- From: Anne Pemberton <apembert45@lycos.com>
- Date: Wed, 02 May 2001 11:58:30 -0400
- To: "Anne Pemberton" <apembert@erols.com>, A.Flavell@physics.gla.ac.uk
- Cc: "WAI Guidelines List" <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Alan, There seem to be a variety of preferences and needs among different people and or groups as to what they would like in the alt tag. And the needs are clashing. To meet your needs, I must discard Adam's, and if I meet Adam's needs, you are going to bash my work! Not a very clean front to guide page authors! In fact, until those working on the guidelines are in agreement how to write alt tags, I would suggest a suspension of emotion-laden criticism for what the poor, confused page authors are trying to do. Anne --- Anne Pemberton apembert@erols.com apembert45@yahoo.com apembert45@lycos.com apembert@pen.k12.va.us http://www.erols.com/stevepem http://www.geocities.com/apembert45 On Wed, 2 May 2001 13:44:26 Alan J. Flavell wrote: >On Wed, 2 May 2001, Anne Pemberton wrote: > >> I haven't looked at something in lynx for a long time, but I thought I >> remembered that lynx put the alt tag in brackets < > > >Lynx does not put the ALT text in brackets, and as far as I know >it never has. And certainly not pointy brackets. > >You might be confusing this with Lynx's habit (variously in different >versions) of generating a placeholder in square brackets, when the >author has failed to supply an ALT attribute. It used to be something >like [IMAGE] or [LINK] or [USEMAP]; more recent versions insert the >image filename, producing exciting sites such as this one > > [USEMAP:circle_1.gif] [USEMAP:circle_2.gif] [USEMAP:life_1.gif] > [USEMAP:circle_3.gif] > [USEMAP:life_2.gif] > [USEMAP:circle_4.gif] > [USEMAP:life_3.gif] > >and so on, ad nauseam... > >But where an unsympathetic author _has_ provided ALT attributes (and >even goes so far as to claim compliance with Bobby validation!), we >get to see this nonsense instead: > > spacer spacer spacer spacer logo > >(139 matches for that phrase at Altavista!). > >> .... If this is no >> longer (or never was) the case, then it would be more sensible to change >> the browsers so that punctuation is added to set off the image text when it >> is presented visually. > >Sorry, I can't agree. Then the conscientious author would have no way >to incorporate their desired text string seamlessly into the text-mode >result, since there would be no way to tell the browser to omit the >brackets when the author knew they were superfluous. > >The solution IMHO is not to take inappropriate ALT text, as was >exhibited in the samples on which you are commenting, and then to >forcibly delimit it in the browser with additional punctutation. The >solution is to promote the use of appropriate ALT texts, with >delimiters supplied or not supplied by the author according to the >desired context. And put the blame for doing it wrong on those >authors who are doing it wrong, whether by omitting ALT attributes or >by using them badly. > >> At 05:08 PM 5/1/01 -0700, Adam Victor Reed wrote: >> >I have an attention deficit, so I often use lynx to avoid distractions. >> >Alt text appears in place of graphics, so it merges with other text if >> >not set off with punctuation. It is NOT accessible if it appears as >> > >> > 1. Markup tools icon one Markup tools icon two Markup tools icon > >The proffered ALT text here is clearly inappropriate, in a way that no >amount of browser kludging could repair. Please, let's not make >things harder for those who are trying to do it right, in an effort to >mask the faults of those who are doing it wrong. > >If you're interested in commenting further on what Lynx does, it >shouldn't be so hard to get a copy and observe it in action (unless >your only access is to a Mac, for which there never seems to have been >a satisfactory port). Try starting from http://lynx.browser.org and >following the relevant links. Some on-line services which aim to give >an impression of Lynx's presentation are cited from the Lynx links >site, but seem to be ancient Lynx versions or no longer accessible. >But anyone interested in text-mode browsers should also look at w3m, >at least. > >best regards > > Get 250 color business cards for FREE! http://businesscards.lycos.com/vp/fastpath/
Received on Wednesday, 2 May 2001 11:59:33 UTC