Re: Questionable implementation of IMG ALT attribute as tooltips

Green J M K <jmkgre@essex.ac.uk> schrieb:
> For unimportant pictures, why not ALT="[Pic]" or even ALT="" (I'm not
> sure that nothingness will validate)?

"" is often the best choice. The text in the ALT attribute should  
replace the image on non-graphics browsers or when graphics are switched  
off, so do not write a description of the image but the text that shall  
be shown to users instead.

I usually choose one of these:

For unimportant pictures, ALT="" is the only reasonable choice. (But  
then, if it's that unimportant, why use it at all?)

For small icons or symbols, I use characters to imitate the appearance  
of the image, e.g. <img src="mylogo.gif" alt="MyLoGo"> or
<img src="bullet.gif" alt="*">.

For important, bigger pictures, I make them downloadable:
<a href="photo.jpg"><img alt="[Photo of XXX, 8kB]" src="photo.jpg"  
border=0></a>

Or as a simple rule of the thumb: Load your page in Lynx and think about  
it.

> Also, for separator bars, why not use <HR> and maybe include classes for
> CSS? Much faster.

I never use non-<HR> separators, simply because they don't behave well  
for browsers on different screen sizes.
<UL> is better than using <img src="bullet.gif"> too, as long as you  
don't need different, non-ascending symbols.

> BTW, "+" won't take up much room on the screen, so unless you're using a
> dodgy small screen-mode, not much will be over-written.

Right the point was that "Bullet" is too long (6 chars) and another  
point is that it looks ugly:

Bullet This is the first item.
Bullet Item 2 goes here.
Bullet 3rd item is in this line.

--
Claus André Färber <http://www.muc.de/~cfaerber/> Fax: +49_8061_3361
PGP: ID=1024/527CADCD FP=12 20 49 F3 E1 04 9E 9E  25 56 69 A5 C6 A0 C9 DC

Received on Sunday, 25 January 1998 06:51:26 UTC