RE: Tooltips - RE: feedback from DHTML developer

Sorry everyone not interested...

In practise I would imagine the tooltip display being a proprietary
extension to CSS. And when I think about it more I can imagine it actually
becoming a possible value of the display property. (Status might be
another one, with wider application...)

Which could lead to the following CSS2 fragment: (very hypothetical and
ill-considered. But in screen media would reverse the normal
behaviours...)

@media screen {
    A[TITLE] { display: status-line }
    A[HREF]  { display: tool-tip }
}

@media aural {
    A[TITLE] { speak-before: 'title:' }
    A[HREF]  { speak-before: 'link to:' }
}

@media tty {
    A[TITLE] { display: status-line }
    A[HREF]  { display: tool-tip }
}

Charles McCathieNevile

On Wed, 13 Jan 1999, Charles (Chuck) Oppermann wrote:

  <<
  Tooltips are an implementation issue, and therefore in the purview of UA,
  not PAGL. And for what it's worth, my personal view is that rather than
  being a core CSS attribute it should be a preference in a UA which
  implements them.
  >>
  
  I agree that it's not a PAGL issue, but I hope the list will indulge me
  another comment.
  
  I disagree that it should be a UA preference, because then the author loses
  control of the visual appearance of the page.  In theory, the author should
  be able to set every possible rendering attribute, and then the user should
  have the option of overriding that to fit their viewing needs.
  
  If it's solely a UA option, the author cannot control the default and then
  might be tempted not to use ALT or TITLE because the possibility of the
  appearance of the ToolTip on most screens would ruin the appearance of their
  page (which was the original complaint).
  
  If the author can set a attribute that hides the display of the ToolTip,
  they will be assured that the visual appearance of their pages will not be
  affected, except in the cases where the user has overridden their desire
  because of a particular need.
  
  -Chuck
  

--Charles McCathieNevile -  mailto:charles@w3.org
phone: * +1 (617) 258 0992 *  http://purl.oclc.org/net/charles
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative -  http://www.w3.org/WAI
545 Technology sq., Cambridge MA, USA

Received on Wednesday, 13 January 1999 17:53:02 UTC