolution such as 1280x1024 could easily watch 'obstrusive text' for any element positioned in the right of the screen and set to the off-left class. The problem can be similar with code such as position:absolute; left:0; top:-500px; The first time I viewed the following code position:absolute; left:-5000px; width:4000px; was on the presentation to OzeWAI 2005 from Russ Weakley (http://www.usability.com.au/resources/ozewai2005/sample/index.htm) Before starting any testing for backward compatibility, is this tip come from an article or does someone already provide results ?
3. Off-Left Revert I used for a site the famous tip to create a shadow (http://css.alsacreations.com/Tutoriels-et-articles-divers/Une-ombre-ou-un-contour-sur-du-texte-en-CSS). Again duplicated text can be annoying for people using screen readers. I was thinking to set the volume to 0. Even if it is possible, this implies a blank when reading the text, isn't it ?
4. Thanks to Russ, Mike and the others who replied on the mailing list to the topic OzeWai2005 Fork. Actually, it seems using an element instead of a class for the current page is set somewhere in the Accessiweb criterias. (http://www.accessiweb.org). A colleague following this accessible group initiative will soon help me in using screen readers.