[thelist] Use of <abbr title> tag (back to original question)

[iris]

--- Olena Sullivan <olena at sympatico.ca> wrote:
> I've noticed several sites that use the <abbr
> title=""> tag in their
> coding but am having problems viewing the result in
> NS6.2 on Mac. When I
> roll over the text, I get the pointer with the ? but
> nothing else. In IE
> 5.x, the text has no underline, but does give a
> description when rolled
> over (you just can't figure out which text to roll
> over as you get no
> pointer at all).

yes, support for this isn't great yet, which doesn't
mean you shouldn't use it.  these days forward
compatibility is as important as backward
compatibility because the latest specs have been
written with accessibility in mind and the latest
browsers are build to comply with these specs.

a couple of things about abbr/acronym:

abbreviation: a shortening of a word (for example:
etc. instead of etcetera)

acronym: the first letters of several words (for
example: WAI = Web Accessibility Initiative)

i tend to use acronym much more than abbr.

some screenreaders will read the title text instead of
the abbreviation, which is good.  otherwise they might
try to pronounce the acronym as a real word.

otherwise it's a good way for letting users find out
what an acronym means.  in a few years people will
have learned to hover their mouse over an acronym to
discover what it stands for.

i don't know why abbr didn't work for you in N6.
acronym definately works in IE5 upwards and mozilla.
abbr works in mozilla and opera6, not in IE5.

iris



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