Lynx and ALT text

Whilst exploring a web site recently with lynx 2.7.1AC-0.34, I noticed
that there was no intervening space between the ALT texts associated with
certain images and the words immediately following them. Thus, the speech
synthesiser read the ALT text and the subsequent word as though they
comprised a single word. The markup responsible for this problem can be
exemplified as follows:

<img href="arrow.gif" alt="arrow"><b>Home page</b>

The displayed output was:

arrowHome page

Leaving aside the question of whether ALT text should be associated with a
graphical list bullet, as was the case for the site in question, I wish to
know whether the absence of a space following the ALT text is a
peculiarity of the lynx browser or a more general problem. If it is the
latter, then perhaps the guidelines could make it clear that a space must
appear in the markup after the IMG element. If, however, this problem is
specific to lynx, then the guidelines should not be changed, but instead
the developers should be sent a bug report.

Received on Monday, 19 January 1998 21:59:16 UTC