- From: Maurice Carey <maurice@thymeonline.com>
- Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2007 16:43:04 -0400
- To: HTML Working Group <public-html@w3.org>
On 10/23/07 12:06 PM, "Gregory J. Rosmaita" <unagi69@concentric.net> wrote:
> i would like to cite a specific example, which has been cited by the
> co-editor of the HTML5 editor's draft, to illustrate the problem...
>
> in response to a post on Poetic Semantics, archived at:
>
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Oct/0058.html
>
> Ian Hickson cited a specific example contained in the current
> editor's draft of HTML5, in which it is stated:
>
> quote
> There is an example of a part of a classical poem in the <img> element
> section (search for "On either side the river lie").
> unquote
>
> the "classical poem" example cited, follows:
>
> <QUOTE cite="http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5">
> <CODE>
> <pre><h1>The Lady of Shalott</h1>
> <strong><p><img src="shalott.jpeg" alt=""></p></strong>
> <p>On either side the river lie<br>
> Long fields of barley and of rye,<br>
> That clothe the wold and meet the sky;<br>
> And through the field the road run by<br>
> To many-tower'd Camelot;<br>
> And up and down the people go,<br>
> Gazing where the lilies blow<br>
> Round an island there below,<br>
> The island of Shalott.</p></pre>
> </CODE>
> </QUOTE>
Inspired by multiple myspace and blackplanet pages.
*
***
*****
~*~*~*~*~
-+-+-+-+-+-
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And through the field the road run by
To many-tower'd Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.
-+-+-+-+-+-
~*~*~*~*~
*****
***
*
<img src="spacer.gif"><img src="spacer.gif"><img src="spacer.gif"><img
src="spacer.gif"><img src="spacer.gif"><img src="star.gif">
<img src="spacer.gif"><img src="spacer.gif"><img src="spacer.gif"><img
src="spacer.gif"><img src="glitter.gif"><img src="glitter.gif"><img
src="glitter.gif">
<img src="spacer.gif"><img src="spacer.gif"><img src="spacer.gif">
<img src="diamond.gif"><img src="diamond.gif"><img src="diamond.gif"><img
src="diamond.gif"><img src="diamond.gif">
<img src="spacer.gif"><img src="magic.gif"><img src="diamond.gif"><img
src="magic.gif"><img src="diamond.gif"><img src="magic.gif"><img
src="diamond.gif"><img src="magic.gif"><img src="diamond.gif">
<p class="textformat">
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And through the field the road run by
To many-tower'd Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.
</p>
<img src="spacer.gif"><img src="spacer.gif"><img src="spacer.gif"><img
src="spacer.gif"><img src="spacer.gif"><img src="star.gif">
<img src="spacer.gif"><img src="spacer.gif"><img src="spacer.gif"><img
src="spacer.gif"><img src="glitter.gif"><img src="glitter.gif"><img
src="glitter.gif">
<img src="spacer.gif"><img src="spacer.gif"><img src="spacer.gif">
<img src="diamond.gif"><img src="diamond.gif"><img src="diamond.gif"><img
src="diamond.gif"><img src="diamond.gif">
<img src="spacer.gif"><img src="magic.gif"><img src="diamond.gif"><img
src="magic.gif"><img src="diamond.gif"><img src="magic.gif"><img
src="diamond.gif"><img src="magic.gif"><img src="diamond.gif">
If I were using a screen reader, I think I might be grateful that these
things didn't have an alt attribute.
If it were ok for *pointless* images to omit the alt attribute, even this
sort of nonsese put together by an 8 year old would pass for valid.
I don't know. Maybe that's a good thing?
As for the original example, the H1 combined with the filename (
shalott.jpeg ) stronly suggests that shallott.jpeg is photo of a person or
place and really should have some sort of alt text. Otherwise it should have
been used as a background image (if the author had knowledge of such
things).
If it turned out that the author does have some historical info that could
be used as a lengthy alt value, it would probably be better for everyone for
the image and that text to be put in a <figure>/<caption> so everyone can
read it (and the img no longer needs a duplicate of that text for the alt
value)
... And now someone's going to cry about assistive technology not supporting
<figure>/<caption>.
Nobody supports it! ...yet!
If the screen readers and text browsers and whatever else implement it
around the same time in the (far too distant) future when Opera, Firefox and
Safari implement it then what's the problem?
--
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Received on Wednesday, 24 October 2007 20:43:15 UTC