RE: ALT and TITLE as required attribute, that should be lowercase if you are using xhtml

> Well after that delightful aside I'll add that yes I do write a title
> as well as an alt text, and I keep them identical, because otherwise
> some people get one thing and others get another which is bound to lead
> to confusion.

That sounds contrary to what title is. Since title is "additional
information" it should never be the same as alt. This moves from theoretical
nit-picking to a real-world problem when you have an image inside a link,
since those browsers with the design-flaw that causes alts to be used as
titles will display the alt as a tooltip, or whatever mechanism they use for
titles, rather than the title for the link.

Hence the common idiom:

<a href="/" title="Home"><img src="logo.gif" alt="Company Slogan" /></a>

displays the (tautologous to someone who can use the image) slogan rather
than the helpful title. Hence we need the following:

<a href="/" title="Home"><img src="logo.gif" alt="Company Slogan"
title="Home" /></a>

One thing that is notable with this is that while longdesc is generally
always going to be the same for any use of the image, and alt will often be
the same for any use of the image but occassionally change because of how it
is used, title is always a matter of how the image is used, rather than the
image itself.

Received on Tuesday, 4 February 2003 07:18:46 UTC