Fun_People Archive
17 Feb
Fighting the good fight.

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 100 11:55:41 -0800
To: Fun_People
Precedence: bulk
Subject: Fighting the good fight.

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Forwarded-by: Nev Dull <nev@bostic.com>
Forwarded-by: "B. W. Fitzpatrick" <fitz@red-bean.com>

http://www.jwz.org [Jamie Zawinski's page.]

<!-- Greetings, Lynx users.  There is a reason this page doesn't use ALT tags
     on the images.  The reason is that the bozos responsible for both MSIE
     and Netscape Confusicator 4.0 decided that they would display the ALT
     tags of images every time you move the mouse over them -- even if the
     images are loaded, and even if they are not links.  The ALT attribute
     to the IMG tag is supposed to be used *instead of* the image, not *in
     addition to* the image.

     This looks absolutely terrible, so I don't use ALT tags any more in
     self-defense.

     If they wanted to implemented tooltips, they should have used the TITLE
     attribute to the A tag.  That's in the HTML 1.2 spec and everything.

     I had to decide between making this page look good for the vast majority
     of viewers, or making it be readable by the miniscule minority of you
     stuck in the 70s.  Those of you in the retro contingent lost.  Sorry.
 -->

[There's a solution (of sorts) in having the browsers use ALT only if
 there's no TITLE attribute.  It's bad enough that the Lynx users lose
 out, but there are people with vision problems who use a voice synth
 to "read" the page...  -psl]
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