Re: [html4all] New issue: IMG section -- metadata embedded in image?

I will confess to not having tracked this discussion about "alt" 
being mandatory or not; people whose opinions I respect seem to have 
made valid points on both sides of the issue. But it got me to 
wondering if another approach might be possible.

PNG format, for one example, and SVG for another, both allow the 
embedding of metadata into the image itself. Suppose we rewarded the 
creators of such images with built-in metadata, by requiring browsers 
to access that data directly thereby providing a handy and perhaps 
more explanatory provenience and semantics than the web author (who 
may well not know too much about the image's history, shutter speed, 
IP legacy and meaning). Perhaps this has been proposed already, but 
it would reduce a bit of the reliance upon the cursory alt 
explanations often provided by HTML authors if the images themselves 
came with built-in explanations.

Just a thought.

David

Received on Monday, 14 April 2008 17:20:31 UTC