[whatwg] Alt text authoring Re: Conformance for Mail clients

[Křištof Želechovski]

Considering internationalization: the alternative text should be translated
to the language of the surrounding text, of course.  I would recommend such
a workaround only if some alternative text is required; see the OP.
The point is that the browser tells the viewer that ho is missing some
information that the designer considers important.
Chris

-----Original Message-----
From: whatwg-bounces at lists.whatwg.org
[mailto:whatwg-bounces at lists.whatwg.org] On Behalf Of Kornel Lesinski
Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2007 9:18 PM
To: Kristof Zelechovski
Cc: whatwg
Subject: Re: [whatwg] Alt text authoring Re: Conformance for Mail clients

On Sun, 22 Apr 2007 18:58:13 +0100, Kristof Zelechovski  
<giecrilj at stegny.2a.pl> wrote:

> For (2): alt="(Your browser does not display graphic images)".

What's the point? Users who rely on alt attribute know that already, and  
unless exactly that phrase is required by the specification (= bad for  
i18n), it won't be any use for bots either.

I think presence of the title attribute (which might be empty) could be  
required if alt is omitted:
<img title="" src="canyon.jpg">
or maybe:
<img alt="-" src="canyon.jpg">

and role of <img src="canyon.jpg"> should be left undefined, allowing UAs  
to use heuristics to guess it.

-- 
regards, Kornel Lesiński