- From: Ben Boyle <benjamins.boyle@gmail.com>
- Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2007 18:42:09 +1000
- To: "Sander Tekelenburg" <st@isoc.nl>
- Cc: public-html@w3.org
Is character length going to be a problem for internationalisation? I think we should steer clear of hard limits... HTML has always been a very flexible language in this regard. This kind of guidance (that alt text be short) is best left to accessibility tutorials about best practice or (if you want something stricter) as a requirement of authors conforming to WCAG. On 7/15/07, Sander Tekelenburg <st@isoc.nl> wrote: > > At 19:51 +0100 UTC, on 2007-07-13, Smylers wrote: > > [...] > > > 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. > > Agreed. In fact it even contradicts the previous "UAs must make the entire > contents of the alt attribute [...] available". > > What about this then: > > - Authors must use no more than n characters as the value of the alt > attribute. For longer alternatives authors must use longdesc. > - UAs must make at least the first n characters, 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.) > > (n, whatever it will end up to be, must be the exact same value in both > points of course.) > > This way, the first point defines UA conformity, the second document > conformity. Together they define 'the point'. > > Better? > > > -- > Sander Tekelenburg > The Web Repair Initiative: <http://webrepair.org/> > >
Received on Sunday, 15 July 2007 08:42:17 UTC