Re: Alternative text for SCRIPTS

At 07:51 AM 23/04/98 -0400, Josh Krieger wrote:
>3.1. Provide alternative text for each script.

Note that the April 14 draft has the following instead:

3.1. Provide alternative presentations of content for each script and
applet that conveys information.

>Couple of points here from some of the Bobby feedback
>we're getting:
>
>1. Many scripts do things like "mouseover" handling and
>really have no need for a NOSCRIPT section.

I would say that most scripts have no need for a NOSCRIPT element.
NOSCRIPT can only be useful with scripts that generate content; most
scripts provide dynamic interactivity (changing images, validating forms,
and so on) without creating content.  The April 14 draft seems to recognize
and account for this.

>In this case
>we should make mention of including an empty NOSCRIPT.
>I think this is preferable to not including a NOSCRIPT
>under some occasions just as ALT="" is a way to include
>empty image alternative text.

ALT="" is a hack to avoid Lynx's "[INLINE]", but it's a necessary hack
because so many unaware authors avoid using ALT when it's needed.  (And of
course ALT is now required in HTML 4.0.)  I'd like to avoid the same
problem with NOSCRIPT; the element is rarely needed (unlike ALT), so I
think we should trust authors to use it where necessary.

Note also that SCRIPT is an inline element while NOSCRIPT is block-level.
This means that NOSCRIPT cannot always be used with a SCRIPT element.  (If
Netscape had decided on <SCRIPT>...<ALT>Alternate content</ALT></SCRIPT>,
this and many other problems would be solved.)

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

Received on Thursday, 23 April 1998 08:40:13 UTC