At 1/31/2007 10:15 AM, Dan Dorman wrote:
On 1/31/07, Paul Novitski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
<a href="#">This is a very very ... very long link<span></span></a>
[snipped]
<span></span> is deplorably extraneous in the markup, but at least
it's semantically transparent.
Since a background image in the parent <span> won't render properly in
IE, I'm not sure I understand why a superfluous empty <span> is
semantically superior to a superfluous <img> properly attributed.
This page demonstrates that the background image will render properly
in IE 6 as well as Firefox 2:
http://juniperwebcraft.com/test/test_anchoricon.html
I hear your argument and I can't really disagree with it. I don't
think the empty span is superior. About the highest compliment I can
pay it is that it's semantically neutral or transparent and thus
causes no harm to the semantic content of the document.
But is the link icon content or decor? That's usually how I decide
whether to make images foreground or background. In this particular
case I see the image as cosmetic dressing for the hyperlink and not a
piece of content that's interesting or valuable unto itself. I
imagine the image will be reported by a screen-reader (IFF it's got a
non-blank alt?) but the span won't.
I don't see a strong right or wrong way on this issue. Either way
we're adding about the same amount of extra gunk to the markup merely
to support an image that we really want to depend from the simple
anchor markup itself.
Regards,
Paul
__________________________
Paul Novitski
Juniper Webcraft Ltd.
http://juniperwebcraft.com
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