[whatwg] Allow alt attribute with the span element

[Michael A. Peters]

Nope, no problem at all. That looks like a simple solution I did not 
find. Thank you.

On 10/06/2017 08:23 AM, Jonathan Garbee wrote:
> Is there a problem with using aria-label
> <https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/states_and_properties#aria-label> for
> this use case? It seems like this should do exactly what you're asking
> for in the given scenario.
>
> On Fri, Oct 6, 2017 at 11:15 AM, Michael A. Peters
> <mpeters at domblogger.net <mailto:mpeters at domblogger.net>> wrote:
>
>     With images, the alt attribute can and should be used to give a
>     description of an image for users who can not see the image.
>
>     With text, some glyphs are pictographs that have a meaning. For
>     example, U+1F502 is a pictograph indicating single loop, but it is
>     meaningless if you can not see it.
>
>     Even if screen readers can specify the codepoint and/or map the
>     codepoint to a description (do they?) sometimes fonts define PUA
>     codepoints for pictograph glyphs that are not official.
>
>     A span element with a title attribute does not always solve this
>     problem, sometimes the glyph is in a button element that has a title
>     attribute describing what the button will do rather than the what
>     the current state is.
>
>     For example, a button may show a single loop indicating the media is
>     currently in single loop mode but have a title attribute specifying
>     that pressing it enables continuous loop mode.
>
>     If there was an alt attribute on a span inside the button, screen
>     readers could treat the span with a pictograph the same way it would
>     treat an image child of a button attribute and describe the current
>     pictograph to the end user.
>
>     If there is already a solution to this issue, I apologize, I could
>     not find one.
>
>     We (er, WhatWG / W3C) could just add alt to the global attribute
>     list too, rather than just span. Or come up with a semantic
>     pictograph element specifically for this (just like we have tt and
>     code).
>
>     Thank you for opinions.
>
>