According to Anthony E.:
> alt is not a required attribute for img tag in html,
> so if one doesn't want to use it, they can simply
> leave it out...however, this only works if coded by
> hand in a plain text editor. The problem, in my case,
> arose from homesite, which automatically sticks and
> empty alt="" attribute for img tags. I have since
> removed all the alt="" tags, which removed the
> recurring "true" in results.
>
> I can see it as a bit cumbersome to have to do this
> across all x/html files, especially on large sites.
>
> I think a htdig.conf parameter for disabling alt tags
> in indexing would be ideal.
You're missing my point. htdig does not have problem with tags like
<img alt="" src="img.gif">
nor
<img src="img.gif">
It's only when you have a tag like
<img alt src="img.gif">
where the alt is minimized, i.e. no ="value" or ="" after the word alt,
that the problem occurs. This is because a minimized attribute implies
a boolean value to that attribute, so the attribute parser in htdig
sets the attribute to "true", to indicate it as an attribute that's
set in the tag.
The reason htdig parses alt text in img tags should be obvious. If you
have an image that contains text, that text is not displayed if your
browser doesn't show the image. The whole point of the alt attribute
is to provide a text alternative, e.g.:
<img alt="The University of Manitoba" src="UofMlogo.gif">
Because htdig is a non-graphical web client, it uses the alt text as
it should. If your HTML generator automatically sticks alt attributes
with no value definition, rather than a proper empty string definition,
i.e. alt="", then I'd say it's your HTML generator that's buggy.
If you can demonstrate that htdig actually inserts the word "true" in
the index even when you have <img alt="" ...> (as opposed to
<img alt ...> as you reported in your earlier message about 2 weeks
ago), then I'd agree there's a problem. However, it's certainly not
happening on my system, as I use alt="" quite heavily here.
--
Gilles R. Detillieux E-mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Spinal Cord Research Centre WWW: http://www.scrc.umanitoba.ca/~grdetil
Dept. Physiology, U. of Manitoba Phone: (204)789-3766
Winnipeg, MB R3E 3J7 (Canada) Fax: (204)789-3930
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