[html4all] role attribute keywords for embedded media

[Robert J Burns]

Hi Leif,

Re: role for embedded media [1]

On Aug 22, 2008, at 5:44 PM, Leif Halvard Silli wrote:

> Robert J Burns 2008-08-22 12.57:
>
>>> And in that regard, for what the Wiki page call 'layout or
>>> spacer', how about role="space" instead, to signify images which
>>> represent space, and therefore a space character as fallback?
>
> What did you think about this? You see, I think that many authors
> would not understand what kind  of @alt a role="spacer" or
> role="layout" woud require. Many would think that they should have
> alt="". But my view is that they, for safety, should have alt=" "
> and not alt="".

I'm not sure I recognize the use case for it. I guess you're saying  
some use spacers just as they would a U+0020 space? Or perhaps the way  
XMl/HTML attribute values replace sequences of other whitespace values  
with a single U+0020? I guess that could make sense. To me this would  
just be needed for legacy UA processing. An HTML5 UA could simply read  
the 'space' keyword and then know to replace the image with a U+0020  
space. Though that does suggest we would need a separate 'space'  
keyword and leave 'decorative' for frills and flourishes and the like.  
What about layout v. space or layout v. decorative? Do we still need  
three separate keywords (layout, space, decor)?

Take care,
Rob

[1]: <http://esw.w3.org/topic/PF/XTech/HTML5/RoleAttribute#head-35490581f69f2d7a9157e4ba18f3a20a18956cac