Stylesheets - Invalid code, was Re: CSS hr noshadow

Author

Invalid code, was Re: CSS hr noshadow

Atanas Boev

2003-12-30, 9:29 am

"Jukka K. Korpela" <jkorpela@cs.tut.fi> wrote in message
news:Xns94611AA219048jkorpelacstutfi@193.229.0.31...

quote:

> "Atanas Boev" <sun-alabala-cho@cs.tut.fi> wrote:
>
> To begin with, it's invalid markup. Why, oh why, do people take the
> trouble of including those funny "/" characters, which do no good, but

Invalid in which standart? (I don't take it offending, of course, I don't
know much HTML, otherwise I wouldn't be asking things in this group) I got
the impression that having space-slash-close_tag is not harming the standart
in any way, maybe I'm wrong?

I don't want to mess my hat with W3C minds, but it at least helps _me_ to
see that there will be no closing tag when I check the source. Looks
somewhat neat to my (humble) style of coding. Actually I was using things
like <hr }> long time ago but when the slash came it was clever idea.

There another point of view. There are some funky devices like nokia 3650
that have xHTML browser. I don't know actually do they need this slash or
not, still my code is far from xhtml, but if it is not harming, why not to
think ahead?

quote:

> omit the alt attributes?

you mean the image? hm... I found myself using alt="" alot. I simply want to
save the visual impaired user from long sentences like "Microsoft Internet
Explorer... Welcome Page... Logo of the University... Horisontal Divider..."
and the first thing to appear to be the main information. In the same sence
a search engine it close to impaired user, it will also consider alt tags,
imagine how this looks in google search.

So, if having alt="" should I use alt at all? Is it necessary of just
recommended?

suncho

Neal

2003-12-30, 3:32 pm

"Atanas Boev" <sun-alabala-cho@cs.tut.fi> wrote in message
news:bsruev$3s3$1@news.cc.tut.fi...

quote:

> you mean the image? hm... I found myself using alt="" alot. I simply want

quote:

> save the visual impaired user from long sentences like "Microsoft Internet
> Explorer... Welcome Page... Logo of the University... Horisontal

Divider..."

Then spare the visually able reader from the same clutter. If the image is
important enough to show to the visually able, it's important enough to
provide alt text so the visually impaired won't wonder what's going on,
thinking they're missing something. And frankly, if you're using a LOT of
images that are not easily given "alt" text, it might be a sign that there
are too many extraneous images cluttering up the page.

quote:

> and the first thing to appear to be the main information. In the same

sence

quote:

> a search engine it close to impaired user, it will also consider alt tags,
> imagine how this looks in google search.

Make it more concise. If you must have a complex header, then design the
layout so you can begin with content and put the header up after.

quote:

> So, if having alt="" should I use alt at all? Is it necessary of just
> recommended?

src and alt are required attributes. Not required but important - height and
width. And consider the longdesc attribute for any complex image.

Jukka K. Korpela

2003-12-30, 7:29 pm

"Atanas Boev" <sun-alabala-cho@cs.tut.fi> wrote:

quote:

> "Jukka K. Korpela" <jkorpela@cs.tut.fi> wrote in message
> news:Xns94611AA219048jkorpelacstutfi@193.229.0.31...
>
> Invalid in which standart?

By HTML specifications ever since HTML 4.0, which made the alt
attribute mandatory.

quote:

> I got the impression that having space-slash-close_tag is
> not harming the standart in any way, maybe I'm wrong?

This is a long story, and really an HTML matter and not CSS, but
briefly, the extra slash is of no use unless you really write XHTML
in _exactly_ correct syntax, and even then, it's of little practical
impact at present.

quote:

>
> you mean the image? hm... I found myself using alt="" alot.

But in this case, there was no alt attribute, which is a different
thing.

quote:

> I simply want to save the visual impaired user from long sentences
> like "Microsoft Internet Explorer... Welcome Page... Logo of the
> University... Horisontal Divider..." and the first thing to appear
> to be the main information.

Well, "Horizontal Divider" would surely be a clueless alt text. But the
university's name would not.

But if you are worried about such issues, you might consider putting
the identifying information _last_ in the HTML source and using CSS to
position it first in the visual appearance. After all, the identifying
information might be the only quick way to find the context of the
page, in situations where the user arrives at the page via a link from
another site or via Google.

quote:

> In the same sence a search engine it
> close to impaired user, it will also consider alt tags, imagine how
> this looks in google search.

The positioning method would help here too. On the other hand, this
really depends on your <title> element too. If it contains full
contextual information, as it ideally should, it gives a good hint to
people who see the entry in Google results. If not - and sometimes you
just can't have enough info there - it might not be too bad if users
see, in Google results, the identifying information. They see the title
prominently, then information like university and lab name, which is
important enough in many cases to give an idea of the type of the page.

The alt text is also relevant on graphic browsers when image loading
has been turned off (e.g. for efficiency) or the browser has not (yet)
got the image. For such purposes, it is useful to consider styling the
img element too, though this won't help on IE for example (since IE
wants to present alt texts in its own fixed, tiny-size poor-quality
way). If you specify
<img class="logo" src="logo.gif" alt="University of Nowhere" />
and use, say,
img.logo { font-family: "Copperplate Gothic Bold";
color: black;
background: yellow; }
then browsers like Mozilla will apply the rule to the presentation of
the alt text when they do not show the image but present the textual
alternative.

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