RE: URL for new Draft to Review

At 09:44 PM 13/04/98 -0700, Charles (Chuck) Oppermann wrote:
>I'm trying to get guidance on how
>Internet Explorer should be representing <OBJECT> and <APPLET> when it
>encounters them but for some reason isn't going to display them.

I would propose three modes of browsing that are easily selectable by the
user (a la Opera's images-on-off-cached toggle):

1.  All objects rendered if possible.
2.  Objects replaced by alternative content.  There should be no indication
that an object is present.
3.  Objects replaced by alternative content that is surrounded by a border
(possibly inset) with an icon indicating that an object is present.  A
pop-up menu would provide a method of loading an individual object or all
objects in a document on request.

For more user flexibility, you could have a list of objects which would
still be rendered if possible in modes 2 and 3.  For example, a blind user
might want embedded audio clips to be rendered but not other objects while
a deaf user might want all objects except embedded audio clips to be rendered.

Under mode 2:

i.  If there is alternate content within the element, render the alternate
content as if there were no embedded object.
ii.  If there is no alternate content within the element and the APPLET
element is used, render the ALT text as if there were no embedded object.
iii.  If there is no alternate content and no ALT text, render nothing.

For mode 3, the above steps would also be followed except that the
alternative content would be surrounded by a border with an icon indicating
that an object is present.  The icon should be sufficient for case iii.

>I agree
>that we should display the markup, but if web masters are following the
>recommendation of O'Reilly book (and possibly others), then their efforts
>will be lost.

But if the authors are following the recommendation [1] of my HTML 4.0
Reference [2], then their efforts will pay off :-)

>What about the down-level browser case?

Putting the alternate content within the element is the ideal solution for
browsers that do not support the element.

>Since <APPLET> does have an ALT attribute, but <OBJECT> does not, the W3C is
>sending mixed signals and that needs to be corrected.

APPLET is deprecated; OBJECT is not.  I think that provides as much clarity
as is possible without removing the ALT attribute entirely (an option that
I'd prefer, but probably not too practical since HTML 3.2 contains it).

[1] http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/html40/special/applet.html
[2] http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/html40/

--
Liam Quinn
Web Design Group            Enhanced Designs, Web Site Development
http://www.htmlhelp.com/    http://enhanced-designs.com/

Received on Tuesday, 14 April 1998 08:57:16 UTC