Re: Expanding longdesc use

Léonie Watson wrote:
> Joshua O'Connor wrote:
> "Yes, that's right. Personally, I think its a great idea. I would really like to see the core functionality of @longdesc given a broader reach (as a global long descriptor that could span multiple content types)."
>
> 	Isn't the basic problem that longdesc is poorly implemented/supported [...]
I think thats only part of it tbh.

>The core functionality is the bit that's important (as you say), so wouldn't a new attribute/element/whatever create an opportunity to improve implementation/support?

Possibly. However, @longdesc does things now that ARIA (for want of an 
example) cannot do - being able to reference an offpage URI - nice. That 
could change given time. Unfortunately the spec doesn't now have a 
suitable functional replacement. FWIW, I think no matter what the 
technical implementation is we will be having this talk about poor 
uptake or usage in the wild again in 10 years time.

At best the tool should be elegant however and this will make it easier 
for authors to use - if we can engineer it in a way that is attractive 
to both users and authors - all the better.

Cheers

Josh

Received on Wednesday, 14 March 2012 11:01:40 UTC