Re: Image-dislay status media query for reducing reflows

Moved to www-html where it's more appropriate.

On 7/1/05, David Woolley <david@djwhome.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> > But this fallback you mention has to be achieved within the HTML file,
> > imagine doing this for every img element, how it would increase the file
> > sizes.
> 
> alt attributes are mandatory.  How is:
> 
> <a src"/replacement_text/help.png" href="help.html">Help</a>
> 
> significantly more verbose than:
> 
> <a href="help.html"><img src="/replacement_text/help.png" alt="Help></a>

Though the examples given in the HTML spec take things further than I
think things ought to be taken.

I doubt people are going to specify multiple copies of the same image
to make sure their audience has one of the formats. AVI, then png,
then gif, then text? That seems just slightly rediculous to me when
people don't even bother with alt text, required or no.

I believe fallback should rely squarely on the backs of the server.
Content negotiation is a much better system than forcing authors to
further mark up their document. It's also more scalable as many
graphics get used repeatedly. Content authors shouldn't have to write
up the same alternates every time.

By the way, alt text was probably still a better idea. I feel we mixed
things up. What used to be an usability trait (alt text) is not a
fallback mecahnism. Fallback mechanisms that require author action
usually don't work very well because they place a barrier to getting
the job done. We should be minimizing the amount of work authors have
to do, not increase it.

Let's stick with alt text, drop the fallback mechanism entirely and
leave that to the server environment.

Orion Adrian

Received on Friday, 1 July 2005 22:26:40 UTC