[thelist] Netscape 7 and <alt>

[Sharon F. Malone]

On Sunday, June 09, 2002 4:34 AM Mark Gallagher wrote:

>> Sharon F. Malone wrote:
> > Does anyone know if Netscape 7 has fixed its problem of not displaying <alt> info?

[snippet]
> ALT is a *replacement* for images.  That it was ever displayed in a
> tooltip by IE is more a Bad Thing[0] than behaviour that should be emulated.
>
>
> [0] Because it's convinced so many "designers" that ALT should be used
>     in place of TITLE

Well, excuse me. I sense a slam there as you mention "designers." I went through months of Web Design school where I was taught to use ALT and not TITLE ... and I was taught using the NN4.x browser where ALT is also displayed as a "tool tip." My teachers then have misled a lot of students along the way if this is the case.

According to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, Guideline 1 "Provide equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content" only mentions: <quote>1.1 Provide a text equivalent for every non-text element (e.g., via "alt", "longdesc", or in element content). This includes: images, graphical representations of text (including symbols), image map regions, animations (e.g., animated GIFs), applets and programmatic objects, ascii art, frames, scripts, images used as list bullets, spacers, graphical buttons, sounds (played with or without user interaction), stand-alone audio files, audio tracks of video, and video. [Priority 1]
For example, in HTML:
Use "alt" for the IMG, INPUT, and APPLET elements, or provide a text equivalent in the content of the OBJECT and APPLET elements.
For complex content (e.g., a chart) where the "alt" text does not provide a complete text equivalent, provide an additional description using, for example, "longdesc" with IMG or FRAME, a link inside an OBJECT element, or a description link.
For image maps, either use the "alt" attribute with AREA, or use the MAP element with A elements (and other text) as content. </quote>
http://www.w3c.org/TR/WCAG10/#gl-provide-equivalents

Nowhere do I see TITLE mentioned.

I'm sure there are a lot of "designers" who are and have been designers for some time who were doing what I was (emphasis: was) doing. I have included TITLE in my more recent sites.

Sharon
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Sharon F. Malone
"web design and Internet writing services"
http://www.24caratdesign.com
sfmalo at 24caratdesign.com