[Pmwiki-users] Image sizes, alt tags, and more (was: Image display resizing problem)

Thomas -Balu- Walter list+pmwiki-users
Wed Mar 3 18:58:56 CST 2004


On Wed, Mar 03, 2004 at 05:31:19PM -0700, Patrick R. Michaud wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 04, 2004 at 01:00:07AM +0100, Thomas -Balu- Walter wrote:
> > I'm sorry, I missed the discussion and don't know if and what is the
> > result by now, but was 
> > 
> > [[http://foo.bar/image.gif alt text]]
> > 
> > already suggested? This might give problems though with...
> 
> This syntax already means something else--specifically, it's a
> link to http://foo.bar/image.gif with "alt text" as the link text.
> It renders as <a href='http://foo.bar/image.gif'>alt text</a>.

Of course, I was thinking of having some kind of special case:

E.g. the following links:
http://www.example.com 
        creates an inline link to www.example.com
http://www.example.com/test.gif
        creates an inline image located at that url

Similar behaviour would be:
[[http://www.example.com Example page]] 
        displays a link with "Example page" as linktext
[[http://www.example.com/test.gif Example image]]
        displays an image with "Example image" as alttext...

> > What about leaving it as it is and putting the image name into the alt
> > tag? 
> 
> One could do that, but the point of the alt= attribute is to have
> something meaningful, for non-graphical rendering agents.  The 
> (file)name of the image is often not meaningful.

Of course. I was thinking "forcing" people to create nice filenames :)

> Or, stated another way, my purpose in bringing this up is not to
> satisfy the requirement for an alt= attribute, but rather to provide
> a mechanism whereby wiki authors can specify what the alt= text
> should be.

This will lead to the title-attribute I already talked about...
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/global.html#h-7.4.3:

  ...
  Unlike the TITLE element, which provides information about an entire
  document and may only appear once, the title attribute may annotate
  any number of elements. Please consult an element's definition to
  verify that it supports this attribute.

  Values of the title attribute may be rendered by user agents in a
  variety of ways. For instance, visual browsers frequently display the
  title as a "tool tip" (a short message that appears when the pointing
  device pauses over an object). Audio user agents may speak the title
  information in a similar context. For example, setting the attribute
  on a link allows user agents (visual and non-visual) to tell users
  about the nature of the linked resource:
  ...

Many people nowadays use the alt-attribute of images to display a
tooltip where the title-attribute should be used.

        Balu



More information about the pmwiki-users mailing list