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Thread: change of language inside an text equivalent

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From: zara
Date: Mon, Mar 07 2005 7:13PM
Subject: change of language inside an text equivalent
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Hi,

Is there any way of indicating a change of language inside a text equivalent
?

In this case, we are referring to a logo for which the majority of the text
equivalent is in French but certain words need to be pronounced in English
(such as the name of an organisation for which there is no official French
translation). For example :

<img src="/20050611.jpg" alt="photo du si

From: John Foliot - WATS.ca
Date: Mon, Mar 07 2005 7:27PM
Subject: Re: change of language inside an text equivalent
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zara wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Is there any way of indicating a change of language inside a text
> equivalent ?
>
>
> <img src="/20050611.jpg" alt="photo du si

From: John Foliot - WATS.ca
Date: Mon, Mar 07 2005 7:27PM
Subject: Re: change of language inside an text equivalent
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zara wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Is there any way of indicating a change of language inside a text
> equivalent ?
>
>
> <img src="/20050611.jpg" alt="photo du si

From: zara
Date: Mon, Mar 07 2005 7:42PM
Subject: Re: change of language inside an text equivalent
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Hi John,

> How about:
>
> <br
> />Photo
> du si&eacute;ge social de la Montreal Thieves
> Guild

I had thought of using span but was told that I could not insert it into the
attribute of another tag... (rough translation, I hope I am clear)


> Here we have directly associated a text caption to the photo by providing
> the text directly to the page. The only "downside" is that from a design
> perspective, the text shows on the page. But is that "wrong"? Some would
> argue that a 'caption' such as you are embedding in the alt text should be
> made available to all web users - why keep it reserved for just A.T. or
> those who do not have images displayed?

So, if I understand you correctly, it will be present on the page and not
only in the alt text ?


> There is no valid method of declaring multiple languages in the ALT
> attribute.

Well, that is certainly something to think about...


Catherine



--
Catherine Roy
www.w3qc.org
www.communautique.qc.ca
http://perso.b2b2c.ca/zara

From: John Foliot - WATS.ca
Date: Mon, Mar 07 2005 10:13PM
Subject: Re: change of language inside an text equivalent
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zara wrote:
>
> I had thought of using span but was told that I could not
> insert it into the
> attribute of another tag... (rough translation, I hope I am clear)

No, this is correct, you could not insert the inside of the alt="";
this is invalid code.

>
> So, if I understand you correctly, it will be present on the
> page and not
> only in the alt text ?

Correct. Instead of using the alt attribute (which I left at alt=""), I
have suggested moving the alternative text outside of the actual image
element and display it as actual screen text. (The alt text is left blank,
or rather null, so that we don't have redundantly redundant text "read out"
by screen readers.) I wrapped a around it to keep the two items
"grouped".

The WCAG does not specifically say that an image's alternative text *MUST*
be in the alt attribute, only that it can be. In fact it says:

"Provide a text equivalent for every non-text element (e.g., via
"alt", "longdesc", or in element content)." The techniques section further
elaborates: "Use "alt" for the IMG, INPUT, and APPLET elements, or provide a
text equivalent in the content of the OBJECT and APPLET elements."

....and so, I am suggesting that having the text and image enclosed within
the a) creates the association, b) provides the "equivalency", but c)
also neatly addresses you language problem. I suppose in theory you could
(should) use the tag (which would be semantically correct and also
valid in XHTML strict), but it might not produce even results in legacy
browsers:




Photo du
si&eacute;ge social de la Montreal Thieves Guild




>
>
>> There is no valid method of declaring multiple languages in the ALT
>> attribute.
>
> Well, that is certainly something to think about...
>

Cheers!

JF
--
John Foliot = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Web Accessibility Specialist / Co-founder of WATS.ca
Web Accessibility Testing and Services
http://www.wats.ca 1.866.932.4878 (North America)

From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Mon, Mar 07 2005 11:55PM
Subject: Re: change of language inside an text equivalent
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On Mon, 7 Mar 2005, zara wrote:

> Is there any way of indicating a change of language inside a text equivalent
> ?

The usual answer is "no", but in fact there's a theoretical way (which we
should ignore) and a trick (which we might deploy), see
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/html/alt.html#lang-chg

> <img src="/20050611.jpg" alt="photo du si