Re: LYNX-DEV improving on [IMAGE]

[Foteos Macrides]

address@hidden (Philip Webb) wrote:
>970604 Robert Bonomi wrote: 
>> I'd like to propose that this toggle display things, not as  "[IMAGE]",
>> but as "[{name}]", where "{name}" is the 'least significant component'
>> of the fully-qualified pathname of the image.
>> e.g. "[CORPINFO.GIF]"  for <IMG=/disk2/home/www/images/corpinfo.gif>.
>> 
>> Rationale:  _Most_ of the time, there *is* _some_ 'intelligence' transmitted
>> by the -name- of the image.  Nowhere near as much as a 'proper' ALT= string,
>> of course.  Worst-case, the name is meaningless -- e.g., they just serial-
>> numbered the images.  However, this scenario is _no_worse_ than the present
>> one, where 'image' conveys absolutely -nothing- about the content.
>> 
>> So, at worse, this is no worse than the present [IMAGE], and in all other 
>> cases, it is superior.
>
>an excellent idea, if it's easy to program.

        It's easy to program, but consider this.

        If you set advanced mode, the URLs for links, including those for
binaries when you've toggled on creation of links for them, are displayed
in the statusline, so you would see corpinfo.gif there.  The pseudo-ALTs
for such links are not only "[IMAGE]", but could instead be "[INLINE]",
"[FIGURE]", "[OVERLAY]", "[APPLET]", "[BGSOUND]", "[EMBED]", "(OBJECT)",
or "(IMAGE)" depending on the type of binary and markup with which it is
associated, and this information would be lost for the "benefit" of using
the filename, which you could see in the statusline without losing that
additional information.  Also, when you insert such psuedo-ALTs, you
distort the intended formatting, and the filename could be longer than
the informational pseudo-ALT, causing greater distortion.

        All things considered, this oft' expressed idea might not be
execellent. :) :)

                                Fote

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 Foteos Macrides            Worcester Foundation for Biomedical Research
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