Re: Dave Raggett: Re: IMG ALT attribute in HTML 4.0 (fwd)

On Mon, 15 Sep 1997, Daniel Dardailler wrote:

> To allow long desc pointer in the above example, the spec for OBJECT
> shapes needs to be changed to say it only looks for <A> that have a
> "coords" attributes (preferred) or A that do not have a class of
> longdesc.
> 
> Introducing class=longdesc (maybe just in guidelines, but probably
> better in spec) for A seems like a useful addition in any case (since
> it allows the browser to identify it and present it to the user in
> some special way, in graphical environment or not).
I agree completely. The published draft merely says that if the boolean
SHAPES attribute is specified, the user agent must parse the content of
OBJECT, searching for anchors. In addition to Daniel's excellent
suggestions, I think the specification should also include an explicit
statement that the textual content of such an OBJECT will be displayed
only in non-graphical environments, (or in graphical environments if
graphics mode has been deactivated). Although one can infer the purpose of
the text inside the OBJECT which defines the image map from the example
which is given in the specification, a clear statement of its function
would leave no room for possible misunderstanding.

Received on Tuesday, 16 September 1997 20:30:23 UTC