Alt attribute I understand. Title/summary attributes - used for what?

[bissatch]

Hi,

I fully understand the purpose of an alt attribute within a <img> tag
but why would you use a title or summary attribute within, for example,
a <p> tag. I have read books recommending that I use them but why? Does
this enhance accessibility? Please provide reasons why one would want
to use these? Thanks

Burnsy

[David Dorward]

bi******@yahoo.co.uk wrote:

I fully understand the purpose of an alt attribute within a <img> tag
but why would you use a title or summary attribute within, for example,
a <p> tag.

Title - to provide advisory information about the paragraph (this is
something you wouldn't do frequently)

Summary - never. The <p> element doesn't have a summary attribute, only
<table> does.

An example of that follows:

<table summary="The bug affects all versions of MSIE/Win except 6 when it is
in standards mode.">
<caption>Versions Affected</caption>
<thead>
<tr>
<th scope="col">Version</th>
<th scope="col">Mode</th>
<th scope="col">Bug appears</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr class="bad"><th scope="row">4 - 5.5</th><td>n/a</td><td>Yes</td></tr>
<tr class="bad"><th scope="row">6</th><td>Quirks</td><td>Yes</td></tr>
<tr class="good"><th scope="row">6</th><td>Standards</td><td>No</td></tr>
</tbody>
</table>
--
David Dorward <http://blog.dorward.me.uk/> <http://dorward.me.uk/>
Home is where the ~/.bashrc is

[David Ross]

bi******@yahoo.co.uk wrote:

Hi,

I fully understand the purpose of an alt attribute within a <img> tag
but why would you use a title or summary attribute within, for example,
a <p> tag. I have read books recommending that I use them but why? Does
this enhance accessibility? Please provide reasons why one would want
to use these? Thanks

Burnsy

ALT is used to provide a brief text alternative to an image where a
browser does not display images.

TITLE (the attribute, not the <TITLE> element) provides a text
"tooltip" that you want everyone to see, even if images are indeed
displayed. This is usually visible only when your cursor is over
the element that has a TITLE attribute.

For an example where both are used, see my
<URL:http://www.rossde.com/Canada_trip/Vancouver_Montreal.html>.
Scroll down to any image, and put your cursor over the image. You
should see a "tooltip".

The first image on the right (a thumbnail of a photo of a train
car) has the ALT "our VIA Rail train at Vancouver station",
describing the image. It also has the TITLE "select this image for
photos of the 1st leg of our train trip across Canada", indicating
to users that this is a link. (On the main page of this section of
my Web site, I explain "As you browse these pages, you will see
some thumbnail photos. Each thumbnail is a link to a page of
full-size photos with captions. Just select a thumbnail to see the
photos.")

--

David E. Ross
<URL:http://www.rossde.com/>

I use Mozilla as my Web browser because I want a browser that
complies with Web standards. See <URL:http://www.mozilla.org/>.

[DU]

bi******@yahoo.co.uk wrote:

Hi,

I fully understand the purpose of an alt attribute within a <img> tag
but why would you use a title or summary attribute within, for example,
a <p> tag. I have read books recommending that I use them but why? Does
this enhance accessibility? Please provide reasons why one would want
to use these? Thanks

Burnsy

title attribute should only be used for short messages. The HTML 4.01
spec and WAI mention "short message", "short description", "advisory
title", "informative link title" for the title attribute. Since tooltip
will only show for about 6 seconds on modern browsers, I suggest no more
than 128 characters for title attribute.
Title attribute is particularly important and useful for links; WAI and
usability guru J. Nielsen recommends to code the title attribute for
links opening new windows.

* "If your link spawns a new window, or causes another windows to
'pop up' on your display, or move the focus of the system to a new FRAME
or Window, then the nice thing to do is to tell the user that something
like that will happen." World Wide Web Consortium Accessibility
Initiative regarding popups (http://www.w3.org/WAI/wcag-curric/sam77-0.htm)
* "Use link titles to provide users with a preview of where each
link will take them, before they have clicked on it." Ten Good Deeds in
Web Design (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/991003.html), Jakob Nielsen,
October 1999
* Using Link Titles to Help Users Predict Where They Are Going
(http://www.useit.com/alertbox/980111.html), Jakob Nielsen, January 1998

Summary is only used for table elements. Summary helps browsers with
voice support so that summary can be read and spoken out loud.

"The summary of a table is never displayed in visual browsers; it is
exclusively designed for screen readers and speech browsers. It is
exactly what it sounds like: a summary, a longer description than the
caption. It is usually read immediately before the caption."
Dive Into Accessibility
Providing a summary for tables
http://diveintoaccessibility.org/day...or_tables.html

DU
--
The site said to use Internet Explorer 5 or better... so I switched to
Firefox 1.0.4 :)

[laurence]

"David Ross" <no****@nowhere.not> wrote in message
news:42***************@nowhere.not...

bi******@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
David E. Ross
<URL:http://www.rossde.com/>

I use Mozilla as my Web browser because I want a browser that
complies with Web standards. See <URL:http://www.mozilla.org/>.

If Mozilla complied with web standards, it would render my latest magnum
opus, which validates perfectly on W3C, but is turned into a dog's dinner by
your beloved Mozilla. When, oh when will the mozilla partisans wake up.

Narrow, introverted, spotty faced, and socially alienated enough to need to
seek self-esteem from trumpeting their 'moral' superiority because of
supposed (actually, imagined) compliance with standards, the gang at Mozilla
(& Firefox, and, of course Netscape) should bloody wake up too.

Laurence
la*******@iprimus.com.au

[C A Upsdell]

laurence wrote:

If Mozilla complied with web standards, it would render my latest magnum
opus, which validates perfectly on W3C, but is turned into a dog's dinner by
your beloved Mozilla.

Since Mozilla generally complies with standards better than IE, the
chances are very good that, if Mozilla does not display your pages as
you expect, but IE does, then your pages have faulty code that depends
on an IE defect to work as you expect.

I wonder what IE7 will do with your pages. IE7 will be more compliant
with the standards than IE6 is, so if you have faulty code that happens
to work with IE6, there is no guarantee that your code will work as you
expect with IE7. You may find that your pages are a dog's dinner with
your beloved IE. You'll have to code to standards someday: why wait?

[DU]

laurence wrote:

"David Ross" <no****@nowhere.not> wrote in message
news:42***************@nowhere.not...

bi******@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
David E. Ross
<URL:http://www.rossde.com/>

I use Mozilla as my Web browser because I want a browser that
complies with Web standards. See <URL:http://www.mozilla.org/>.

If Mozilla complied with web standards, it would render my latest magnum
opus,

No url. No way to examine your claims.

which validates perfectly on W3C,

A valid document just means that your page syntax complies with formal
rules of syntax of HTML 4.01 and that it complies with the DTD. It means
nothing else.

but is turned into a dog's dinner by your beloved Mozilla. When, oh when will the mozilla partisans wake up.

Narrow, introverted, spotty faced, and socially alienated enough to need to
seek self-esteem from trumpeting their 'moral' superiority because of
supposed (actually, imagined) compliance with standards, the gang at Mozilla
(& Firefox, and, of course Netscape) should bloody wake up too.

Laurence
la*******@iprimus.com.au

Different people have created these pages:

Sick of IE 6: Why IE6 is driving me mad when trying to get simple code
to work.
http://www.designdetector.com/archiv.../SickOfIE6.php

Developers gripe about IE standards inaction
http://news.com.com/Developers+gripe...=st.rc.targ_mb

Why You Should Dump Internet Explorer
http://channels.lockergnome.com/news...explorer.phtml

Windows Explorer vs. the Standards: a primer of standards violations in
Explorer
http://positioniseverything.net/ie-primer.html

Explorer exposed
http://positioniseverything.net/explorer.html

If all these webpages were so wrong, then I would not understand why
MSIE 7 dev. team would be working on fixing these bugs. Btw, they
claimed themselves to have fix the peekaboo and guillotine bugs in IE 7
checkins.
http://blogs.msdn.com/dmassy/archive/2005/4/22.aspx

and the title vs alt spec violation has been reported according in the
IE Standards Support page.

DU
--
The site said to use Internet Explorer 5 or better... so I switched to
Firefox 1.0.4 :)

[Andy Dingley]

On 8 Jun 2005 09:58:29 -0700, bi******@yahoo.co.uk wrote:

I fully understand the purpose of an alt attribute within a <img> tag

Well colour me cynical, but I bet you don't.

[Andy Dingley]

On Thu, 9 Jun 2005 05:46:39 +1000, "laurence" <la*******@iprimus.com.au>
wrote:

If Mozilla complied with web standards, it would render my latest magnum
opus, which validates perfectly on W3C, but is turned into a dog's dinner by
your beloved Mozilla.

Post the URL if you want to be taken seriously.

[laurence]

"C A Upsdell" <""cupsdellXXX\"@-@[e-mail]"> wrote in message
news:yq********************@rogers.com...

laurence wrote:

If Mozilla complied with web standards, it would render my latest magnum
opus, which validates perfectly on W3C, but is turned into a dog's dinner
by your beloved Mozilla.

Since Mozilla generally complies with standards better than IE, the
chances are very good that, if Mozilla does not display your pages as you
expect, but IE does, then your pages have faulty code that depends on an
IE defect to work as you expect.

I wonder what IE7 will do with your pages. IE7 will be more compliant
with the standards than IE6 is, so if you have faulty code that happens to
work with IE6, there is no guarantee that your code will work as you
expect with IE7. You may find that your pages are a dog's dinner with
your beloved IE. You'll have to code to standards someday: why wait?

If you read my post, you'd know my page validates. VALIDATES!!! (It will
proudly display the imprimatur of the W3C !!!) Coding to standards is indeed
a concern of mine. What on God's green earth made you think I don't care
about such things.

[laurence]

> No url. No way to examine your claims.

Not finished yet. Your scepticism that a page could validate, yet bomb on
mozilla, is precisely the target of my enjoyable vitriol.

[Andy Dingley]

On Thu, 9 Jun 2005 08:48:24 +1000, "laurence" <la*******@iprimus.com.au>
wrote:

If you read my post, you'd know my page validates.

No we wouldn't. We'd know you'd _told_ us that it validates. You may be
wrong (many posters are). It's unlikely that you also validated the CSS.
It's very unlikely that your CSS is "appropriate", given the errors
you're reporting.

Why so shy about telling us the URL ?

[laurence]

your beloved IE.

A wake-up call to one is not an expression of love for the other - Oh,
unless you are a tribalist, or a one-eyed team-color wearing fanatic, which,
since you rush to make this fallacious inference, I deduce you probably are.

[Mark Parnell]

Previously in comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, laurence
<la*******@iprimus.com.au> said:

Not finished yet. Your scepticism that a page could validate, yet bomb on
mozilla, is precisely the target of my enjoyable vitriol.

You miss the point that your page can validate without actually
following the specs. Without a URL, it is impossible to judge whether
your page does actually follow the specs, therefore we have to assume
that it is your page that is in error, not Mozilla. Incidentally, what
does it look like in Opera? What about Konqueror/Safari?

In the meantime, you may want to check this out, particularly the 3rd
and 4th points:

"HTML Validation" is just a tool
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/html/validation.html

--
Mark Parnell
http://www.clarkecomputers.com.au

[C A Upsdell]

laurence wrote:

"C A Upsdell" <""cupsdellXXX\"@-@[e-mail]"> wrote in message
news:yq********************@rogers.com...

laurence wrote:

If Mozilla complied with web standards, it would render my latest magnum
opus, which validates perfectly on W3C, but is turned into a dog's dinner
by your beloved Mozilla.

Since Mozilla generally complies with standards better than IE, the
chances are very good that, if Mozilla does not display your pages as you
expect, but IE does, then your pages have faulty code that depends on an
IE defect to work as you expect.

I wonder what IE7 will do with your pages. IE7 will be more compliant
with the standards than IE6 is, so if you have faulty code that happens to
work with IE6, there is no guarantee that your code will work as you
expect with IE7. You may find that your pages are a dog's dinner with
your beloved IE. You'll have to code to standards someday: why wait?

If you read my post, you'd know my page validates. VALIDATES!!! (It will
proudly display the imprimatur of the W3C !!!) Coding to standards is indeed
a concern of mine. What on God's green earth made you think I don't care
about such things.

What on God's green earth made you think that I denied that your page
validated? Code can validate and still be faulty, especially when your
understanding of the code is incorrect. Mozilla could be rendering your
code incorrectly, but it is rather more likely that Mozilla is doing
what it should, albeit not what you expect.

[Jim Moe]

laurence wrote:

If you read my post, you'd know my page validates. VALIDATES!!!

That only means it is syntactically correct. It is like saying that
because a C program compiles without errors, it ought to run correctly.
There is still the issue of how the code has been used to create your
vision. And whether it runs the gauntlet of browser defects to achieve
uniformity of appearance for all browsers.

--
jmm dash list (at) sohnen-moe (dot) com
(Remove .AXSPAMGN for email)

[DU]

Andy Dingley wrote:

On Thu, 9 Jun 2005 05:46:39 +1000, "laurence" <la*******@iprimus.com.au>
wrote:

If Mozilla complied with web standards, it would render my latest magnum
opus, which validates perfectly on W3C, but is turned into a dog's dinner by
your beloved Mozilla.

Post the URL if you want to be taken seriously.

He's just a troll, I'd say. Normally, a serious post making accusations
or agressive insinuations usually includes an url... otherwise it's a troll.

DU
--
The site said to use Internet Explorer 5 or better... so I switched to
Firefox 1.0.4 :)

[Andreas Prilop]

On 8 Jun 2005 bi******@yahoo.co.uk wrote:

I fully understand the purpose of an alt attribute within a <img> tag
Do you? Please enlighten us!
but why would you use a title or summary attribute within, for example,
a <p> tag.

Here's an example
http://www.unics.uni-hannover.de/nhtcapri/arabic.html6
with lots of TITLE attributes.

--
Everybody expects the German Inquisition.

[Alan J. Flavell]

On Wed, 8 Jun 2005, DU wrote:

Since tooltip will only show for about 6 seconds on modern browsers,
Eh?

Don't confuse the documented purpose of the title attribute with one
specific implementation (possibly on a now-obsolete browser-like
object for a particular OS).

As it happens, the modern browser that I use displays the "tooltip"
indefinitely. (currently, Mozilla 1.7.3 Win32).

While it's useful to get a reality check against what browsers are
currently doing, I'd advise that the chief guideline to use of HTML
constructs should be the specification. That's the only way to get a
level playing field. Those who in the past noticed that the alt
attribute seemed to work in their "browser" in the way that title was
supposed to work, and used the alt attribute wrongly in order to get
the desired effect, had a chance to learn something from the
experience.
I suggest no more than 128 characters for title attribute.

I'd have no argument with that advice, but not because of some
unspecified browser and its timeout on tooltips.

[DU]

Alan J. Flavell wrote:

On Wed, 8 Jun 2005, DU wrote:

Since tooltip will only show for about 6 seconds on modern browsers,

Eh?

Don't confuse the documented purpose of the title attribute with one
specific implementation (possibly on a now-obsolete browser-like
object for a particular OS).

As it happens, the modern browser that I use displays the "tooltip"
indefinitely. (currently, Mozilla 1.7.3 Win32).

Indefinitely? Are you sure? Can you elaborate on how you do that? In
Mozilla 1.7.3, the tooltip only show for ~6 sec.
While it's useful to get a reality check against what browsers are
currently doing, I'd advise that the chief guideline to use of HTML
constructs should be the specification.
The specs is vague and not specific on how the title should get
implemented (tooltip, number of characters to display and for how long)
in visual browsers.

That's the only way to get a level playing field. Those who in the past noticed that the alt
attribute seemed to work in their "browser" in the way that title was
supposed to work, and used the alt attribute wrongly in order to get
the desired effect, had a chance to learn something from the
experience.

I suggest no more than 128 characters for title attribute.

I'd have no argument with that advice, but not because of some
unspecified browser and its timeout on tooltips.

DU
--
The site said to use Internet Explorer 5 or better... so I switched to
Firefox 1.0.4 :)

[Leif K-Brooks]

laurence wrote:

If you read my post, you'd know my page validates. VALIDATES!!! (It will
proudly display the imprimatur of the W3C !!!) Coding to standards is indeed
a concern of mine. What on God's green earth made you think I don't care
about such things.

Wife: I got those potatoes you wanted, honey!

Laurence: I didn't ask for potatoes, I asked for beer!

Wife: What? You said, "Please get me some potatoes from the store." I
heard you.

Laurence: Yes, that's what I said! I was asking for beer!

Wife: Huh? You just agreed that you said potatoes?

Laurence: But there was nothing wrong with the grammar of that sentence,
so you should have have known I wanted beer and not potatoes! I even
asked a grammar teacher!

Wife: Laurence, that's crazy. The grammar of the sentence might have
been fine, but that doesn't mean it was actually asking for beer.

Laurence: But the grammar was fine, so you must be using English wrong
if you didn't know I wanted beer!

Wife: The grammar isn't the issue! It may have been fine, but it was
asking for the wrong thing!

Laurence: But the grammar was fine!

Wife: Er... Laurence, maybe I should call a mental health professional.

[Alan J. Flavell]

On Thu, 9 Jun 2005, DU wrote:

Alan J. Flavell wrote:

As it happens, the modern browser that I use displays the "tooltip"
indefinitely. (currently, Mozilla 1.7.3 Win32).

Indefinitely? Are you sure?

I have to admit you've caught me there. I thought I had tried this
previously, so I only did a quick test, but it seems I was too
impatient. If I'd waited just a bit longer the "tooltip" indeed goes
away, as you said. My apologies for bad information.

While it's useful to get a reality check against what browsers are
currently doing, I'd advise that the chief guideline to use of
HTML constructs should be the specification.

The specs is vague and not specific on how the title should get
implemented (tooltip, number of characters to display and for how
long) in visual browsers.

That's right, that's a browser implementation detail, "Values of the
title attribute may be rendered by user agents in a variety of ways",
whereas "This attribute offers advisory information about the element
for which it is set" is their statement of the principle of the thing.
(7.4.3).

Browser details have changed and may change again, but the underlying
principle is meant to stay reasonably constant. That was my point
here: to be guided by the principle, with a sidelong reality check on
the currently available browsers. I dare to say that stays true even
though I got the facts wrong above...

(There are some suggestions for appropriate use of the title
attribute, in the W3C WAI recommendations, if the HTML spec itself is
found to be too cryptic).

[Mark Parnell]

Previously in comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, DU
<dr*******@hotNOSPAMmail.com> said:

I suggest no more
than 128 characters for title attribute.

The Mozilla family of browsers display less than that anyway - it is
shortened to 100 characters, and the last 3 of those 100 are '...' if
the actual value of the title attribute is more than the 100 characters.
I've never understood this behaviour myself, as there really isn't any
other way to access the remainder of the information.

--
Mark Parnell
http://www.clarkecomputers.com.au

[David Ross]

"Alan J. Flavell" wrote [in part]:

On Wed, 8 Jun 2005, DU wrote:

Since tooltip will only show for about 6 seconds on modern browsers,

Eh?

Don't confuse the documented purpose of the title attribute with one
specific implementation (possibly on a now-obsolete browser-like
object for a particular OS).

As it happens, the modern browser that I use displays the "tooltip"
indefinitely. (currently, Mozilla 1.7.3 Win32).

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511

I get it for only about 6 seconds. If I need to see it longer, I
look at the properties of the element that has the TITLE
attribute.

--

David E. Ross
<URL:http://www.rossde.com/>

I use Mozilla as my Web browser because I want a browser that
complies with Web standards. See <URL:http://www.mozilla.org/>.

[David Ross]

Mark Parnell wrote:

Previously in comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, DU
<dr*******@hotNOSPAMmail.com> said:

I suggest no more
than 128 characters for title attribute.

The Mozilla family of browsers display less than that anyway - it is
shortened to 100 characters, and the last 3 of those 100 are '...' if
the actual value of the title attribute is more than the 100 characters.
I've never understood this behaviour myself, as there really isn't any
other way to access the remainder of the information.

This is Mozilla bug #45375. There seems to be general agreement
that this should be fixed. The problem is deciding how to fix it.

While long TITLE and ALT attribute text can be viewed under Mozilla
in the properties for the element having those attributes, really
long text strings are still a problem as reported in Mozilla bug
#221320. The text strings do not wrap in the Properties window
either.

See
<URL:https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=45375>.
and
<URL:https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=221320>.

--

David E. Ross
<URL:http://www.rossde.com/>

I use Mozilla as my Web browser because I want a browser that
complies with Web standards. See <URL:http://www.mozilla.org/>.

[Guy Macon]

Alan J. Flavell wrote:

DU wrote:

Alan J. Flavell wrote:

As it happens, the modern browser that I use displays the "tooltip"
indefinitely. (currently, Mozilla 1.7.3 Win32).

Indefinitely? Are you sure?

I have to admit you've caught me there. I thought I had tried this
previously, so I only did a quick test, but it seems I was too
impatient. If I'd waited just a bit longer the "tooltip" indeed goes
away, as you said. My apologies for bad information.

You are banned from Usenet until you learn to stop admitting
that you were wrong and start calling people Nazis instead. :)
--
"It should be noted that no ethically-trained software
engineer would ever consent to write a DestroyBaghdad
procedure. Basic professional ethics would instead require
him to write a DestroyCity procedure, to which Baghdad could
be given as a parameter."
-Nathaniel S Borenstein

[Lauri Raittila]

in comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, DU wrote:

Since tooltip
will only show for about 6 seconds on modern browsers, I suggest no more
than 128 characters for title attribute.

In Opera 8.01p1 I am using, they sure last longer than 6 seconds. More
than minute. And they are also shown when keyboard navigating.

--
Lauri Raittila <http://www.iki.fi/lr> <http://www.iki.fi/zwak/fonts>
Utrecht, NL.
Support me, buy Opera:
https://secure.bmtmicro.com/opera/bu...tml?AID=882173

[laurence]

> That only means it is syntactically correct. It is like saying that

because a C program compiles without errors, it ought to run correctly.
False. The analogy is (radically) unsound. Valid markup is valid markup. You
ought to revisit the concepts of an algorithm and a static structure. See if
you can spot the relevant difference.
There is still the issue of how the code has been used to create your
vision.
False. It has been used according to specification.
And whether it runs the gauntlet of browser defects to achieve uniformity
of appearance for all browsers.
I'll paraphrase myself. We'll see if you get it this time: It is precisely
my point that these considerations are just as relevant for the apparently
_sacred_ Mozilla family of browsers as they are for IE.
Generally, it is the sanctimonious & self-righteous silliness of so many of
you lot (not necessarily you, Jim) that is the target of my contempt. Not
only does it not aid in the discussion of web matters generally, it adds an
unnecessarily unpleasant flavour to so much of that discussion.


--
jmm dash list (at) sohnen-moe (dot) com
(Remove .AXSPAMGN for email)

[laurence]

> Wife: I got those potatoes you wanted, honey!

Laurence: I didn't ask for potatoes, I asked for beer!

Wife: What? You said, "Please get me some potatoes from the store." I
heard you.

Laurence: Yes, that's what I said! I was asking for beer!

Wife: Huh? You just agreed that you said potatoes?

Laurence: But there was nothing wrong with the grammar of that sentence,
so you should have have known I wanted beer and not potatoes! I even
asked a grammar teacher!

Wife: Laurence, that's crazy. The grammar of the sentence might have
been fine, but that doesn't mean it was actually asking for beer.

Laurence: But the grammar was fine, so you must be using English wrong
if you didn't know I wanted beer!

Wife: The grammar isn't the issue! It may have been fine, but it was
asking for the wrong thing!

Laurence: But the grammar was fine!

Wife: Er... Laurence, maybe I should call a mental health professional.

Amusing, but begs the question. How about this:

Laurence: Please bring home an X.

Wife: An X? Wadda-ya-mean 'an X'?

Laurence: Oh, ok. I mean, bring home anything at all - an orange... a
shoe... - I know! - a jar of gherkins! No, wait. That's a bit complex, and I
want to test something out. Unnecessary complications ought to be avoided.
We better make it simple, something with which there could be no confusion.
Bring home a single potato. Only, honey - promise me one thing!

Wife: What?

Laurence: Please promise to bring it home inside a bag. No wife of mine is
gonna be seen in the street with a naked potato!

Wife: What!!?!! Are you nuts? A single potato in a bag?

Laurence: Yes please.

Wife: You're sure? Completely sure?

Laurence: Yup.

Wife: One (1) potato, in one (1 )bag. Nothing else?

Laurence: Nope.

Wife: And by 'potato', you mean that tuber vegetable thingy that grows
underground, originally came into western cuisine from the far east, and
gets chopped up and fried to make 'french fries'?

Laurence: Yup. I think all that's correct. Sounds right, I guess. You know,
the white fleshy vegetable we have mashed with sausages on Thursdays.

Wife: Ok, then. ... No changing your mind now. A potato in a bag is what you
want?

Laurence: Yup.

Wife: ...and just that. Nothing else at all?

Laurence: Nope.

Wife: Right then, I'm off to get your potato...
........

Sometime later...

Delivery Man: Where do you want this put, mister?

Laurence: What?

Delivery Man: This!

Laurence: Have you got the right house?

Delivery Man: Yup. Says so on the form.

Laurence: What form?

Delivery Man: This form. Some lady came in munching on a bag of potato chips
and placed the order. Real urgent she was - said you want this real bad.

Laurence: What the hell do I want with this?

Delivery Man: Well, I dunno, pal. I just deliver. I do know a pretty good
piano teacher cross town though. Is that any help?

[Lachlan Hunt]

Mark Parnell wrote:

Previously in comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, DU
<dr*******@hotNOSPAMmail.com> said:

I suggest no more
than 128 characters for title attribute.

The Mozilla family of browsers display less than that anyway - it is
shortened to 100 characters, and the last 3 of those 100 are '...' if
the actual value of the title attribute is more than the 100 characters.
I've never understood this behaviour myself, as there really isn't any
other way to access the remainder of the information.

It's actually dependant on the length of the string when rendering, not
the number of characters. Since it uses a proportional width font by
default, if the title contains a lot of narrow characters (eg. 'i'),
then it will fit a lot more than if it contains a lot of wide characters
(eg. 'O' or 'M').

I tested Firefox 1.0.4 using strings of just the letters 'i', 'O' and
'M'. I counted a maximum of 209 'i's, before being truncated with an
elipsis at the end, yet I only counted 52 'O's and 52 'M's with the same
result.

IE's behaviour is much better than Mozilla's in this case, as it will
stretch the tool tip as big as it needs to be and wrap long lines, where
possible, allowing the title to be any length. I was able to make the
tool tip large enough to fill the screen completely before it started
causing problems in IE.
--
Lachlan Hunt
http://lachy.id.au/
http://GetFirefox.com/ Rediscover the Web
http://GetThunderbird.com/ Reclaim your Inbox

[Leif K-Brooks]

laurence wrote:

False. It has been used according to specification.

How do you know?

[Andy Dingley]

On Sat, 11 Jun 2005 11:45:33 +1000, "laurence"
<la*******@iprimus.com.au> wrote:

False. It has been used according to specification.

We don't even know if you _have_ a page. You still won't tell us the
URL.

As someone who is clearly more interested in arguing than in fixing it,
then you go in the troll bucket.

[Ben Bacarisse]

On Sat, 11 Jun 2005 11:48:13 +1000, laurence wrote:

Wife: I got those potatoes you wanted, honey!

Laurence: I didn't ask for potatoes, I asked for beer! <snip> Wife: Er... Laurence, maybe I should call a mental health professional.
Amusing, but begs the question. How about this:

Laurence: Please bring home an X.

Wife: An X? Wadda-ya-mean 'an X'?

<snip> Laurence: What the hell do I want with this?

Delivery Man: Well, I dunno, pal. I just deliver. I do know a pretty good
piano teacher cross town though. Is that any help?

Excellent. We now have two great analogies -- each make their own point
very clearly. A URL would enable the rest of us to decide which is closer
to the situation you report.

--
Ben.

[Alan J. Flavell]

On Fri, 10 Jun 2005, Guy Macon wrote:

Alan J. Flavell wrote:

If I'd waited just a bit longer the "tooltip" indeed goes
away, as you said. My apologies for bad information.

You are banned from Usenet until you learn to stop admitting
that you were wrong and start calling people Nazis instead. :)

Joking apart - as I suspect you're aware, I've participated in usenet
for many years now, and I've always tried to leave the record straight
on any issues where I've been mistaken on factual grounds.

Opinions, of course, are a different matter. I've got plenty of those
too.

See you on alt.dev.null :-}