- From: Al Gilman <asgilman@access.digex.net>
- Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 13:18:18 -0400 (EDT)
- To: w3c-wai-wg@w3.org (WAI Working Group)
to follow up on what Daniel Dardailler said: > > Adding an URL attribute to IMG is a way to handle the long description > issue. We're still waiting for the requirement report on that item to > see what's needed. > I have been holding off some input to let the action item stuckees frame the discussion. > One of the requirement brought up at the meeting in Sophia was the > implementation-ness of the solution (can whatever we recommend be used > in today's browser). Extending HTML is of course not ideal, but having > rethought about other solutions, I'm not sure there is anything that > will comply with this requirement anyway (in particular, I realized > that the CSS 'display: none' feature is not in CSS1 core and therefore > is not available yet in all CSS-ready browser). > There is a solution that does not involve any change to standards. This is to reference the long description from within the metadata capabilities of the Internet Media Types (formerly MIME types) framework. This could be supplied as a text value for an header field or indirectly by an URI value withing a header field. I don't know what fielded GUI browsers include in their realization of an "information page" or if you can get such a page for images referenced as the content of an IMG tag. If the long description is realized as the text value of an HTTP header for the image, Lynx, for example, already gives the user an access path for that information with its image_links mode and head-request command. There is a reasonable question as to whether this is too indirect to satisfy the requirement. I would prefer to address that with all deliberate speed in the context of the requirement-development action item that the WAI WG has started. -- Al Gilman
Received on Monday, 30 June 1997 13:18:20 UTC