[whatwg] image element

[Ian Hickson]

On Wed, 30 Jul 2008, Nicholas Shanks wrote:
> 
> To continue this:
> The video and audio elements are being introduced because they have DOM APIs
> that exceed that of <object>, and we don't want to overload the general
> element with features specific to certain kinds of media. By analogy, images
> could have specific APIs too (dontScale/scaleToFit/stretchToFit,
> nextFrame/previousFrame/startAnimating/stopAnimating). These aren't being
> proposed at present, but overloading object is not something it seems like we
> should be telling people to do.

We have <img> for this already.


> I would expect, if an analysis was done, that the number of people using
> <image/> as an empty element (thinking they were using img), and the number of
> people using <image></image> as was defined in HTML+ are both no higher than
> the background noise of misspelled tags.

0.2%. More common than <abbr>, <q>, <dfn>, <kbd>, <ins>, <var>, <del>, 
<samp>, etc...


> > I don't see how this is a benefit over <img>.
> 
> In order of importance to me:
> 
> 1. It's spelt correctly.
> 2. It's not an empty element.
> 3. It's spelt correctly.

1 and 3 are non-issues, sorry.

2 is already handled by <object> when you need it.


> > If you need markup in the fallback, use <object>. (Or, better, 
> > consider exposing the content to everyone and not making it only 
> > available to those who don't see the image.)
> 
> The point of fallback is ‘help for people who can't see the image’ 
> rather than ‘an explanation of the image suitable for all’. Of course, 
> if you can provide the latter, that's great, and there's no problem. 
> Fallback content could be as simple as "Figure 2", where the surrounding 
> text discusses the image sufficiently that it isn't necessary to see the 
> image, but users still want to know which image element on the page that 
> text was referring to (so they can download it to disk, or whatever).

My point is that the alternative text (the fallback) will often be useful 
for everyone, not just those who can't see the image. But that if you 
really don't want people to see both, you can use <object> anyway.


> Aye, but <img> gets me very angry.

With all due respect, this may be more a problem for you than for the 
language. :-)


The spelling of the tag is not a real problem. The lack of rich fallback 
isn't a problem at all, since we have <object>.

I don't really see any issue here.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'