Error in HTML 4.0 rec regarding MAP and A elements?? (fwd)

Regards,

-- Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org> http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett
phone: +44 122 578 2984 (or 2521) +44 385 320 444 (gsm mobile)
World Wide Web Consortium (on assignment from HP Labs)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 13:14:15 -0500
From: B.K. DeLong <bkdelong@naw.org>
To: dsr@w3.org
Cc: lehors@w3.org, ij@w3.org
Subject: Error in HTML 4.0 rec regarding MAP and A elements??

Hi David, Arnaud and Ian,

I am working quickly on a test suite of HTML 4.0 to test capabilities of IE5.
One of my tests includes examining the apparent ability to use the A element in
place of the AREA element when creating client-side imagemaps.
http://www.ultranet.com/~bdelong/ie5-tests/a-imagemap.html

According to the HTML 4.0 recommendation, this is possible:

Each MAP element may contain either one of the following: 
One or more AREA elements. These elements have no content but specify the
geometric regions of the image map and the link associated with each region.
Note that when this method is used, the MAP has no rendered content. Therefore,
authors must provide alternate text for each AREA with the alt attribute (see
below for information on how to specify alternate text). 

Block-level content. This content should include A elements that specify the
geometric regions of the image map and the link associated with each region.
Note that when this method is used, the MAP element content may be rendered by
the user agent. Authors should use this method to create more accessible
documents. 

Yet, according to two HTML validators I put my test through, none of them would
allow the A element as child to the MAP element. Then I looked at the DTD:

<!ELEMENT MAP - - ((%block;)+ | AREA+) -- client-side image map --> 

.....and I noticed that there was only specification for AREA as a child
element. Am I reading this wrong? Are my implementations incorrect?

Please let me know ASAP. I would not want to say MS is wrong if in fact it is
the recommendation.

Thanks.
--
B.K. DeLong                  360 Huntington Ave.
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Received on Friday, 19 March 1999 06:10:15 UTC