Re: Why OBJECT has no LONGDESC

On Mon, 25 May 1998, Charles McCathieNevile wrote:

> The other case which Al did not account for (and nor have I in thinking 
> about OBJECT before, but I will be working on it Monday ;) is where users 
> are not viewing any images etc to speed their browsing, but still want to 
> know when to pick up an image. A link to the image inside the content of 
> the object would be very helpful for such users, as well as a link to the 
> description.

Of course, the DATA attribute of the OBJECT element provides a URL for the
resource to which it refers. However, Charles has made an important point,
for he correctly recognises that when image viewing has been deactivated,
the reference to the graphical resource will not be available to the user.
Two questions follow. Firstly, should this not be considered a "user
agent" issue, given that in the case of a series of nested OBJECT
elements which refer to different versions of the same resource (E.G.
different image file formats) it is the responsibility of the user agent,
not the author of the document in writing the textual content of OBJECT,
to choose the version which is compatible with the available software?
Secondly, if browsers were to provide an option whereby images could be
requested individually, despite the user's having decided that they should
not be displayed by default, how should this link be presented visually by
a browser?

It might also be asked whether the foregoing is an "accessibility" issue
or just a question of good design practice.

Received on Monday, 25 May 1998 05:00:09 UTC