<blockquote style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;" class="gmail_quote">Options might include "image 2 - vista of the canyon" or "image 2"
(where the text already says what that is) or all kinds of other things.</blockquote><div><br></div><br><div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
> "noalt" is a good idea and leaves no ambiguity.<br><br>Except that it breaks all backward compatibility. </blockquote><div><br>Can you please explain how?<br><br><img src="grandcanyon.jpg" alt="image 2 - vista of the canyon"> doesn't help the ambiguity. <img src="
grandcanyon.jpg" title="image 2- vista of the canyon"> is more appropriate. The image does not represent that text, that text describes the image. The difference may seem subtle, but there is a difference.
<br><br><img src="rssicon" alt="RSS"> is a case where the text serves no purpose than to represent the text "RSS". Lynx can happily replace the image with the text as if the image doesn't exist.
<br><br>In the grand canyon example, Lynx should at indicate that the image does exist.<br><br>This difference may be minor, but HTML doesn't explicitly tell authors how to mark up images that don't actually represent text and it's a distinction authors want to make.
<br><br>If "noalt" isn't acceptable, then let me suggest the "rel" attribute (with a couple suggested values). If the "rel" attribute was allowed on the IMG element, it could tell the relationship of the img to the document
<br></div><br></div>