label tag and Netscape 4

[dj4uk]

I'm developing a site that must comply with W3C Accessibility guidelines Priorities 1, 2 & 3 as well as a minimum browser spec of IE 4 and NS4.

I have a good deal of knowledge with browser incompatibilities but one has me stumped...

To comply with the accessability guidelines all text labels for form elements must be enclosed by a label tag like so:

<label for="test">LabelText</label> <input type="text" name="test" id="test" value="Test">

This works fine in all but one case (Netscape 4 doesn't recognise the label tag so usually ignores it) - in this one case the label just doesn't appear at all! Have any of you guys got any ideas why it might be doing this? Code posted below:

<form name="FreeTextSearch" id="FreeTextSearch" action="#" method="POST">
<label for="textfield"><strong>Search the site:</strong></label> <input type="text" name="textfield" id="textfield" value="Enter keywords here" onFocus="resetFormField('FreeTextSearch','textfield','Enter keywords here');"> <input class="gosubmit" type="submit" name="submit" value="Go"><br>
<br>
<a href="/html/advice_family.asp" title="Advice and information on care homes for family and friends">Advice and information</a> on care homes for family and friends<br>
<br>
<a href="/html/advice_pros.asp" title="Information and help for social services professionals">Information and help</a> for social services professionals
</form>

Any help appreciated.

[Travis G]

Well, on the plus side, the label tag would most likely be used by people using aural enhancments to visual browsers, and as such, they probably won't be using Communicator. I wouldn't worry about excluding anyone who needs the label tag, your problem is, for the people who would never know it was there and who are using Communicator. They may be confused when labels don't appear.

My only idea is to use browser detection. Regrettablly, server side browser detection is cumbersome and not terribly accurate, and while client side detection is accurate, it underminds accessiblity by requiring that the browser runs JavaScript.

The point behind accessibility is to make your page accessible to as wide an audience as possible. You can never have 100% accessibility. I say use the client side detection and default to using the label tags. The only people who should be confused will be the visual Communicator users who have JavaScript disabled. This shouldn't be a problem since it appears you are already using JavaScript.

[CornedBee]

Unfortunatly you need a browser that complies with recent standards in order to make one page that suits all. Netscape 4 and IE 4 certainly do not meet this requirement.

[dj4uk]

I get everything you say Travis G seems weird to me that Netscape 4 should ignore the tags which it does with the except of the first one! Thanks for the sugestions.