- From: Ian B. Jacobs <ij@w3.org>
- Date: 10 Mar 2003 15:36:56 -0500
- To: Aaron Leventhal <aaronl@netscape.com>
- Cc: w3c-wai-ua@w3.org
On Mon, 2003-03-10 at 12:32, Aaron Leventhal wrote: > What is the UAAG's position regarding the showing of alt text as tooltips? Hi Aaron, To help keep this discussion focussed, I'd like to clarify: a) Are you asking very generally "Are tooltips ok, whatever their source in the document?" Or, "Is it ok to pop up a small window to present information to the user on hover?" b) Are you asking "In HTML (or some other format), what are legitimate sources of text that a user agent could consider for a tooltip?" And in particular, "How do I deal with the presence/absence of alt and title?" If the answer is (a), then I hope my points that follow will contribute to this discussion; they are not an official UAWG position. If the answer is (b), then I think that we will need some help from XAG as well. About (a): 1) The text that you are talking (alt) about is "conditional content" in UAAG 1.0 terms. 2) Checkpoint 2.3 requires that all conditional content be available to the user. A tooltip (i.e., popup window) would satisfy the requirement (see 2a in particular) of making conditional content available to the user. 3) Checkpoint 1.1 requires that the user be able to operate the user agent entirely through the keyboard. If the ONLY way to get at tooltip text is "onMouseOver" then the user agent has not met 1.1 for providing access to alt. 4) In UAAG 1.0 terms, a tooltip window is a viewport since the user agent renders content through it. Checkpoint 5.3 applies: allow configuration so that the tooltip only opens on explicit user request. This means: allow config for no automatic tooltip popups and allow the user to get at that information "manually," e.g., by querying the element that has alt specified. 5) Checkpoint 6.6 applies as well: provide programmatic notification of changes to content, states and values of content, etc. This means that ATs should have access to the change of state (i.e., the pop up event). ATs also have access to the text content through other APIs. Could you summarize the various positions of the flame war? Thanks Aaron, _ Ian > Or, if there is no official position. What do individual members think? > I'd like to see a civilized discussion, and if possible get an official > position on it from W3C. It would be great for Mozilla if the W3C would > say somewhere specifically "yes" or "no" to this. We have too many flame > wars back and forth about it in bugzilla. I understand that the specs > can be read to support either position, but I'd rather get something > precise from W3C that will put an end to the flamewar. > > http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=25537 -- Ian Jacobs (ij@w3.org) http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs Tel: +1 718 260-9447
Received on Monday, 10 March 2003 15:37:26 UTC