On Tue, 31 Jul 2012 14:03:02 +0200, Steve Faulkner
<faulkner.st...@gmail.com> wrote:
title has differing semantics to alt. In situations where alt it not
present on an img but title is, in webkit based browsers the title
attribute content is displayed on mouse hover and is also displayed in
place of the image when images are disabled or not available. This
implementation appears to contradict the must requirement in the spec.
User agents must not present the contents of the alt attribute in the
same
way as content of the title attribute.
As there is no way visual distinction between title content being
displayed
and of alt content in this case.
To be very clear, you agree with the spec, think that WebKit is wrong and
would not offer any applause if Opera were to use the title attribute to
replace images when images are disabled and there is no alt attribute?
you wrote:
but I'm confused -- is falling back to title a Good Thing that people
want
browsers to implement, or is it just a quirk that some legacy browser
had?
Given that there is a semantic distinction in the spec between what alt
content is and what title content is and a swathe of normative
requirements/advice based on this distinction it would appear unwise to
promote the use of title as fallback without providing normative
requirements on provision of a method to distinguish between the two.
*Note:* in terms of the accessible name calculation for an img element,
if
the image does not have aria-label or an aria-labelledby or an alt
attribute, but does have a title attribute, then the title attribute is
used as the accessible name. From an accessibility API perspective, no
distinction is indicated as to the source of the accessible name (apart
from in the Mac AX API).
The last point is another reason why making the title attribute on images
(without alt) conforming is that the semantics, for all users, are
ambiguous.
Yes, the semantic difference is clear. What I wanted to add to this
discussion is confirmation that the title attribute is inaccessibly to
mobile browser users and likely to remain so. I don't know what
conclusions to draw or what the spec should say, but to me it seems unwise
to use the title attribute at all...
--
Philip Jägenstedt
Core Developer
Opera Software
