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From: HAA
Date: Wed, Jul 13 2005 3:26AM
Subject: Longdesc not working
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I'm having difficulties in getting the longdesc working in any browser.
Below is an example of what I have got at the moment. Any suggestions as to
what is wrong (or where to go to find out) very much appreciated.

<img src="graphics_other/journal25_silver.jpg" alt=" the 25th Journal"
longdesc="d_files/journal25.htm"> <a href="d_files/journal25.htm"
target="_blank">d</a></div>

Helen

From: Christian Heilmann
Date: Wed, Jul 13 2005 3:34AM
Subject: Re: Longdesc not working
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> I'm having difficulties in getting the longdesc working in any browser.
> Below is an example of what I have got at the moment. Any suggestions as to
> what is wrong (or where to go to find out) very much appreciated.
>
> <img src="graphics_other/journal25_silver.jpg" alt=" the 25th Journal"
> longdesc="d_files/journal25.htm"> <a href="d_files/journal25.htm"
> target="_blank">d</a></div>

Longdesc is not supported by most of the current browsers. It is by
assistive technology though. You are doing the right thing, although
the D link is considered by some to be superfluous.

What do you have in journal25? Longdesc is only needed if the image
has a lot of complex data, like a graph, for normal images it might be
more usable for everyone to have a caption instead underneath the
image.

http://www.webaim.org/techniques/images/6


--
Chris Heilmann
Blog: http://www.wait-till-i.com
Writing: http://icant.co.uk/
Binaries: http://www.onlinetools.org/

From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Wed, Jul 13 2005 4:32AM
Subject: Re: Longdesc not working
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On Wed, 13 Jul 2005, Christian Heilmann wrote:

>> <img src="graphics_other/journal25_silver.jpg" alt=" the 25th Journal"
>> longdesc="d_files/journal25.htm"> <a href="d_files/journal25.htm"
>> target="_blank">d</a></div>
>
> Longdesc is not supported by most of the current browsers.

The longdesc attribute is basically just a theoretical idea (and a wrong
one at that) that never caught fire.

> You are doing the right thing, although
> the D link is considered by some to be superfluous.

I beg to differ. The longdesc attribute is useless, and the D link is
worse than useless: it is an enigma to anyone who is not acquainted with
this piece of "accessibility" jargon and hacking - that means a few
billions of people. Whether the alt attribute is adequate cannot be
decided, but considering the fact that it is particularly needed by
visually impaired people and the fact that speech synthesis is not very
advanced these days, I would prefer="the twenty-fifth Journal".

> What do you have in journal25?

That's surely an important question. So is the question why the image is
there. Assuming that the visitor does not see the image, and may not have
any way of looking at it, does he need some alternate content? If, for
example, it is just an illustration that shows the cover of a Journal in
the context of discussing the journal, and that context has been presented
in the text, then surely alt="" is adequate and anything else is a
distraction. If it contains some text (headlines etc.), then _they_ should
appear in the alt attribute, if that text is relevant and the image is the
only element that contains it.

> Longdesc is only needed if the image
> has a lot of complex data,

Longdesc is never needed and never helps in WWW terms.

Instead, include a normal link to a document that explains the
information content without images, if needed; and make the link
text as short as possible, but not shorter - "D" surely won't do.

--
Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Wed, Jul 13 2005 6:29AM
Subject: Re: Longdesc not working
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Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

> The longdesc attribute is basically just a theoretical idea (and a wrong
> one at that) that never caught fire.

Although I find the attribute quite useless, it's still worth mentioning
though that screenreaders such as JAWS take advantage of it and allow
the user access to the linked long description when the focus reaches
said image.

--
Patrick H. Lauke
___________
re

From: Robinson, Norman B - Washington, DC
Date: Wed, Jul 13 2005 6:29AM
Subject: RE: Longdesc not working
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In case it is of use to you, there are add-ons to the browser that will
allow you to view the longdesc without resorting to code reviews:

https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?application=firefox&v
ersion=1.0&os=Windows&id=273 for Firefox
http://www.hackcraft.net/longdesclink/default.asp for Internet Explorer

That said, although we do use longdesc here, and more importantly the
information can be accessed using a screen reader, I find it to be more
useful to simply link to a detailed description of the complex visual
data. The complex image gets a link to it's own web page describing the
content.

Regards,

Norman

From: HAA
Date: Wed, Jul 13 2005 6:37AM
Subject: RE: Longdesc not working
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The link goes to a page which describes the image, which can be brief or
long, depending on what the image is.

At 13:29 13/07/2005, Robinson, Norman B - Washington, DC wrote:

>In case it is of use to you, there are add-ons to the browser that will
>allow you to view the longdesc without resorting to code reviews:
>
>https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?application=firefox&v
>ersion=1.0&os=Windows&id=273 for Firefox
>http://www.hackcraft.net/longdesclink/default.asp for Internet Explorer
>
>That said, although we do use longdesc here, and more importantly the
>information can be accessed using a screen reader, I find it to be more
>useful to simply link to a detailed description of the complex visual
>data. The complex image gets a link to it's own web page describing the
>content.
>
>Regards,
>
>Norman
>
>
>

From: HAA
Date: Wed, Jul 13 2005 7:38AM
Subject: RE: Longdesc not working
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Is there any prefered format to the files with the descriptions in?

At 13:38 13/07/2005, HAA wrote:
>The link goes to a page which describes the image, which can be brief or
>long, depending on what the image is.
>
>At 13:29 13/07/2005, Robinson, Norman B - Washington, DC wrote:
>
>>In case it is of use to you, there are add-ons to the browser that will
>>allow you to view the longdesc without resorting to code reviews:
>>
>>https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?application=firefox&v
>>ersion=1.0&os=Windows&id=273 for Firefox
>>http://www.hackcraft.net/longdesclink/default.asp for Internet Explorer
>>
>>That said, although we do use longdesc here, and more importantly the
>>information can be accessed using a screen reader, I find it to be more
>>useful to simply link to a detailed description of the complex visual
>>data. The complex image gets a link to it's own web page describing the
>>content.
>>
>>Regards,
>>
>>Norman
>>
>>
>>

From: Tim Beadle
Date: Wed, Jul 13 2005 7:44AM
Subject: Re: Longdesc not working
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On 7/13/05, HAA < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Is there any prefered format to the files with the descriptions in?

Surely they're just HTML pages?

Tim

From: Robinson, Norman B - Washington, DC
Date: Wed, Jul 13 2005 8:11AM
Subject: RE: Longdesc not working
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HAA asked on July 13th "Is there any preferred format to the files with
the descriptions in?".

Perhaps an example would help. I have a link to our AS-508-A, Section
508 Technical Reference Guide section on long descriptions:
http://www.usps.com/cpim/ftp/hand/as508a/508a_c6.html#508hdr13

Regards,

Norman Robinson