[Pmwiki-users] Re: encouraging alt text/marketing and search engines

[Patrick R. Michaud]

On Sun, May 23, 2004 at 01:48:20PM -0500, Tommy Hern wrote:
> I agree with Christian that "We might even consider an option (controlled 
> by the admin) where the user must add an alt-text -- AFAIK, they're 
> required by the standard." 

While this is a good idea, the question is "What should PmWiki do if someone
places an image URL in a page but forgets the alt-text?"

Possible answers:
   1.  Refuse the post
   2.  Don't convert the image URL into an inline image or link.
   3.  Treat the image as a normal URL, and then the way that something
       gets treated as an inline image is that the URL has a quoted
       string after it.

       Attach:filename.jpg             -- link to filename.jpg
       Attach:filename.jpg"My photos"  -- inline image, alt="My photos"
       Attach:filename.jpg""           -- inline image, alt=""

Of course, any of these would be site-configurable options, so that one
can continue to use the classic wiki method of automatically inlining images
(with default alt text of "").

Another thought:  since quotation marks aren't allowed in
URIs, an answer may be to simply include the alt text in the target,
as in 

   [[Attach:filename.jpg "My photos"]]

This way the alt text wouldn't have to abut the URL.  It becomes a bit
trickier with 

   [[somepage | Attach:filename.jpg "My photos"]]

how do we know the author didn't intend the link text to be rendered as
text?

Thus, when all is said and done, perhaps the best approach is to simply say 
that alt text is specified in quotes immediately following an image URL.

Pm