Preserved Topic: ALT tags - can they be controlled? (Page 1 of 1)

When using the <IMG ALT=" ">, is it possible to control how the text of the alt displays?

My specific problem is that I want to put the name address and phone number in an ALT and would like to have the lines break appropriately. I have tried a few things with no success.

Anyone know anything about this?

e-maestro.

I would think it'd be worth trying a /n for a newline, maybe? That works in a lot of cases, but I also expect that it's quite browser specific.

Your pal, -doc-

Yah, you can't use the /r or /n, but you *can* use &&#35;13; instead, which will force a carriage return in MSIE6 at least, I haven't tested it in any other browsers yet. (Test page for this is at http://fragilespace.com/ - alt text for the center image.) (edit) actually, I tested this again, I guess IE is the only one that has neifty little floating text for the alt tags? ANYways, it works.

Your pal, -doc-



[This message has been edited by DocOzone (edited 03-24-2002).]

&#10;&#13; is what I use at http://www.runningwolf.com to lay things out a little nicer. Dunno about cross platform, though.




[This message has been edited by Pugzly (edited 03-24-2002).]

WOW! I even got the DOCS attention with this one!

Thankyou!

I looked around for a while and found this list.
http://164.116.21.67/links/htmlchar.php

Again, thankyou for taking the time to answer!

e-maestro

nn 4.7 PC. it broke. sorry.

. . .

It's really not that hard to get Doc's attention. I usually just shake my car keys in the air. The noise and the shiny sparkle seem to do it.

Pugzly

Why do you use #13 and #10 instead of just one or the other, which seems to do the same thing? (had to do that or they don't show up)

Why do I get this funny feeling that you like to make things as complex as possible? Can you give me a good reason for using both characters together?


eyezaer

Thx...but what is new?! Just so it works in IE I will be happy for this at least.



[This message has been edited by e-maestro (edited 03-24-2002).]

On Windows OS, line-endings (in text files) consist of two characters - carriage return (13) and line feed (10), and that's the reason why you should use both.

On Macintosh, you should use only CR (13), and on UNIX you should use only LF (10).

What about TITLE?

Emps

Good question!

I have seen some funky things in the Title bar too. Is there an easy way to do that, or do you have to use JavaScript? (which isn't very easy yet for me....maybe some day *sigh*)

Maybe this should be a new thread???

You can manipulate with document title only from JavaScript (i.e. document.title = 'blah'; )...

I think Emperor means the <a href="bla.html" title="This is the title of a link">BLA</a>

Whoops sorry - what the title as demonstarted so well by u-neek.

Emps

I don't get it....

What would be a the practical application of then <a HREF=" " TITLE=" ">? And why would you need special characters in it?

Sorry for my lack of imagination...but I have never seen it used.

e- maestro: I use TITLE a lot. Basically ALT has been used (wrongly) to provide a little simple message when you mouseover, e.g. an image button, telling you what to do:

<a href="home.html"><img src="" alt="Click me to go home" /></a>

ALT should really be used to describe the image not the action and is very helpful for people who surf without graphics (its ugly but quicker) or are using another kind of device (I keep coming back to the blind but they are often overlooked). So you now can do this:

<a href="home.html"><img src="" alt="Home" title="Click me to go home" /></a>

and now with TITLE you can have the equivalent of ALT with all sorts of different tags:

<a href="home.html" title="Visit the good doctor for DHTML fun">Doctor Ozone</a>

You might want to break up the line with special characters (as described above for the ALT) otherwise if you put a lot of text in there it can become one big, ugly, unwieldy line or you might wish to use a foreign language.

Have a look at:
http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/html40/attrs.html#title
http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/dhtml/reference/properties/title_1.asp

Basically the title attribute is a useful tool - its not supported in all browsers but including it doesn't do you any harm.

[edit: See also: www.javascriptkit.com/howto/toolmsg.shtml
www.netmechanic.com/news/vol2/html_no1.htm

also this last link answers my question!!]

Emps

[This message has been edited by Emperor (edited 03-27-2002).]

OK...I think I understand...

But...if TITLE doesn't work on all browsers and ALT does, and they do the same thing....what is the advantage?

Maybe they don't do the same thing.

OH...the MSDN site is sooooooo complete! Problem is, it is like most indexes of Techy book...you can't find a @#%! thing! Unless geek-ese is your mother tounge!



e-maestro

e-maestro, the trick is that you can use TITLE with almost every tag, not only with images! You could put it on a <div>, or on a <p> or anything else. And it would always display a little tooltip as the ALT does when it's used on images.

kuckus