Re: content: url() is bad

On Mon, 12 Apr 2004, Dave Shea wrote:
>>
>>    h1 { content: url(xyzcompany-logo); }
>
> Given that the above technique is literally replacing the content of the
> h1, doesn't it stand to reason that if a user has CSS enabled, they
> won't see the backup text if their user agent didn't download the image?

The current proposal, which I intend to make sure the spec states, is that
if the image is not downloaded in the case above, the UA must
automatically fallback to using whatever the element's contents were.


> Actually, come to think of it, how *would* this be more or less
> compatible with a screenreader? Ignoring the new screenreader-specific
> media type for a moment, current screenreaders hook into IE's visual
> rendering; wouldn't this break for them too, given the replaced text?

Quite possibly, but frankly, those screen readers are using the wrong
solution. The solution to aural rendering of Web pages is media="speech"
and an aural CSS renderer, not media="screen" and a screen-to-voice
convertor.

Imposing restrictions on the solution space of one media because the
implementors of another media are incorrectly implementing the specs is
not acceptable, IMHO.

-- 
Ian Hickson                                      )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
U+1047E                                         /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
http://index.hixie.ch/                         `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Monday, 12 April 2004 10:47:19 UTC