Re: Alt text and descriptions

Jason wrote:
> I think the OBJECT element should be able to satisfy the requirement for
> long descriptions: I am very inexperienced at reading DTD's, but it
> appears from the HTML 4.0 draft that the content of the OBJECT element
> includes the %inline entity, which in turn should contain the anchor
> element. Thus, to modify one of the examples in the HTML 4.0 draft:
> 
> <object data="figure1.png" type="image/png"> Figure 1 <a
> href="figure1-description.html"> [description available] </a> </object>

Right on target, the OBJECT element allows for long description.
(mainly because it is a container, whereas IMG is not and ALT doesn't
allow for markup inside its CDATA).

If it wasn't for pragmatic considerations such as: "nobody uses OBJECT
yet, so let's not declare the problem solved with just that in hand",
we could indeed say we've got what we want.

But most, if not all, images are described using IMG, so we need to find
a way to express long description using it.

Dave proposed something like:

 <IMG SRC="figure1.png" ALT="Figure 1" ALTSRC="figure1-description.html">

Another option, along the D-TAG model could be:

 <IMG SRC="figure1.png" ALT="Figure 1">
  <A HREF="figure1-description.html" CLASS=D-LINK>D</A>

which has the disadvance of modifying the visible text (I seriously
doubt Web designers will agree to have the letter D appearing all over
their pages), unless a CSS rule is used such as:

 A.D-LINK {display: none}

but it happens that this display:none functionality which is so useful
in this case, is not implemented by the major CSS compliant browser
(IE 3 and NS 4), not being part of the core CSS1 properties...

> Unfortunately, the IMG element provides no corresponding solution. Would
> it be better to include an attribute whereby the URL of the document
> containing the long description can be specified within the IMG start tag,
> or rely on HTTP mechanisms, or offer both as alternatives that should be
> available to software developers?

I personally like the ALTSRC IMG extention. I can be simply
implemented in browser that wants to support LongDesc functionality
and will be ignored by others.

We could also advocate the use of CLASS=D-LINK, as another mechanism,
but I'm worry that pointing at 2 or 3 solutions (we already have
OBJECT in place) will not serve us well.

Received on Wednesday, 16 July 1997 12:43:36 UTC