[whatwg] <img> element comments

[Alexey Feldgendler]

On Fri, 03 Nov 2006 19:38:37 +0600, Anne van Kesteren <fora at annevankesteren.nl> wrote:

> * Regarding the alt attribute, wouldn't it make sense to just allow it to
> be omitted? In terms of meaning it seems the same. On the other hand, it
> probably shows the difference between people who thought of the
> alternative representation and people that haven't.

This has been discussed here once.

The problem with requiring the alt attribute is that people will omit it anyway, or, worse, write alt="" to make the documents formally valid, actually mangling the meaning.

The problem with allowing omission of alt depends on the meaning of <img> without alt. If <img> without alt is defined to mean the same as <img> with alt="", then the problem is that all cases when people omit the alt attribute because they don't care will end up with mangled meaning. If <img> without alt is defined to mean that the image is semantically valuable but without an alternative text, then the problem is that we need to distinguish between empty and omitted alt in DOM somehow.


-- 
Alexey Feldgendler <alexey at feldgendler.ru>
[ICQ: 115226275] http://feldgendler.livejournal.com