Netscape and captions

4-16-03, 05:57 PM

Ok ladies and gentlemen, I need some fresh thoughts on this. My middle-aged mind is crapped out on this one. I recently completed a website for a client. As I always do when working on a site I make use of Alt tags to create captions for each image.

Here's the problem. The captions show just fine in IE, but will not show in Netscape 7. Any clues as to why this is so?

4-17-03, 12:01 AM

It seems that the current netscape browsers do not support the alt tag, for what reason, I am not sure. I remember this causing quite a stir when Netscape 6.0 came out and none of the sites using the alt tag would show the alternate text. This is especially a problem when you are trying to make your site section 508 compliant (access for people with disabilities) where alternate text for an image is required. I have played around with replacing the "alt" tag with "title" and it seems to work in both I.E. and the latest versions of Netscape.
Give it a try and let me know if it works for you.
Regards,
Wagner

B&T · 4-17-03, 12:15 AM

alt is the name that is supposed to show when the image cannot be displayed - hence the name alt.

title is the text that is supposed to display when you put your mouse over the image or link.

they are not the same thing.

now some buggy browsers do not treat them correctly. some show the alt name when you do a mouseover - but they are not supposed to do that.

4-17-03, 12:51 PM

B & T, you are correct, the alt image tag was designed to show alternate text when you are using a text base browser, or when you load you browser without images for the sake of speed. I guess I just assumed the goal was to show text on a mouse over in Netscape, in which case you would use the title tag. I loaded a few pages in netscape 7.0 and the latest version of Mozilla with the image loading turned off, and the alternate text did not show up; this appears to be a bug.
clunsford, what are you trying to accomplish? (I guess I should have asked you before I posted a reply). Do you want to text to appear in Netscape when you mouse over? If so, then the title tag works fine. If you are trying to make your site accessable to people with disabilities (section 508), then it does not appear to work in the latest versions of Netscape or Mozilla. As far as I know, the screen reader most people use (jaws) only works in I.E. anyway.
Regards,
Wagner
http://www.toongroup.com

4-17-03, 10:51 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by wagner
I loaded a few pages in netscape 7.0 and the latest version of Mozilla with the image loading turned off, and the alternate text did not show up; this appears to be a bug.

Maybe not. IIRC, when the image size is explicity set (e.g. width="xx" height="xx") it does show a placeholder with the alt text inside. If the width and height are not set, then there's no placeholder (or a 0 x 0 one), and no room for the alt text. Either way, the alt text *is* available as a property of the image object in the DOM, which is how I assume most screen readers would read it...

If all else fails, use Lynx ;-)

CYa...

4-16-03, 05:57 PM	#1
clunsford Posts: n/a	Netscape and captions Ok ladies and gentlemen, I need some fresh thoughts on this. My middle-aged mind is crapped out on this one. I recently completed a website for a client. As I always do when working on a site I make use of Alt tags to create captions for each image. Here's the problem. The captions show just fine in IE, but will not show in Netscape 7. Any clues as to why this is so?

4-17-03, 12:01 AM	#2
wagner Posts: n/a	alt tag in Netscape Browsers It seems that the current netscape browsers do not support the alt tag, for what reason, I am not sure. I remember this causing quite a stir when Netscape 6.0 came out and none of the sites using the alt tag would show the alternate text. This is especially a problem when you are trying to make your site section 508 compliant (access for people with disabilities) where alternate text for an image is required. I have played around with replacing the "alt" tag with "title" and it seems to work in both I.E. and the latest versions of Netscape. Give it a try and let me know if it works for you. Regards, Wagner

4-17-03, 12:51 PM	#4
wagner Posts: n/a	alt image tag in netscape B & T, you are correct, the alt image tag was designed to show alternate text when you are using a text base browser, or when you load you browser without images for the sake of speed. I guess I just assumed the goal was to show text on a mouse over in Netscape, in which case you would use the title tag. I loaded a few pages in netscape 7.0 and the latest version of Mozilla with the image loading turned off, and the alternate text did not show up; this appears to be a bug. clunsford, what are you trying to accomplish? (I guess I should have asked you before I posted a reply). Do you want to text to appear in Netscape when you mouse over? If so, then the title tag works fine. If you are trying to make your site accessable to people with disabilities (section 508), then it does not appear to work in the latest versions of Netscape or Mozilla. As far as I know, the screen reader most people use (jaws) only works in I.E. anyway. Regards, Wagner http://www.toongroup.com

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version Email this Page	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

4-17-03, 12:15 AM	#3
B&T Just tryin' to help Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: along the journey Posts: 8,036 Reputation: 125	alt is the name that is supposed to show when the image cannot be displayed - hence the name alt. title is the text that is supposed to display when you put your mouse over the image or link. they are not the same thing. now some buggy browsers do not treat them correctly. some show the alt name when you do a mouseover - but they are not supposed to do that.