REPOST: ALT and LONGDESC attribute in CSS positioned background-i mage

THIS IS A REPOST
I'm not sure if the 'love bug' virus nailed this yesterday, but I'm
reposting because I didn't get a copy sent to me from the list and didn't
get a response, so I'm reposting the original message. My apologies if it
was recieved by the list. This is holding up a Priority 1 checkpoint - #1.1
- for a site I'm working on.

I'm confused on adding an ALT attribute to a background image positioned
with CSS. Here's the CSS snippet that is positioning the background-image:

BODY  {
	font-family: arial, georgia, palatino, times;
	font-size: 10pt;
	background-color: #FFFFFF;
	background-image: url(resources/background.jpg);
	background-repeat: no-repeat;
	}

Since the ALT attribute is an HTML attribute what's the proper way to
include alternative text when the image is positioned with CSS in the body
property? The site in question is at:  http://online.luc.edu. The image is a
photo of Loyola University and contains the site title and university
shield. 

A LONGDESC may be more appropriate to convery more information - but that
raises a related question: how to place the LONGDESC when the element is
positioned with CSS, to ensure the LONGDESC link is associated with the
image, if images are turned off or the user agent doesn't support CSS. If
CSS isn't supported or is turned off, the LONGDESC may not be positioned in
the same place the image placehold might appear in the user's browser, which
could be more confusing than no text.

If I've somehow overlooked the obvious, berate me offline and recommend a
better CSS reference book <GRIN>.

Thanks in advance for any advice and thoughts.

Joel Sanda


Joel Sanda 
Accessibility Coordinator
eCollege.com 
10200 A East Girard Avenue 
Denver, CO 80231 
phone   303.873.7400  ext.3021 
fax     303.873.7449 
"Educators Working for Educators" 
-------------------------------------------------------www.eCollege.com

Received on Friday, 5 May 2000 12:24:00 UTC