RE: D-link and LONGDESC (GL type stuff)

I am not sure adding the D-Link to an image with a LONGDESC will be
accepted by designers.  When this was brought up before it was shot down as
being unacceptable to WWW authors who would not like to see D on or around
their images.  I think that LONGDESCs should be more like ALT text.  A user
setable option would turn long descriptions on and it would appear as
inserted HTML in the document.

Using the DOM the assistive technology could always automatically access
the LONGDESC and do what ever the assistive technology vendor wants to do
with it.

Jon
 

At 07:12 PM 4/22/98 -0500, Gregg Vanderheiden wrote:
>1) I would posit that an ALT text that is 65536 characters in length
>should probably have been done as a  LONGDESC.   (grin)
>
>2) I concur with the train of though that ALT and LONGDESC will see
>little use until they are easily and VISIBLY supported in the tools
>used to create web pages.      Jutta and crew are busy on this one.
>We ALL need to encourage tool makers to do this.
>
>3) I think the best way to support LONGDESC in a browser is to
>- have the browser add a small pretty graphic icon with a D on it next
>to any graphic with a LONGDESC.
>- The browser can also have a setting which allows a user to HIDE
>D-LINKS or HIDE GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION MARKERS (D) so that anyone who
>doesn't like them doesn't have to see them.  (they could always see if
>there was a LONGDESC and jump to it by right clicking on an icon and
>looking at the pop up menu).
>- If a page has a LONGDESC and an old fashioned D-LINK, then the
>browser could see that they pointed to the same place and hide the old
>fashioned D-LINK  (or the new one - no matter)
>- Screen readers could recognize the LONGDESC Graphic (it would always
>be a graphic since it was put there by the browser, not the html page)
>and either pronounce it or skip it when reading, preferably at the
>users choice.  (remember the user can cause them to not be displayed
>if they like anyway)
>
>
>Just some thoughts as of today.
>
>Gregg
>
>
>
>> Not true.  I've had ALT text in Internet Explorer longer than 3K
>> characters.  SGML/HTML do not define a maximum length.
>
>Not true.  Although not usually enforced, HTML's SGML declaration
>*does* define a maximum length (see
><URL:http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/sgml/sgmldecl.html>):
>
>                  ATTSPLEN 65536
>
>This limits the total length of attribute names and values, as
>contained in the start-tag, to 2^16 characters.
>
>                  LITLEN   65536
>
>This limits the length of any one attribute literal to 2^16
>characters.
>
>-Chris
>
>
>
Jon Gunderson, Ph.D., ATP
Coordinator of Assistive Communication and Information Technology
Division of Rehabilitation - Education Services
University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
1207 S. Oak Street
Champaign, IL 61820

Voice: 217-244-5870
Fax: 217-333-0248
E-mail: jongund@uiuc.edu
WWW:	http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~jongund
	http://www.als.uiuc.edu/InfoTechAccess

Received on Thursday, 23 April 1998 09:46:22 UTC