Re: the text in images issue [was: errata...]

> This whole argument is basically caused by a huge gaping hole
> in the markup languages used to create web pages.

Yes. And the further problem is that any changes to the markup languages
wouldn't be supported for some time to come.
When I first came across the < ^ > glyphs, I must admit to not having a
clue what they meant. I clicked them, and I found out and thought it was
fairly neat, but a bit stupid without explanation. In other words, some
people see ">" and see an arrow pointing to right, and some see the concept
of "next". If the textual equivalent was used in the image, some people
might see a collection of unrecognizable glyphs, and some might see the
word "next". Further to that, some might know what "next" refers to, and
some people may not.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that there is no harm in including as
much information to people as you can *as long as* it doesn't confuse them
further. I suggest the following is the best we can do with our current
markup limitations (one for PF to talk about I suppose):-

     [<a href="2.html" rel="next" title="Link to the next page">
     <img src="rightarrow.gif" alt="Next" />Page (2)</a>]

Ugh, it's not a perfect solution and I will accept criticism. Also, it's
not technically "WCAG 1.0 valid" because it doesn't have an "alt" attribute
value, but if XHTML wasn't so limiting in the first place, we wouldn't have
to put up with hacks like these ;-) It's a shame that CSS and SVG don't
help much due to their lack of implementation.

That's my 2c/2p/0,02euros, FWIW

Kindest Regards,
Sean B. Palmer
http://www.mysterylights.com/sbp/
"Perhaps, but let's not get bogged down in semantics."
   - Homer J. Simpson, BABF07.

Received on Friday, 15 December 2000 15:03:50 UTC