RE: Alt attribute for unimportant images

What I'm saying is that in the HTML and XHTML DTDs, the ATTLIST for IMG
states that alt is required.

<!ATTLIST IMG
  %attrs;                              -- %coreattrs, %i18n, %events --
  src         %URI;          #REQUIRED -- URI of image to embed --
  alt         %Text;         #REQUIRED -- short description --

So, in XHTML, wouldn't this make a XHTML-compliant user agent choke on IMG
elements without the ALT attribute?

Bare in mind that I don't claim to be an XML expert, and am not to clear how
say IE 5 intreprets the DTDs with regards to validity/well-formedness.

Thanks.  

-----Original Message-----
From: Jan Roland Eriksson [mailto:jrexon@newsguy.com]
Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2000 2:30 PM
To: RickR@biztro.com
Cc: www-html@w3.org
Subject: Re: Alt attribute for unimportant images


On Tue, 11 Jul 2000 12:25:59 -0700, RickR@biztro.com wrote:

>Isn't ALT a required attribute of the IMG element in XHTML 1.0?  Is this an
>error?

It's "required" in the same sense as it is "required" in HTML.

>I say this, because if you must use IMG for layout purpose (e.g. the
>infamous spacer.gif), you wouldn't want the user agent to pop up a "tool
>tip" for every little GIF you may have on your web page.

User agents that "pops up tool tips" from ALT attribute values are
severely broken.

Bug reports on this are to be sent to NS and MS of course.

The only proper attribute value to use for an eventual "tool tip
presentation" is the value of the "advisory TITLE attribute", period.

-- 
Jan Roland Eriksson <jrexon@newsguy.com>
<URL:http://member.newsguy.com/%7Ejrexon/>

Received on Tuesday, 11 July 2000 23:40:53 UTC