Posted by dorayme on 04/26/07 00:28

In article <598ucfF2k4270U1@mid.individual.net>,
Bergamot <bergamot@visi.com> wrote:

> dorayme wrote:
> >> No... you are right, I was not thinking, it is all wrong!
> >
> > No, I am now confused, it is not all wrong. I don't really know
> > what the point was, and I am going to now give up guessing.
>
> re: image map alt text
>
> Ask yourself: What would the text be for each link if there were no
> image at all?
>
> Having them all the same is just as worthless as using "click here".
> Taken out of context, it makes just as much sense.

Oh that is your point! Of course, for a public website, of some
chance of being seen, you are right. I never got around to doing
this for the example for the OP which was about (I thought at
least, the relevant bit) being able to put an image map in a
table cell. I just grabbed it from somewhere else I had it, S & R
a few things to strip it down and plonked it on.

I think yesterday I put a bit of alt text for the "a" link (and
had some fun with GREP) as a reminder to myself. I did in fact
ask myself the very question you today suggest and my answer was
to say something informative about where the link was going. If
this is not a good answer, I am always willing to hear better.

(Very btw, Alt text seems constantly interesting a subject.
Remember how recently (another thread) one person was impatient
with having to put in any alt text. I suggested that it was not
hard to set up a GREP S & R to at the very least put in the name
of the src img - better than nothing at all, often containing
clues for the user. I have been thinking lately that there is an
argument for making alt text somehow default to the img src name.
Thus, if an author fails to provide any, it nevertheless appears
as described here. The argument against, of course, is that it
might well make authors too lazy to do the right thing. On
balance I suspect it would be better to have such a default than
not but I am not of any huge conviction in this opinion. By
default, I mean like how tables tbodys appear in the code when
the author has scarcely ever heard or explicitly used such.)

--
dorayme

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