Alt attribute I understand. Title/summary attributes - used for what?

[bissatch@yahoo.co.uk]

Hi,

I fully understand the purpose of an alt attribute within a <img> tag
but why would you use a title or summary attribute within, for example,
a <p> tag. I have read books recommending that I use them but why? Does
this enhance accessibility? Please provide reasons why one would want
to use these? Thanks

Burnsy

[David Dorward]

Re: Alt attribute I understand. Title/summary attributes - used for what?

bissatch@yahoo. co.uk wrote:
[color=blue]
> I fully understand the purpose of an alt attribute within a <img> tag
> but why would you use a title or summary attribute within, for example,
> a <p> tag.[/color]

Title - to provide advisory information about the paragraph (this is
something you wouldn't do frequently)

Summary - never. The <p> element doesn't have a summary attribute, only
<table> does.

An example of that follows:

<table summary="The bug affects all versions of MSIE/Win except 6 when it is
in standards mode.">
<caption>Versio ns Affected</caption>
<thead>
<tr>
<th scope="col">Ver sion</th>
<th scope="col">Mod e</th>
<th scope="col">Bug appears</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr class="bad"><th scope="row">4 - 5.5</th><td>n/a</td><td>Yes</td></tr>
<tr class="bad"><th scope="row">6</th><td>Quirks</td><td>Yes</td></tr>
<tr class="good"><t h scope="row">6</th><td>Standard s</td><td>No</td></tr>
</tbody>
</table>


--
David Dorward <http://blog.dorward.me .uk/> <http://dorward.me.uk/>
Home is where the ~/.bashrc is

[David Ross]

Re: Alt attribute I understand. Title/summary attributes - used forwhat?

bissatch@yahoo. co.uk wrote:[color=blue]
>
> Hi,
>
> I fully understand the purpose of an alt attribute within a <img> tag
> but why would you use a title or summary attribute within, for example,
> a <p> tag. I have read books recommending that I use them but why? Does
> this enhance accessibility? Please provide reasons why one would want
> to use these? Thanks
>
> Burnsy[/color]

ALT is used to provide a brief text alternative to an image where a
browser does not display images.

TITLE (the attribute, not the <TITLE> element) provides a text
"tooltip" that you want everyone to see, even if images are indeed
displayed. This is usually visible only when your cursor is over
the element that has a TITLE attribute.

For an example where both are used, see my
<URL:http://www.rossde.com/Canada_trip/Vancouver_Montr eal.html>.
Scroll down to any image, and put your cursor over the image. You
should see a "tooltip".

The first image on the right (a thumbnail of a photo of a train
car) has the ALT "our VIA Rail train at Vancouver station",
describing the image. It also has the TITLE "select this image for
photos of the 1st leg of our train trip across Canada", indicating
to users that this is a link. (On the main page of this section of
my Web site, I explain "As you browse these pages, you will see
some thumbnail photos. Each thumbnail is a link to a page of
full-size photos with captions. Just select a thumbnail to see the
photos.")

--

David E. Ross
<URL:http://www.rossde.com/>

I use Mozilla as my Web browser because I want a browser that
complies with Web standards. See <URL:http://www.mozilla.org/>.

[DU]

Re: Alt attribute I understand. Title/summary attributes - used forwhat?

bissatch@yahoo. co.uk wrote:
[color=blue]
> Hi,
>
> I fully understand the purpose of an alt attribute within a <img> tag
> but why would you use a title or summary attribute within, for example,
> a <p> tag. I have read books recommending that I use them but why? Does
> this enhance accessibility? Please provide reasons why one would want
> to use these? Thanks
>
> Burnsy
>[/color]

title attribute should only be used for short messages. The HTML 4.01
spec and WAI mention "short message", "short description", "advisory
title", "informativ e link title" for the title attribute. Since tooltip
will only show for about 6 seconds on modern browsers, I suggest no more
than 128 characters for title attribute.
Title attribute is particularly important and useful for links; WAI and
usability guru J. Nielsen recommends to code the title attribute for
links opening new windows.

* "If your link spawns a new window, or causes another windows to
'pop up' on your display, or move the focus of the system to a new FRAME
or Window, then the nice thing to do is to tell the user that something
like that will happen." World Wide Web Consortium Accessibility
Initiative regarding popups (http://www.w3.org/WAI/wcag-curric/sam77-0.htm)
* "Use link titles to provide users with a preview of where each
link will take them, before they have clicked on it." Ten Good Deeds in
Web Design (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/991003.html), Jakob Nielsen,
October 1999
* Using Link Titles to Help Users Predict Where They Are Going
(http://www.useit.com/alertbox/980111.html), Jakob Nielsen, January 1998

Summary is only used for table elements. Summary helps browsers with
voice support so that summary can be read and spoken out loud.

"The summary of a table is never displayed in visual browsers; it is
exclusively designed for screen readers and speech browsers. It is
exactly what it sounds like: a summary, a longer description than the
caption. It is usually read immediately before the caption."
Dive Into Accessibility
Providing a summary for tables

http://diveintoaccessibility.org/day_20_providing_a_summary_for_tables.html

DU
--
The site said to use Internet Explorer 5 or better... so I switched to
Firefox 1.0.4 :)

[laurence]

Re: Alt attribute I understand. Title/summary attributes - used for what?


"David Ross" <nobody@nowhere .not> wrote in message
news:42A72DAE.C C2F7630@nowhere .not...[color=blue]
> bissatch@yahoo. co.uk wrote:
> David E. Ross
> <URL:http://www.rossde.com/>
>
> I use Mozilla as my Web browser because I want a browser that
> complies with Web standards. See <URL:http://www.mozilla.org/>.[/color]

If Mozilla complied with web standards, it would render my latest magnum
opus, which validates perfectly on W3C, but is turned into a dog's dinner by
your beloved Mozilla. When, oh when will the mozilla partisans wake up.

Narrow, introverted, spotty faced, and socially alienated enough to need to
seek self-esteem from trumpeting their 'moral' superiority because of
supposed (actually, imagined) compliance with standards, the gang at Mozilla
(& Firefox, and, of course Netscape) should bloody wake up too.

Laurence
laurenceh@iprim us.com.au

[C A Upsdell]

Re: Alt attribute I understand. Title/summary attributes - used forwhat?

laurence wrote:[color=blue]
>
> If Mozilla complied with web standards, it would render my latest magnum
> opus, which validates perfectly on W3C, but is turned into a dog's dinner by
> your beloved Mozilla.[/color]

Since Mozilla generally complies with standards better than IE, the
chances are very good that, if Mozilla does not display your pages as
you expect, but IE does, then your pages have faulty code that depends
on an IE defect to work as you expect.

I wonder what IE7 will do with your pages. IE7 will be more compliant
with the standards than IE6 is, so if you have faulty code that happens
to work with IE6, there is no guarantee that your code will work as you
expect with IE7. You may find that your pages are a dog's dinner with
your beloved IE. You'll have to code to standards someday: why wait?

[DU]

Re: Alt attribute I understand. Title/summary attributes - used forwhat?

laurence wrote:[color=blue]
> "David Ross" <nobody@nowhere .not> wrote in message
> news:42A72DAE.C C2F7630@nowhere .not...
>[color=green]
>>bissatch@yaho o.co.uk wrote:
>>David E. Ross
>><URL:http://www.rossde.com/>
>>
>>I use Mozilla as my Web browser because I want a browser that
>>complies with Web standards. See <URL:http://www.mozilla.org/>.[/color]
>
>
> If Mozilla complied with web standards, it would render my latest magnum
> opus,[/color]


No url. No way to examine your claims.

which validates perfectly on W3C,

A valid document just means that your page syntax complies with formal
rules of syntax of HTML 4.01 and that it complies with the DTD. It means
nothing else.

but is turned into a dog's dinner by[color=blue]
> your beloved Mozilla. When, oh when will the mozilla partisans wake up.
>
> Narrow, introverted, spotty faced, and socially alienated enough to need to
> seek self-esteem from trumpeting their 'moral' superiority because of
> supposed (actually, imagined) compliance with standards, the gang at Mozilla
> (& Firefox, and, of course Netscape) should bloody wake up too.
>
> Laurence
> laurenceh@iprim us.com.au[/color]

Different people have created these pages:

Sick of IE 6: Why IE6 is driving me mad when trying to get simple code
to work.

http://www.designdetector.com/archives/04/06/SickOfIE6.php

Developers gripe about IE standards inaction

http://news.com.com/Developers+gripe+about+IE+standards+inaction/2100-1032_3-5088642.html?tag=st.rc.targ_mb

Why You Should Dump Internet Explorer

http://channels.lockergnome.com/news/archives/20040615_why_you_should_dump_internet_explorer.phtml

Windows Explorer vs. the Standards: a primer of standards violations in
Explorer

http://positioniseverything.net/ie-primer.html

Explorer exposed

http://positioniseverything.net/explorer.html

If all these webpages were so wrong, then I would not understand why
MSIE 7 dev. team would be working on fixing these bugs. Btw, they
claimed themselves to have fix the peekaboo and guillotine bugs in IE 7
checkins.

http://blogs.msdn.com/dmassy/archive/2005/4/22.aspx

and the title vs alt spec violation has been reported according in the
IE Standards Support page.

DU
--
The site said to use Internet Explorer 5 or better... so I switched to
Firefox 1.0.4 :)

[Andy Dingley]

Re: Alt attribute I understand. Title/summary attributes - used for what?

On 8 Jun 2005 09:58:29 -0700, bissatch@yahoo. co.uk wrote:
[color=blue]
>I fully understand the purpose of an alt attribute within a <img> tag[/color]

Well colour me cynical, but I bet you don't.

[Andy Dingley]

Re: Alt attribute I understand. Title/summary attributes - used for what?

On Thu, 9 Jun 2005 05:46:39 +1000, "laurence" <laurenceh@ipri mus.com.au>
wrote:
[color=blue]
>If Mozilla complied with web standards, it would render my latest magnum
>opus, which validates perfectly on W3C, but is turned into a dog's dinner by
>your beloved Mozilla.[/color]

Post the URL if you want to be taken seriously.

[laurence]

Re: Alt attribute I understand. Title/summary attributes - used for what?


"C A Upsdell" <""cupsdellXXX\ "@-@-@XXXupsdell.com "> wrote in message
news:yqydnWzZl4 4DxzrfRVn-1w@rogers.com.. .[color=blue]
> laurence wrote:[color=green]
>>
>> If Mozilla complied with web standards, it would render my latest magnum
>> opus, which validates perfectly on W3C, but is turned into a dog's dinner
>> by your beloved Mozilla.[/color]
>
> Since Mozilla generally complies with standards better than IE, the
> chances are very good that, if Mozilla does not display your pages as you
> expect, but IE does, then your pages have faulty code that depends on an
> IE defect to work as you expect.
>
> I wonder what IE7 will do with your pages. IE7 will be more compliant
> with the standards than IE6 is, so if you have faulty code that happens to
> work with IE6, there is no guarantee that your code will work as you
> expect with IE7. You may find that your pages are a dog's dinner with
> your beloved IE. You'll have to code to standards someday: why wait?
>
>[/color]
If you read my post, you'd know my page validates. VALIDATES!!! (It will
proudly display the imprimatur of the W3C !!!) Coding to standards is indeed
a concern of mine. What on God's green earth made you think I don't care
about such things.

[laurence]

Re: Alt attribute I understand. Title/summary attributes - used for what?

> No url. No way to examine your claims.[color=blue]
>[/color]
Not finished yet. Your scepticism that a page could validate, yet bomb on
mozilla, is precisely the target of my enjoyable vitriol.

[Andy Dingley]

Re: Alt attribute I understand. Title/summary attributes - used for what?

On Thu, 9 Jun 2005 08:48:24 +1000, "laurence" <laurenceh@ipri mus.com.au>
wrote:
[color=blue]
>If you read my post, you'd know my page validates.[/color]

No we wouldn't. We'd know you'd _told_ us that it validates. You may be
wrong (many posters are). It's unlikely that you also validated the CSS.
It's very unlikely that your CSS is "appropriat e", given the errors
you're reporting.

Why so shy about telling us the URL ?

[laurence]

Re: Alt attribute I understand. Title/summary attributes - used for what?

[color=blue]
> your beloved IE.[/color]

A wake-up call to one is not an expression of love for the other - Oh,
unless you are a tribalist, or a one-eyed team-color wearing fanatic, which,
since you rush to make this fallacious inference, I deduce you probably are.

[Mark Parnell]

Re: Alt attribute I understand. Title/summary attributes - used for what?

Previously in comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html, laurence
<laurenceh@ipri mus.com.au> said:
[color=blue]
> Not finished yet. Your scepticism that a page could validate, yet bomb on
> mozilla, is precisely the target of my enjoyable vitriol.[/color]

You miss the point that your page can validate without actually
following the specs. Without a URL, it is impossible to judge whether
your page does actually follow the specs, therefore we have to assume
that it is your page that is in error, not Mozilla. Incidentally, what
does it look like in Opera? What about Konqueror/Safari?

In the meantime, you may want to check this out, particularly the 3rd
and 4th points:

"HTML Validation" is just a tool

http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/html/validation.html

--
Mark Parnell

http://www.clarkecomputers.com.au

[C A Upsdell]

Re: Alt attribute I understand. Title/summary attributes - used forwhat?

laurence wrote:[color=blue]
> "C A Upsdell" <""cupsdellXXX\ "@-@-@XXXupsdell.com "> wrote in message
> news:yqydnWzZl4 4DxzrfRVn-1w@rogers.com.. .
>[color=green]
>>laurence wrote:
>>[color=darkred]
>>>If Mozilla complied with web standards, it would render my latest magnum
>>>opus, which validates perfectly on W3C, but is turned into a dog's dinner
>>>by your beloved Mozilla.[/color]
>>
>>Since Mozilla generally complies with standards better than IE, the
>>chances are very good that, if Mozilla does not display your pages as you
>>expect, but IE does, then your pages have faulty code that depends on an
>>IE defect to work as you expect.
>>
>>I wonder what IE7 will do with your pages. IE7 will be more compliant
>>with the standards than IE6 is, so if you have faulty code that happens to
>>work with IE6, there is no guarantee that your code will work as you
>>expect with IE7. You may find that your pages are a dog's dinner with
>>your beloved IE. You'll have to code to standards someday: why wait?
>>
>>[/color]
>
> If you read my post, you'd know my page validates. VALIDATES!!! (It will
> proudly display the imprimatur of the W3C !!!) Coding to standards is indeed
> a concern of mine. What on God's green earth made you think I don't care
> about such things.[/color]

What on God's green earth made you think that I denied that your page
validated? Code can validate and still be faulty, especially when your
understanding of the code is incorrect. Mozilla could be rendering your
code incorrectly, but it is rather more likely that Mozilla is doing
what it should, albeit not what you expect.