RE: img@relaxed CP [was: CfC: Close ISSUE-206: meta-generator by Amicable Resolution]

I can also comment that our tools for PDF->HTML would NEVER write out alt="", as that would be incorrect.  If an image has no alt, then it doesn't get an alt tag.  Alt="" has a completely different meaning.   

FWIW - PDF/UA, the "accessibility standard for PDF", would fail empty alt text.

Leonard

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Faulkner [mailto:faulkner.steve@gmail.com] 
Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2012 5:49 AM
To: Michael[tm] Smith
Cc: public-html@w3.org
Subject: Re: img@relaxed CP [was: CfC: Close ISSUE-206: meta-generator by Amicable Resolution]

hi Mike and all,

document (word, PDF etc) to html automated file conversion has been cited as a use case for the alt exception.

I did  a quick check of a number of online conversion tools [1] for microsoft word to HTML also checked google docs conversion of same,

none of them outputted conforming html of any flavour or inserted alt="" on images.


regards
SteveF

[1]
http://www.convertfiles.com/convert/document/DOC-to-HTML.html
http://www.zamzar.com/
http://document.online-convert.com/convert-to-html


On 1 August 2012 01:58, Michael[tm] Smith <mike@w3.org> wrote:
> Edward O'Connor <eoconnor@apple.com>, 2012-07-31 15:13 -0700:
>
>>          http://www.w3.org/html/wg/wiki/User:Eoconnor/ISSUE-206
>>
>> While this Change Proposal is both concrete and complete, I intend to 
>> solicit comments from conformance checker developers which may result 
>> in testimonials I would like to cite in the Rationale section.
>
> Speaking personally and only with my conformance-checker-developer hat 
> on, I strongly support this change proposal. I've not talked with 
> Henri about it yet, but if he were also supportive of it, then it's 
> something we would implement support for in the validator.nu sources 
> (on which both the validator.nu service and W3C Nu Markup Validation Service are based).
>
> Some specific parts of the CP that lead me to express support for it:
>
> 1. I agree with the statement in the CP which asserts that the general 
> use case this CP is attempting to address is an important use case to address.
> The use case is valid, and I think we should all work together to try 
> to find out a way to address it that we can all agree on. This CP 
> seems to me to be the most viable CP for this issue so far that we 
> actually have a chance of getting agreement on.
>
> 2. The observations in this CP about the need for "granular 
> relaxation" for this use case are particularly important and need to 
> be considered; I believe in particular the following statement makes an important point:
>
>   "The markup of large Web applications is typically partly generated from
>   code and partly sourced from hand-authored HTML templates. With an
>   all-or-nothing mechanism, there's no way to relax the conformance
>   criteria for only the portions of the document corresponding to
>   user-generated content, while retaining strict requirements on the
>   portions of markup from the hand-authored HTML templates.
>
> This CP addresses that particular use case. The meta@name=generator 
> exception currently in the spec does not.
>
> 3. Related to #2, I agree with the following assertion about the 
> positive effects of this proposed change:
>
>   "We enable engineers of large Web applications to catch markup errors that
>   they can do something about, without bothering them about markup errors
>   they can't do anything about."
>
> That's something which is of real-world concern to validator developers.
> When users attempt to validate documents and end up getting a large 
> amount of error messages about potential problems which they have no 
> means to correct directly themselves, we risk having them just give up 
> and quit using the validator altogether. This is of very practical 
> concern for anybody maintaining a validator: You want users to keep 
> using your validator and to have the validator match their real-world needs as much as possible.
>
> Anyway, in summary and as I mentioned in #1, I think this CP provides 
> a resolution that we have a good chance of getting agreement on among 
> the people in the group who so far have been unable to reach agreement on it.
> So I hope everybody involved can consider it very carefully, with an 
> open mind.  It's not a perfect solution for the problem. We're not 
> going to find a perfect solution. But this is the best solution I've seen so far.
>
>   --Mike
>
> --
> Michael[tm] Smith http://people.w3.org/mike
>



--
with regards

Steve Faulkner
Technical Director - TPG

www.paciellogroup.com | www.HTML5accessibility.com | www.twitter.com/stevefaulkner
HTML5: Techniques for providing useful text alternatives - dev.w3.org/html5/alt-techniques/ Web Accessibility Toolbar - www.paciellogroup.com/resources/wat-ie-about.html

Received on Sunday, 5 August 2012 13:12:07 UTC