Drivel Defencefor Web - Help


DrivelDefenceWeb 1v0. Application © 2006 J Rugg, A to Z of Alternative Words © 2001 Plain English Campaign.


What DrivelDefenceWeb is For

DrivelDefenceWeb will help web page developers assess their web pages for Plain English, as part of a general effort to improve web page accessibility. The World Wide Web Consortium has published Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Guideline 14 says Ensure that documents are clear and simple so they may be more easily understood. DrivelDefenceWeb is intended to help achieve this, but will not be enough on its own.

If you are interested in checking plain text rather than web pages, look at the associated product DrivelDefenceText.

DrivelDefenceWeb is Freeware and must not be sold.


What DrivelDefenceWeb Will Do

DrivelDefenceWeb will:


What DrivelDefenceWeb Will Not Do

DrivelDefenceWeb will NOT:


Prerequisites

DrivelDefenceWeb is written as a web page, and runs within a web browser.


Limitations


Using DrivelDefenceWeb

Step 1: Choose the Local File to Inspect

Use the 'Browse' button to browse to the target file , which must be on a local disk. Once you have selected the file to inspect, its path will appear in the text field. Now click the 'Inspect' button. This will cause a new window to be opened, with the target file loaded into it. It is important that this new window is left open. The DrivelDefenceWeb form will be updated with relevant details it has got from the target file. The 'Browse' and 'Inspect' buttons are now greyed out, as you now need to move to Step 2. If you need to repeat Step 1, click the form 'Reset' button and start again.

Step 2: Decide How to Analyse the File

The target file will be analysed as described by the settings in the DrivelDefenceWeb form for step 2.

Step 3: Analyse the File and Act on the Findings

Clicking the 'Analyse' button will cause the target web page to be examined and reported in line with the settings made during Step 2. The report will open in a new browser window, and is itself a web page. Items are reported in the order in which they appear in the original web page. The report can be printed using the 'Print' button at the top of the report. If you want to keep a file copy of the report (eg. to e-mail to someone), you will need to do this manually. This is because JavaScript will not allow files to be saved automatically. To save the file:

DrivelDefenceWeb will not make any changes to the examined web page. It is up to you to use the report to make any changes to the page using your normal web page editing tools. Note however that the average sentence length for a page is expected to be between 15 and 20 words. See the Plain English Campaign guide 'How to write in plain English'.

To analyse another page, click the DrivelDefenceWeb 'Reset' button. This will close all previously opened windows and reset the contents of the form.


Troubleshooting

'Your browser does not have scripting enabled. To use DrivelDefenceWeb, you must enable scripting'.

This message will appear at the top of the DrivelDefenceWeb page. DrivelDefenceWeb uses JavaScript, and will not work unless your browser is set up to allow JavaScript to run. Check your browser security settings. Once you have enabled JavaScript, reload the DrivelDefenceWeb page and you will no longer see this message.


'File not Found'

Normally, clicking the inspect button will cause a new window to open with the local file of interest loaded in it. If a blank window appears, it is because the file cannot be found. This is normally because the path to the file or the file name have not been correctly entered. See step 1.


'WARNING: extracted text does not end in a complete sentence'

When you click the 'Analyse' button, normally a dialog box will appear telling you how many characters and sentences have been extracted from the page. Sometimes however, this may also be supplemented by 'WARNING: extracted text does not end in a complete sentence. It ends with the following sentence fragment, which will not be included in the analysis: ....'. This means that the page contains words at its end that do not form a complete sentence (eg. because there is no final full stop). You will need to end the sentence properly to prevent getting this warning, and to make sure that the text is included in the analysis.


'Warning: Unresponsive Script'

This can sometimes occur if you are analysing a large page, or have asked for more things to be included in a page report. The browser realises that the page script has been running for a while, and thinks something may have gone wrong. Continue to run the script and it should finish successfully.


'Access is Denied'

This can occur after clicking the Inspect button, which opens a new window and loads the target web page into it. Access to the code inside the page can sometimes be denied if the target web page is on a different local drive. Try moving the file to the same local drive where you have DrivelDefenceWeb, and try again.


No h1 element found!

This can be reported in the DrivelDefenceWeb form and also in the target file analysis report. It means that the target page does not contain an <h1> heading element. The structure of the page should be correctly represented in its underlying markup, and this will normally mean all pages should have a top level <h1> element defined. Add one to the HTML page to avoid this message.


Don't forget...

Don't forget to check the Plain English Campaign website for the latest tips on using Drivel Defence.

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