Re: Images and alternative text

Boris Zbarsky 2008-08-08 19.13:

> Leif Halvard Silli wrote:
>> Likewise, perhaps the cowpath to put LaTeX code into @alt needs to be 
>> taken into account. But in the first place we must realise that 
>> putting source code into @alt and assuming people/User Agents figure 
>> it out by themselves, is wrong.
> 
> Thing is, in some communities sending TeX as part of your text message 
> is considered perfectly reasonable, at least for simple equations.  So a 
> lot of people don't think of it as "source code" but as simply another 
> notation, one well-suited for plaintext communication.

Yes, apparently this is so. But I consider that to be a "private 
agreement" and not part of HTML. And I am not against it. I am 
against the fact that there is nothing in the source code of e.g. 
Wikipedia or MathML 2.0 (which follows the same cowpath - plus it 
also uses <blockquote> for indenting) which informs us that this 
is LaTeX.

There has been some debates here about whether User Agents, in 
particular screen readers, should rely on heuristics to detect 
what should have been written in @alt etc. I am so free as to 
place Ian on that side of the debate.

But here in _this_ case, suddenly we hear from what I am so free 
as to characterize as "the other side", that putting LaTeX source 
code into @alt - just like that - is OK.

There should be a microformat or something, for how to put LaTeX 
into @alt.
-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Friday, 8 August 2008 22:53:43 UTC