Re: [Lynx-dev] @longdesc support in Lynx

[Thomas Dickey]

On Wed, 13 Oct 2010, Leif Halvard Silli wrote:

> Lynx  currently has no support for @longdesc.
> @longdesc provides "link to long description (complements alt)".
> See: http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/index/attributes.html
> Example: <img alt="Chart fo the development"
> longdesc="description-of-chart" src=i.jpg >

quoting:

longdesc = uri [CT]
This attribute specifies a link to a long description of the image. This 
description should supplement the short description provided using the alt 
attribute. When the image has an associated image map, this attribute 
should provide information about the image map's contents. This is 
particularly important for server-side image maps. Since an IMG element 
may be within the content of an A element, the user agent's mechanism in 
the user interface for accessing the "longdesc" resource of the former 
must be different than the mechanism for accessing the href resource of 
the latter

So - it's a link, to someplace, and the guideline says it's not to be 
followed as if it were an href.  So that leaves inline display, or some 
special keystroke.

> Any chance that Lynx, with its history as a accessibility web browsers,
> could implement @longdesc support?

How much is it used?  (Looking for examples...)
> I have a concrete proposal for how it should be implemented: The best
> approach seems to me to be to implement it as if the image is an
> image map, where the URL inside @longdesc represents the link of
> the image map.
>
> Thus, practically speaking, I would expect @longdesc to work just like
> the following image map example - which is an example that has been
> crafted solely in order to show one may mimic the @longdesc behavior by
> using a simple image map: [1]
>
> |1] http://malform.no/testing/longdesc/address@hidden
>
> One particular detail: For image maps, the link text is provided via
> the @alt attribute of the <area> element. However, for @longdesc,
> screenreaders such as the well known Jaws, offers a "hard coded" text.
> In Jaws's case, the hard coded text is "Press enter for long
> description". And hence the example [1] provides the same text as link
> text for the image map replication of the @longdesc.
>
> Whether LYnx should do the same, or if Lynx should simply present
> the address of the link as link text, is probably up for debate. Or a
> combination: Offer the a text, in combinatio with the URL. Something
> like this:
>
> Long description: http://example.com/long/desc.html
>
> The latter seems optimal to me.
>
> PS: I have also filed the same bug for Elinks. Text browsers have a
> pretty uniform implementation of image maps. And it would be nice if
> they also had a working, uniform implementation of @longdesc. The
> Elinks bug: http://bugzilla.elinks.cz/show_bug.cgi?id=1104
> --
> leif halvard silli
>
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--
Thomas E. Dickey
http://invisible-island.net
ftp://invisible-island.net