Re: More about <alt>

At 10:10 +0200 UTC, on 2007-09-06, Olivier GENDRIN wrote:

> On 9/5/07, Sander Tekelenburg <st@isoc.nl> wrote:
>> Considering all that, is there really a need for both a short and a long
>> equivalent?
>
> An example from
> http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/struct/tables.html#h-11.1
> : http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/images/mergedcells.gif.
>
> (I only consider the image, not the text surrounding it). If the image
> is used without proper explanations in the text, how could you give a
> short alternative *and* a full description of it's content ?

I'm not sure I understand. Why would using two <alt> elements, as in my
previous message, not work in this particular case?

Btw, something cute about this example is that it shows how easily an author
could provide even much richer equivalents, serving more browsing
environments better:

<img id="mergedcells" src="mergedcells.gif">
<!-- anything or nothing -->
<alt for="mergedcells" title="short textual equivalent"
type="text/html">blah</alt>
<alt for="mergedcells" title="long description" type="text/html>blah,
blah</alt>
<alt for="mergedcells" title="tabular equivalent" type="text/html">
<table border="1" summary="This table gives some statistics about fruit
flies: average height and weight, and percentage with red eyes (for both
males and females).">
<caption><em>A test table with merged cells</em></caption>
<tr><th rowspan="2"><th colspan="2">Average
    <th rowspan="2">Red<br>eyes
    <tr><th>height<th>weight
    <tr><th>Males<td>1.9<td>0.003<td>40%
    <tr><th>Females<td>1.7<td>0.002<td>43%
</table>
</alt>


-- 
Sander Tekelenburg
The Web Repair Initiative: <http://webrepair.org/>

Received on Thursday, 6 September 2007 10:15:58 UTC