[html4all] alt Flickr and iPhoto/dot Mac

[Gregory J. Rosmaita]

aloha, rob!

here are 2 less-than-fully cogent thoughts from my original comments 
on action 54 -- if you convert them from gregorian to burnsian, i'm 
sure that my points will make a hell of a lot more sense <wink>:

1. a meta-comment on providing alt and a long descriptor (best practice)

for ultimate fallback purposes, it should be suggested that the 
descriptor text be included in the code which contains the image -- 
just as the server side software at my.opera.com is able to pull out 
all of the meta-data stamped on the photographs taken by a friend 
(such as, camera make, shutter speed, etc. 
http://my.opera.com/oedipus/albums/show.dml?id=347539) -- when someone 
uses clip art (or, when an authoring tool provides clip art), the 
descriptors should already be part of the image file, no matter what 
its format -- just as one can modify, change and/or reorder the meta- 
information on a MP3 file, so should authoring tools encourage authors 
to (or enable authors to), when they fill in the ALT, LEGEND and 
LongDescriptor fields when adding an image; optimally, the authoring 
tool would pre-populate the fields with the meta-information contained 
in the image, and then modify it in accordance with what the author 
decides to put in the ALT, LEGEND and LongDescriptor fields); 

2. for graphical representations of mathematics, the best practice 
(which needs to migrate to WCAG2) is to include in the image the 
mathematical expression in either TeX and/or MathML, so that it is 
available to a MathML renderer or a TeX to MathML converter (consult: 
http://www.dessci.com) -- this overcomes the problem of "no rich text or 
markup in ALT", as ALT defined in ASCII for mathematical equations tends 
to be EXTREMELY poor and/or insufficient; 

oh, and if you haven't checked out matt may's "alt the flickr defense",
it makes for some interesting reading:

http://www.bestkungfu.com/archive/date/2008/05/alt-and-the-flickr-defense

more soon, gregory.
------------------------------------------------------------
The more things are forbidden, the more popular they become.
                                               -- Mark Twain
------------------------------------------------------------
Gregory J. Rosmaita: oedipus at hicom.net
     Camera Obscura: http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/
        Oedipus' Online Complex: http://my.opera.com/oedipus
------------------------------------------------------------