Re: fear of "invisible metadata"

On Mon, 25 Jun 2007 14:09:48 +0200, Sander Tekelenburg <st@isoc.nl> wrote:

>> Isn't that what <object> is for? <object>fallback content</object>
>
> Yes, but AFAIK <object> is completely broken in IE, so authors won't use  
> it.

<img>fallback</img> doesn't work in any browser.

> And the spec's definition of <object> is rocket science to most authors.

Not really. <img src=foo alt=fallback> -> <object  
data=foo>fallback</object>

> That aside, if we'd want to encourage authors to provide better textual
> alternatives to images, they're probably too used to <img> so we'd have  
> to
> either deprecate <img> in favour of <object>, or introduce something new  
> that
> has obvious advantages. A dedicated <image>fallback</image> element might
> perhaps be that. It would also be in line with <video> and <audio>.

This was tried back in 1993:

    http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/HTMLPlus/htmlplus_21.html

Now "<image>" is parsed as if it were "<img>" in browsers (and per HTML5).  
So <image> can't be used.

If you want to replace <img> with something that accepts fallback content,  
then <object> is what you're looking for. It already works in several  
browsers.

-- 
Simon Pieters

Received on Monday, 25 June 2007 12:54:14 UTC