Re: A question of titles

Jim wrote:
>
>  If each frame page has a (good, informative) title element, but there is
no
>  name attribute or title attribute on the frame elements within the
frameset
>  element, do you think that satisfies 12.1?

I believe the answer  - yes it is satisfied or not it isn't - depending on
the technology being referenced in the frame.

For example, in HTML the <frame element doesn't need a title= attribute if
the <title element is on the html page being referenced by the <frame
element.  In other words, in Jim's specific case it is accessible and meets
the intent of the guideline.  If there were user agents or assistive
technologies that presented the outline view of the frameset by using the
title attribute on the <frame element, then I would have to disagree with
Jim - but there are none that I know of so it's a non-issue.  There are
some that use the title= attribute if the <title element isn't there on the
html page. But I haven't found a developer yet that put the title=
attribute on without always having <titles on the html pages as well - so
its quite redundant.

However, if the <frame element references a non-html file, such as .jsp
(java server pages), a .nsf (lotus notes served page), a .asp (Microsoft
active server page), etc. or, more to the point, a media type not supported
by the user agent or not discernible by the user, then the title= attribute
is the only means to provide access to the intent of the frame.  The
example used in the HTML techniques
[http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-HTML-TECHS/#frame-has-html-src] refers to
always using html file types because that is the only way to provide the
alt text for an image.  I think this needs to be rethought by the WCAG
working group.  It seems very redundant to have an alternative <noframes>
to <framesets>, and have the title= attribute on the <frame> element, and
have only html file types so that the alt= attribute can be added to
images.  I would think that the title=attribute should be sufficient to
describe the intent (as does the alt= on the <img>) of an image type file
being referenced by the <frame>.


Regards,
Phill

Received on Thursday, 1 February 2001 15:13:25 UTC