Re: Questionable implementation of IMG ALT attribute as tooltips

James Green <jmkgre@essex.ac.uk> schrieb:
>
> On 25 Jan 1998 11:35:00 +0100 =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Claus_Andr=E9_F=E4rber?=
> <w3-html-list@faerber.muc.de> wrote:
>
> > 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.
>
> So the "" *does* work then??! Do you *know* that it is valid syntax?

The current (HTML 4.0) recommendation reads:

| 13.8 How to specify alternate text
| Attribute definitions
|
| alt = text [CS]
...
| Do not specify irrelevant alternate text when including images
| intended to format a page, for instance, alt="red ball" would be
| inappropriate for an image that adds a red ball for decorating a
| heading or paragraph. In such cases, the alternate text should be the
                        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| empty string (""). Authors are in any case advised to avoid using
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| images to format pages; style sheets should be used 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?)
>
> My my, I presume you've not heard of HTML 4.0 then? The ALT attribute
> is a requirement.

Oops. I meant: Why use the image at all?

-- 
Claus André Färber <http://www.muc.de/~cfaerber/> Fax: +49_8061_3361
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Received on Wednesday, 28 January 1998 20:33:00 UTC