[whatwg] @aria-labelledby | Re: @generator-unable-to-provide-required-alt, figure with figcaption

[Martin Janecke]

Am 19.06.2013 um 20:53 schrieb Ian Hickson:

> [...]
> 
> I've changed the spec to make <figure> applicable to your use case as 
> well, and added more text to explain various use cases and whether they 
> apply to <figure>. Let me know if the new text is still problematic for 
> your use case. I agree that it would be overly restrictive to limit 
> <figure> in the case you are presenting.

The new text (http://html5.org/r/7991) covers my use case very well. I have updated the markup generator to use figures with figcaption.


>> (d) "The img element has a (non-conforming) 
>> generator-unable-to-provide-required-alt attribute whose value is the 
>> empty string."^[3]
>> 
>> Well, that is an option for any use case a markup generator runs into. 
>> But it seems unattractive in all its verbosity to me.
> 
> It's supposed to be a little unattractive, to discourage authors from 
> using it to silent validators complaining about their hand-written pages 
> (where they should just provide the fricking replacement text).
> 
>> Unfortunately -- although its verbosity is there to prevent any 
>> misunderstanding for its use -- it might leave the impression that a 
>> generator writing
>> 
>> <img src="..." generator-unable-to-provide-required-alt="">
>> 
>> is not as good as a generator writing
>> 
>> <img src="..." alt="an image">
> 
> Indeed. I don't know of a way to fix that. It's always going to be the 
> case that a generator doing the wrong thing in a way that is 
> machine-readably indistinguishable from the right thing is more likely to 
> look correct at a quick glance than a generator that is doing the wrong 
> thing in a machine-detectable way. I don't know what we can do about that.
> 
> I'm open to suggestions.

I see. Unfortunately I do not have a better idea.

I have updated the markup generator to use generator-unable-to-provide-required-alt for the rare cases when it does not have a caption either.


> [...]
> 
>> In my case it is not applicable anyway: The converter generates markup 
>> for instant display -- the output is not saved to be edited.
> 
> Doesn't mean that it's not still bad that it's inaccessible, of course. :-)

Yep, a missing alt attribute is a missing alt attribute.

Thanks a lot
Martin