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From: Leslie K. Yoder
Date: Sat, Jul 20 2002 12:25PM
Subject: decorative graphics
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Hi. I'm new here and have a question for you: I recently started working
with the Section 508 Accessibility extension to Dreamweaver (4.01), and I'm
getting "fails" on decorative images with null alt text (alt=""). As far as
I can tell, the tool only recognizes null alt text as legit for spacer (size
1) gifs. Is this the case, or am I missing something obvious?

Do I have to rename these images to include the word "spacer"?

Thanks!
Leslie





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From: John Foliot - bytown internet
Date: Sat, Jul 20 2002 1:13PM
Subject: RE: decorative graphics
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PLEASE DON'T!!

alt="" is perfectly legit. there are going to be times when your judgement
MUST over-rule what a program "tells" you. If the images are truely
spacers, etc., then leave the alt text as: alt=""

Verify your document against a validator, you will see that a SGML parser is
very happy with this, and screen readers such as IBM HPR and JAWS will skip
over these items.

JF

>

From: Leslie K. Yoder
Date: Sat, Jul 20 2002 3:27PM
Subject: Re: decorative graphics
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Thanks, John.

That's always been my impression (that alt="" is perfectly okay for images
without significant content), which is why the Dreamweaver accessibility
tool stumped me. I thought maybe there was some new Sect. 508 rule I didn't
know about.

Thanks again,
Leslie

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Foliot - bytown internet" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
To: < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Sent: Saturday, July 20, 2002 1:07 PM
Subject: RE: decorative graphics


> PLEASE DON'T!!
>
> alt="" is perfectly legit. there are going to be times when your
judgement
> MUST over-rule what a program "tells" you. If the images are truely
> spacers, etc., then leave the alt text as: alt=""
>
> Verify your document against a validator, you will see that a SGML parser
is
> very happy with this, and screen readers such as IBM HPR and JAWS will
skip
> over these items.
>
> JF
>
> >