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Re: coding attributes for image links

for

From: Jared Smith
Date: May 6, 2009 8:35AM

On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 2:32 AM, Christophe Strobbe wrote:

> There is actually no evidence in the HTML 4.01 specification that
> displaying the alt attribute as a tooltip is a violation or a
> "misapplication".

True, the spec you provide does not say, "Don't show alt text in a
tooltip." But it does say, "... alternate text to serve as content
when the element cannot be rendered normally" and "For user agents
that cannot display images... this attribute specifies alternate
text." By my (and I think most people's) interpretation of this,
*alternative* text should only be rendered when the image cannot be
rendered.

> I've never seen any arguments that go beyond "the other browsers don't do it".

And considering the general compliance to standards in IE versus "the
other browsers", this should probably be evidence enough that IE is
probably doing it wrong.

Ultimately, it doesn't really matter that much though.

Jared