Re: Image intrinsic aspect ratio and replaced element box aspect ratio

On Fri, 1 Aug 2008, Lachlan Hunt wrote:
> > 
> > Having the validator point out when an image is being stretch to 
> > unnatural dimensions is helpful.
> 
> Sure, it might be helpful if the authors intention is to maintain the 
> aspect ratio.  But if, for any reason, the author wants to stretch the 
> image, then this makes the document unnecessarily non-conforming.  One 
> use case for doing this is for making a simple bar graph by stretching a 
> 1px wide image to an appropriate width to represent a value.  Although 
> the <meter> element largely replaces this practice, authors currently do 
> it and they may wish to provide such an image as fallback for when the 
> <meter> element isn't supported.

That seems somewhat dubious to me. The spec says that the <img> element 
represents its image, not its image at particular stretched dimensions. I 
don't think that's a mistake.


> > There are many problems that can affect an author, they're not limited 
> > to just the content of the page. The conformance of the CSS files, the 
> > JS files, the PNG files, the conformance of all the HTTP headers, the 
> > relationships between those various element, etc. I'd expect a 
> > validator to check all these things. :-)
> 
> Having a tool that checks the conformance of many individual resources 
> like that might be useful, but making the conformance of one contingent 
> on another like that doesn't seem too sensible to me.

Sure, the lack of conformance of a PNG doesn't make the HTML 
non-conforming. However, there are bits where the two interface where you 
_would_ want the interdependence, e.g. the type="" attribute having the 
wrong value, or src="" pointing to a 404.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Friday, 1 August 2008 23:59:24 UTC