Alt and Title attributes with A anf IMG as tooltip

My apologies if this has already been discussed here before (I haven't seen
it).

One thing is not clear (only for me?):
when an IMG tag is nested in an A tag and I want to use both title and Alt,
what is the right syntax?

1 <A href=".." Title="X"><IMG src=".." Alt="Y">           </A>
2 <A href="..">          <IMG src=".." Alt="Y" Title="X" ></A>

1 Explorer(5.x)/Win and Netscape(4.x)/Win show alt text as tooltip
(mouseover). This syntax is suggested and used by W3C
http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG1-Conformance#level-A
2 Netscape(4.x)/Win show alt text on mouseover. Only Explorer(5.x)/Win user
are able to see title text as tooltip.

Since Netscape (4.x) users can't see title as tooltip, screenreaders read
out title anyway (1 or 2) and Lynx (2.8) show only alt text (1 or 2),why
should I use 1? IMHO 2 is better. Probably what I say is not new, so why W3C
still use 1? Title is supposed to help graphical browsers users adding extra
information on destination link, if we put it in the A tag it is useless for
all of them (most of the users). I know that an extra information about the
link goes on A tag, but doing so title text disappear. I don't need the
alt(ernative) text as tooltip (intended to give information about image for
disable or textual browsers users), I want info about destination of the
link, I can see the image.
Why using both attributes in 1 if only one is accessible?
I suggest either avoid using 1 or adopt 2.

Unfortunately I see a lot of examples of type 1.
What do you thing about that?

PS: If alt and title have the same value, of course there is no need to
worry, alt attribute is enough.

Alessandro Melò

Received on Sunday, 11 February 2001 23:02:56 UTC