Last modified: 2006-12-22 20:31:54 UTC

Wikimedia Bugzilla is closed!

Wikimedia migrated from Bugzilla to Phabricator. Bug reports are handled in Wikimedia Phabricator.
This static website is read-only and for historical purposes. It is not possible to log in and except for displaying bug reports and their history, links might be broken. See T2371, the corresponding Phabricator task for complete and up-to-date bug report information.
Bug 371 - Image enlargement icon should have alt="", not alt="Enlarge"
Image enlargement icon should have alt="", not alt="Enlarge"
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: MediaWiki
Classification: Unclassified
Parser (Other open bugs)
unspecified
All All
: Normal normal with 1 vote (vote)
: ---
Assigned To: Nobody - You can work on this!
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sandbo...
: patch, patch-need-review
Depends on:
Blocks: 367
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2004-09-03 13:49 UTC by Matthew "mpt" Thomas
Modified: 2006-12-22 20:31 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:
Web browser: ---
Mobile Platform: ---
Assignee Huggle Beta Tester: ---


Attachments
Lynx in normal mode (<a href="foo"><img alt=""></a> is hidden) (42.65 KB, image/png)
2004-09-11 08:28 UTC, Matthew "mpt" Thomas
Details
Lynx in image_links mode (<a href="foo"><img alt=""></a> displays links both to the link and to the image) (45.92 KB, image/png)
2004-09-11 08:30 UTC, Matthew "mpt" Thomas
Details
Patch (624 bytes, patch)
2006-07-31 02:23 UTC, Aryeh Gregor (not reading bugmail, please e-mail directly)
Details

Description Matthew "mpt" Thomas 2004-09-03 13:49:37 UTC
The auto-generated enlargement icon has alt="Enlarge". This 
is needlessly aggravating; if I can't view images, a link 
to a larger version of an image is completely useless. So 
the icon should have alt="", to hide the link completely in 
text-only situations.

(Actually, I can think of one case where a text-only reader 
*might* want to see an image page: a Wikipedia admin using 
Lynx may still want access to the history page for an 
image, in order to investigate vandalism. But that is an 
extreme exception, not the rule, and should not sully the 
default text-only presentation of enlargable images.)
Comment 1 Antoine "hashar" Musso (WMF) 2004-09-03 14:33:11 UTC
99% of users have image enable browser, the tip provide some help.

For the 1% that use text browser, the "enlarge" link provide a direct link to
the image for easier saving.
Comment 2 Brion Vibber 2004-09-03 16:12:10 UTC
For image-enabled browsers, the "Enable" text belongs in the title attribute, not the alt text.
Comment 3 Michael Zajac 2004-09-09 23:38:46 UTC
Don't assume that people who can't see the image don't want access to it; they could turn on image display for worthwhile 
images, download it, or email it.  So there should still be access to the enlarged image.

On the other hand, the image thumbnail already links to the enlargement, so the "enlarge" link is redundant.  We have to 
links on the page with different text, leading to the same URL -- potentially confusing.  

It would be slightly more elegant if the thumbnail alt text was something like "<Image description here> [follow link to 
enlarge]", and enlarge button alt text was blank "".
Comment 4 Matthew "mpt" Thomas 2004-09-11 08:25:30 UTC
> So there should still be access to the enlarged image.

Yes, but since that's only needed rarely, it's something 
that should be -- and is -- offered by the browser rather 
than MediaWiki. For example, in Lynx typing "*" shows the 
images, and links consisting only of images, with alt="". 
So there's no reason not to use alt="" when appropriate.

> if the thumbnail alt text was something like "<Image
> description here> [follow link to enlarge]"

Saying "follow link to enlarge" doesn't make any sense 
for someone who can never see images. (And alt text 
shouldn't contain descriptions, but that's bug 368.)
Comment 5 Matthew "mpt" Thomas 2004-09-11 08:28:04 UTC
Created attachment 31 [details]
Lynx in normal mode (<a href="foo"><img alt=""></a> is hidden)
Comment 6 Matthew "mpt" Thomas 2004-09-11 08:30:30 UTC
Created attachment 32 [details]
Lynx in image_links mode (<a href="foo"><img alt=""></a> displays links both to the link and to the image)
Comment 7 Rowan Collins [IMSoP] 2004-10-03 17:50:13 UTC
(In reply to comment #3)
> On the other hand, the image thumbnail already links to the enlargement, so
the "enlarge" link is redundant.  We have to 
> links on the page with different text, leading to the same URL -- potentially
confusing.  

Note that this will not necessarily be the case once bug 539 is finished: you
will be able to choose the target for the image itself, but the thumbnail code
will still produce an "enlarge" icon, which will then be the only link to the
image description page.
Comment 8 Duncan Harris 2005-09-22 18:18:33 UTC
To the contrary, within WAI guidelines it is *essential* that each and every image 
has alternative text.

From http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT-TECHS/#tech-text-equivalent :

1.1 Provide a text equivalent for every non-text element (e.g., 
via "alt", "longdesc", or in element content). This includes: images, graphical 
representations of text (including symbols), image map regions, animations (e.g., 
animated GIFs), applets and programmatic objects, ASCII art, frames, scripts, 
images used as list bullets, spacers, graphical buttons, sounds (played with or 
without user interaction), stand-alone audio files, audio tracks of video, and 
video. [Priority 1] (Checkpoint 1.1) 

Priority 1 btw means top priority, i.e. we must provide alt text.
Comment 9 Matthew "mpt" Thomas 2005-09-24 19:38:20 UTC
No, the WAI guidelines do not say that each 
and every image should have alternative text: 
they say (as shown in the text you quoted) 
that each and every image should have a text 
equivalent. alt="" is the most appropriate 
text equivalent for some images, as shown in 
both the HTML specification <http://
www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/
objects.html#h-13.8> and the WAI WCAGs <http:
//www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-CORE-TECHS/#text-
equivalent>. (When they say "Text equivalents 
must be provided for ... invisible images 
used to lay out a page", they obviously don't 
mean alt="[invisible image used to lay out 
the page]", they mean alt="".)

Again from the WCAGs: "A good test to 
determine if a text equivalent is useful is 
to imagine reading the document aloud over 
the telephone. What would you say upon 
encountering this image to make the page 
comprehensible to the listener?" For a link 
to enlarge an image, the correct answer is "I 
wouldn't mention it at all". If you did 
mention it at all, you would be wasting the 
listener's time, because you can't enlarge 
images over the phone. (Or on the radio. Or 
in a terminal window.)
Comment 10 Aryeh Gregor (not reading bugmail, please e-mail directly) 2006-07-31 02:23:22 UTC
Created attachment 2187 [details]
Patch

Patch removes alt text.  "Enlarge" remains as title (in <a> parent element).
Comment 11 Aryeh Gregor (not reading bugmail, please e-mail directly) 2006-12-22 20:31:54 UTC
Applied in r18502.

Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.


Navigation
Links