[whatwg] <img> element comments

On Fri, 03 Nov 2006 19:38:37 +0600, Anne van Kesteren
<fora at annevankesteren.nl> wrote:

>> * Regarding the alt attribute, wouldn't it make sense to just allow it to
>> be omitted? In terms of meaning it seems the same.

I have always considered requiring the alt attribute resulting in the
use of alt="" as an anomaly.

>> On the other hand, it
>> probably shows the difference between people who thought of the
>> alternative representation and people that haven't.

Many authoring tools generate alt="" by default, mine does. It is then
up to the coder to do the right thing, but the tool will frequently not
prompt him to do so. For that reason I don't think that the presence of
alt="" can reasonably be considered as having been a conscious decision.

I'm note sure if a UA treating the absence of an alt attribute
differently from alt="" would benefit a user.

"Alexey Feldgendler" <alexey at feldgendler.ru> wrote:

>The problem with allowing omission of alt depends on the meaning of <img> without alt. If <img> without alt is defined to mean the same as <img> with alt="", then the problem is that all cases when people omit the alt attribute because they don't care will end up with mangled meaning.

I don't see that as changing anything. Documents containing content
images without alt content are broken regarding this aspect, and they
will remain so if <img> without an alt attribute is considered equal to
<img> elements with alt="".

-- 
Spartanicus

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Received on Saturday, 4 November 2006 05:43:02 UTC