Re: Improving alt (was handling fallback content for still images)

Sander Tekelenburg writes:

> So I propose to add the following to
> <http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/section-embedded.html#alt>
> 
> - UAs must make the entire contents of the alt attribute easily
> discoverable and available to users when the image is, for whatever
> reason, not presented.  (For example, UAs may present the alt text in
> place of the image; or through a tooltip or in a status bar on
> hovering the indicator of the missing image; etc.)

That sounds good.

> - The maximum length of the alt attribute is n characters. UAs must
> ignore the part of alt's conent that exceeds this limit. For longer
> alternatives authors must use longdesc.
> 
> Obviously n needs to be defined.

I'm less convinced about that.  Whatever value you pick for n, there's
bound to be a webpage out there which has alt content of length n + 1.
With the above "must" a browser would not be permitted to display the
final character of the alt text even if it had enough room to do so.  I
don't think prohibiting browsers from displaying content in this way
helps users.

Smylers

Received on Saturday, 14 July 2007 15:32:51 UTC