Re: spaces and alt-text. proposal for the ERT.

I tested the page with Amaya release 2.1 running on Linux 2.2 (RedHat 6.1 and
Gnome) and got nothing rendered each time (in the alternate view). I got the
same results running Lynx 2.8 on linux as were on windows. Netscape 4.6 in
linux gave me the same as your results for MSIE

I agree that the behaviour does not seem completely specified for alt="" or
alt=" ". Actually, why not use an object element instead (or use XHTML and
namespaces to include SVG...)

Charles McCN


On Tue, 7 Dec 1999, Wendy A Chisholm wrote:

  >3b. THere is no defined handling for alt=" ", so it might no have the desired
  >effect
  
  using "" versus " " has been argued back and forth.  It is my 
  interpretation of sifting through the archives that if the "desired effect" 
  is a space between two characters, using an image for this is 
  inappropriate.  We suggest style sheets.
  
  Also, some people have favored "" while others like " ".  Most of the 
  arguments have been based on the current state of the art handling of 
  spaces.  However, it appears that "" and " " are currently handled the same 
  [http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/tests/spaces.html].  I was the only one to 
  respond to the tests, so it only includes the 3 browsers I was able to test.
  
  Many people pointed to the HTML4 spec where it says that "leading or 
  trailing spaces" may be ignored.  However, is a single space trailing or 
  leading?
  
      is inappropriate since it is intended to be used as a typesetting 
  hint as Nir described on 17 November: 
  http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/1999OctDec/0070.html
  Alan Flavell also makes a good point about nbsp not being considered "white 
  space" http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/1999OctDec/0069.html
  
  Therefore, I don't think it matters much if we suggest that people use "" 
  or " ".  Personally, it seems to be a matter of author preference.  Neither 
  one is going to cause horrible things to happen (although "" has 
  historically - i.e. it supposedly used to be ignored by Lynx but doesn't 
  seem to be anymore).
  
  If we look at the long term, I would suggest using a space since spaces are 
  supposed to be preserved in XML.  However, I also agree that it is a matter 
  of separating content from presentation.  A space seems to say, "there is 
  formatting going on here" while null says, "it's decorative."
  
  Again, I think it boils down to author preference.

Received on Tuesday, 7 December 1999 19:14:24 UTC