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

On Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:30:01 +0200, Olivier GENDRIN  
<olivier.gendrin@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 7:18 PM, David Dailey <david.dailey@sru.edu>  
> wrote:
>>  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.
>
> Interesting, but the metadata can't be updated in an HTML editor, and
> could not fit the context, if I use for example an image from a
> bank-image, or as decoration (alt="").

Right. Among other problems. This is indeed a pretty old idea that has use  
cases, but hasn't arrived at a standard treatment.

For example, it isn't clear what browsers should do *by default* with  
desc/title in svg (there are many useful ways of using this stuff, but  
different users actually want different things), something that many  
browsers now implement. It has been a while since I even tested what does  
happen...

cheers

Chaals

-- 
Charles McCathieNevile  Opera Software, Standards Group
     je parle français -- hablo español -- jeg lærer norsk
http://my.opera.com/chaals   Try Opera 9.5: http://snapshot.opera.com

Received on Wednesday, 16 April 2008 09:41:02 UTC