Re: Questionable implementation of IMG ALT attribute as tooltips

James Green (jmkgre@essex.ac.uk)
Mon, 26 Jan 1998 10:58:55 +0000 (GMT) 

From: James Green <jmkgre@essex.ac.uk>
To: www-html@w3.org
In-Reply-To: <6mWYt2l3cDB@faerber.muc.de>
Message-Id: <SIMEON.9801261055.B@s1682.essex.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 10:58:55 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: Re: Questionable implementation of IMG ALT attribute as tooltips


On 25 Jan 1998 11:35:00 +0100 =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Claus_Andr=E9_F=E4rber?= 
<w3-html-list@faerber.muc.de> wrote:

> Green J M K <jmkgre@essex.ac.uk> schrieb:
> > For unimportant pictures, why not ALT="[Pic]" or even ALT="" (I'm not
> > sure that nothingness will validate)?
> 
> "" is often the best choice. The text in the ALT attribute should  
> replace the image on non-graphics browsers or when graphics are switched  
> off, so do not write a description of the image but the text that shall  
> be shown to users instead.

So the "" *does* work then??! Do you *know* that it is valid syntax?


> I usually choose one of these:
> 
> For unimportant pictures, ALT="" is the only reasonable choice. (But  
> then, if it's that unimportant, why use it at all?)

My my, I presume you've not heard of HTML 4.0 then? The ALT attribute 
is a requirement.

> For small icons or symbols, I use characters to imitate the appearance  
> of the image, e.g. <img src="mylogo.gif" alt="MyLoGo"> or
> <img src="bullet.gif" alt="*">.

My thoughts precisely.

[ ... ]

> > Also, for separator bars, why not use <HR> and maybe include 
> classes for
> > CSS? Much faster.
> 
> I never use non-<HR> separators, simply because they don't behave well  
> for browsers on different screen sizes.

Agreed. However, the existance of simple colour gradients in CSS may be 
nice.

> <UL> is better than using <img src="bullet.gif"> too, as long as you  
> don't need different, non-ascending symbols.

I thought I heard in one spec that list items could have an icon image 
specified?


Regards,

James Green

Term e-mail: jmkgre@essex.ac.uk   |   Home e-mail: jg@cyberstorm.demon.co.uk
Homepage: http://www.cyberstorm.demon.co.uk