Re: aria-describedby vs longdesc [was: Re: Opera 10.10 recently added longdesc support]

On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 4:10 PM, Richard Schwerdtfeger
<schwer@us.ibm.com> wrote:

> I am not quite sure what you are asking
> but ... The id should refer to the text that
> describes the object.

That is fine; I just think there should be at least the option of
having that text in a separate file.  For long descriptions in
particular, I think there will be times when it makes sense to
reference a "standard" description for each image, instead of asking
different page authors to come up with their own.

Steve's example would be fine, if it were formally endorsed by the
aria standard.

As I read the standard now,

    <img alt="2009 results table"
             aria-describedby="desc">

    <a href="2009_results_table.html"
         id="desc">description of table</a>

means that the image is described by the string "description of
table".  I would prefer that that it be described by the alternative
resource 2009_results_table.html -- but permission to follow links
like this needs to be in a specification.

-jJ