Posted by SpaceGirl on 07/12/07 12:25

On Jul 8, 8:19 am, dorayme <doraymeRidT...@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
> In article <5fbgq8F3atmd...@mid.individual.net>,
> "J.O. Aho" <u...@example.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > GreatArtist wrote:
> > > I have internet explorer 7 and firefox 2.
> > > I set my web page to be XHTML 1.0 transitional.
> > > I put the alt attribute in my image tags but they were only displayed
> > > in firefox, not IE7.
> > > So I changed all the alt attributes to title instead. That works in
> > > both IE7 and Firefox.
> > > But now when I use the W3C xhtml validator, it tells me I should have
> > > alt for all the image tags.
> > > Should I include both title and alt in each image tag?
> > > Why doesn't alt work in IE7? Didn't alt work in previous versions of
> > > IE?
>
> > Yes, you should have both.
> > As far as I can recall, the alt is meant to be displayed when the image is
> > missing, while the title is shown when you hover with the mouse pointer over
> > the image.
>
> > Alt has worked as title in earlier versions of MSIE, there can be two reasons
> > why alt don't generate a "pop-up", the most likely is that MS has a bug in
> > the
> > code (which is quite common), or they wanted to follow the standard more
> > closely.
>
> I don't think you _should_ have both. You should have the alt.
> You may have the title if you want the tool-tip. But you are
> perfectly entitled not to want this.
>
> In Witness, John Book asks what is wrong with buttons when trying
> on a suit that Rachel has modified for his size. He asks if there
> is something wrong with buttons, there being no buttons. The
> reply is that no buttons is plain and good. In fact, Amish
> authors are forbidden by their church to have title attributes.
>
> --
> dorayme

You should have both. IE6 displays alt tags as hovering tool tips,
which may not be relevant to most visitors. Title tags are supposed to
be visible. Alts aren't.

[Back to original message]