[thelist] Netscape 7 and <alt>

[Mark Gallagher]

Sharon F. Malone wrote:
 > 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

Hmm, that's two people in three days who thought I was attacking
them.  Maybe that's trying to tell me something... naaaah.

No, I wasn't having a go at you.  If I was in the mood for being nasty
there's juicier targets out there - people who should know what they're
doing, wilfully avoid ever finding out, and still get paid hundreds of
thousands of (US) dollars for lying to clients and giving them half-rate
websites.  But I'm not in the mood for being nasty, so I'm not sure how
that sentence slipped out :-).

I was (and am) annoyed at the astonishing ignorance many people - even
professional designers - about the use and purpose of ALT text.
Designers and developers should stay current with the technology their
users and clients are using.  Misuse of ALT text was a stupid, broken
concept when it began - it's a *really* bad idea now, with TITLE in
existance, accessibility laws being thrust into the limelight, and the
(albeit *extremely slow*) increase in the popularity of Gecko and Opera
(neither of which, IIRC, behave the way IE does).

 > 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 an *alternative* for images (that's why it's called "alt text" -
alt is short for "alternate"), it's not there to add complementary
information.  One could (I won't) make a case that browsers that display
ALT text as a complement for images are broken (but then, such browsers
are often broken in various other ways).

TITLE is for complementary information - and it works (in theory) for
*every element*, too.

 > 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.

They sure have!

 > According to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, Guideline 1

<snip quote from http://www.w3c.org/TR/WCAG10/#gl-provide-equivalents />

 > Nowhere do I see TITLE mentioned.

TITLE isn't required.  ALT is necessary for those that don't want or
can't have images rendered in their browsing environments - those with
slow connections, command-line-only computer access (restricting them to
things like Links, Lynx, and w3m), a penchant for surfing without fancy
images, or those who're blind and use screen readers (which, for obvious
reasons, aren't likely to support images any time soon).  ALT is important.

TITLE is for what ALT has been misused for for so many years.

 > 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)

No doubt.

 > doing. I have included TITLE in my more recent sites.

Congratulations!


--
Mark Gallagher