Why OBJECT has no LONGDESC

to follow up on what Wendy A Chisholm said:

> >  PA: Interesting. Could you provide sample HTML to show exactly how this
> would
> >be done? Thanks.
> > 
> WC: This example is taken from the WAI Page Authoring Guidelines [1]:
> 
> <OBJECT data="sales.gif" type="image/gif">
>           Sales in 1997 were down subsequent to ...
> </OBJECT> 
> 
> However, OBJECT does not have an "alt" attribute, although it does have
> "title."  [2]

Let me expand the example a little.

<OBJECT title="sales trend chart" data="199x-sales-graph.gif" type="image/gif">
  As seen from 
  <A title="sales trend analysis" 
     href="/analysis/reports/1997/sales/year.html#trends">
     comparison with prior years</A>, sales in
     1997 were down, subsequent to...
   </A>
</OBJECT>

The linked year-end sales report paragraph is an HTML text that fulfills
the role of a long description and references the GIF of the figure.

The generic pattern is:

	OBJECT data :is: reference to image, and
	OBJECT content :is: summary message (action caption), and
	OBJECT content :links to: long description, and
	long description :is: hypertext, and
        long description :links to: image.

The argument was, that with the freedom to put full HTML in the
content of the OBJECT, one could include articulate references to
all appropriate information of whatever form.

The case we may not have paid sufficient attention to is the
one where the user is displaying GIF images but still wishes to
be aware that a description of the image is available.

Al

Received on Friday, 22 May 1998 12:58:13 UTC