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Thread: RE: Recommended method for identifying a line in an "Accessible P DF"

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From: julian.rickards
Date: Fri, Feb 21 2003 1:53PM
Subject: RE: Recommended method for identifying a line in an "Accessible P DF"
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<snip>
> Why not give something more descriptive in the alt text for a
> horizontal
> line (or rule), like "Next Section", or better yet "Education Section
> Begins"? Isn't that closer to what our eyes tell us when we
> encounter a
> line visually?
</snip>

In some cases, certainly it is a divider between sections but in our case,
it is purely decorative and the editors won't allow it to be removed. This
is why I was wondering if there was a generally accepted method of
identifying the line as a line. I think it was Joe Clarke who recommended
"horizontal line" which I think is what I will go with.

Jules


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From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Fri, Feb 21 2003 2:28PM
Subject: RE: Recommended method for identifying a line in an "Accessible P DF"
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On Fri, 21 Feb 2003 = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = wrote:

> In some cases, certainly it is a divider between sections but in our case,
> it is purely decorative and the editors won't allow it to be removed.

The editors might need information about better ways of decoration, but a
decorative image per se is rather harmless.

> This is why I was wondering if there was a generally accepted method of
> identifying the line as a line. I think it was Joe Clarke who recommended
> "horizontal line" which I think is what I will go with.

Really? I think I must have missed some arguments in the discussion. Joe
Clark's (sic) _book_ suggests alternatives like alt="--" for decorative
horizontal lines, which isn't a good idea in my opinion but at least has
some arguments to support it (text-only browsers). But what could possibly
be the justification of alt="horizontal line"? It looks foolish on text
only browsers. It sounds foolish (and potentially confusing) in speech.
It's completely pointless when rendered by a graphic browser in no-images
mode. What _could_ be the justification?

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


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