[thelist] Re: Accessibility and alt text - quality vs quantity

Norman Bunn norman.bunn at craftedsolutions.com
Wed Jan 28 11:13:38 CST 2004


> It probably a bit late to say/ask this now, but why are people still using
> spacer images?
> The reason I ask is because any one designing for IE5 and later should
> really be using CSS with paddings and margins. And images used only for
> styling and not to convey any content, place them as background images
(see
> below) which alleviates the problem of alt and title tags.
>
> <POSSIBLEtip author="Toby Mills" subject="using CSS to easily place
styling
> images">
> If you wish to place images on a web page for styling or background
purposes
> then I suggest the following method.
> Create a CSS Class with the image set as the background, and margins set
as
> the height and width.
> <style type="text/css">
> .nicePicture {background-image:url('./nice.jpg'); background-repeat:
> no-repeat; }
> div.nicePicture{ width:288px; height:361px; border:1pt solid red;}
> div.PicWithTxt{padding-left:288px; height:361px;border:1pt solid red; }
> </style>
>
> Then to use it on the page simply add the following code where you want
it:
> <div class='nicePicture'>&nbsp;</div>
>
> N.B. This will on work for browsers that support CSS Style sheets, e.g.
IE5
> or later
>
> See http://fukc.homeip.net/examples/CSSBackgroundExample.html for code.
>
> </POSSIBLEtip>
>
> T
>
> -------------------------------
> toby mills
> web developer & programmer

Not trolling and I realize it is heresy, but this is one of the reasons I
have not made the full jump to CSS. I mean look at all this extra work to
define the picture and its location, when it could be simply summed up as:

<img src="./nice.jpg" width=288 height=362 border=1>

And then there is the issue of backward compatibility...

I'm sure I will get there eventually and I have found CSS extremely helpful
in many areas, but not ready do it hard core.  Just call me cautious, or
lazy, or stupid, or ...

Norman Bunn
www.CraftedSolutions.com
803-405-1008




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