Re: ALT Text Notes and Guidelines (take 2)

This discussion has raised the issue of the relationship between the
proposed ALTSRC attribute and user interface considerations. It may be
necessary to modify CSS syntax, if the ALTSRC idea is accepted, to enable
this attribute to act as a selector. Such modification could be made to
CSS syntax as a whole, or it could be a special feature that is available
to ACSS styles only.

If long descriptions are implemented by means of the OBJECT element as
exemplified in one of my earlier contributions to this discussion, then
clearly the existing CSS syntax would enable anchors with OBJECT elements
in their ancestry to be selected. This possibility is particularly
valuable when using ACSS, since it would allow anchors referring to long
descriptions to be spoken in a different voice or indicated with an
appropriate audio cue. Perhaps a link type for long descriptions needs to
be defined so that anchors which relate to long descriptions can be
properly differentiated from other anchors that might appear
within OBJECT elements. (rel="longdesc")?

Obviously, it would be important to have corresponding functionality with
respect to the ALTSRC proposal, hence the foregoing suggestion to modify
CSS or ACSS syntax.

Received on Thursday, 17 July 1997 23:20:46 UTC