Re: WD-xhtml2-20050527: img element not required

Anne van Kesteren wrote:

> Laurens Holst wrote:
>
>> I think XHTML 2.0 should allow alt="..." as an alternative to 
>> enclosed alternate text. It could be used until content inside an 
>> element is sufficiently supported by all major browsers.
>
> I think that would mean that you take the ugly bits of HTML 4.01 
> forward into XHTML 2.0. IMG was supposed to be replaced by OBJECT back 
> then as IMG is not really backwards compatible. Browsers have to 
> recognize the element in order to view its fallback content.

But that has already happened with h1...h6, which are pretty ugly as 
well I’d say. Why not take that a little further and really make it work 
in ‘legacy’ (heh) clients.

But only take things where necessary. For example, I wouldn’t take the 
longdesc attribute from HTML 4, because the real fallback method is 
ofcourse to place the content inside <img/> itself (just like the real 
way to define a heading is <h>). I wouldn’t even want alt in there, if 
<img>bla</img> would have just worked in current browsers (albeit 
without treating it as alternative content), and if it weren’t such an 
important fallback mechanism in case users are blind, or images aren’t 
loaded.

I think, if the <img> element is in there, better put it in there good, 
so that it actually aids in writing documents which ‘just work’ (to use 
the words of the HTML WG themselves) in existing UAs :).

Because I would personally like to be able to author XHTML 2.0 documents 
before it is fully supported in all major user agents. I can see that 
happening, as long as I use tags like <a> and <img> and don’t use (XHTML 
2.0) forms. Once there is sufficient support, I can get rid of those as 
well.


~Grauw

-- 
Ushiko-san! Kimi wa doushite, Ushiko-san!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Laurens Holst, student, university of Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Website: www.grauw.nl. Backbase employee; www.backbase.com.

Received on Saturday, 4 June 2005 08:39:40 UTC