[thelist] To ALT or not to ALT?

A. Erickson ilsa at earthlink.net
Fri Jan 12 12:55:31 CST 2001


> > From: "A. Erickson" <ilsa at earthlink.net>
> [...]
> > Oh, but hey -- I always wonder whether to alt with the space alt=" " or
> > without alt="".
> >
> > Does it make a difference.
>
> yes... in IE4 and NN4 (and a few others), do you want every spacer
> on the page to potentially show a single space tooltip or balloon
> help, or not show anything on mouseover?

Brilliant! Thanks -- knowing is half the battle. Yo, Joe! I think I'll put
this as a tip.

<tip>
Should you put a space in your empty alt tags or close it up? Aardvark says
close them up like this: alt="" instead of like this alt=" " since the
latter causes a single-space tooltip or balloon help to show up in place of
a missing image. Also, a screen reader might read the latter like this:
"There is an __________ here" which really isn't very helpful, is it?
</tip>





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