Re: method for providing programmatically associated long description

Steven Faulkner, Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:22:01 +0100:
> BTW
> what I have suggested is not a standardized feature, just an example 
> of how to code a  programmatically associated long description.
>  
> I consider it a requirement for HTML5 that standardized language 
> feature (attribute or element) for providing a programmatically 
> associated long description is specified.
>  
> Whether it be an improved longdesc or something else, I don't mind, 
> but I don't consider longdesc as specced and implemented is  good 
> enough.

Your proposal bear in itself the potential of being a standardized 
feature: if we added rel="longdesc" to HTML5, then <a> and <area> 
elements could  be used to link to long descriptions. 

As for specifically @longdesc, then I created a some tests to compare 
it against your image map idea for the same purpose:

http://malform.no/testing/longdesc/

Conclusion: It is doable and seems to be more cross-screenreader 
compatible than @longdesc. (In the past, I have also created a 
simplisticc javascript based @longdesc demo — this test suite does not 
use javscript.) But it far from perfect and not simple to get to work. 
In order to make it work, I had to use ARIA. I also had to use @shape 
and @coords on the anchor element (not permitted in HTML5, as of yet.)
-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Monday, 30 August 2010 05:10:46 UTC