Re: [docbook-apps] Generate relative longdesc on <img>?

["Bob Stayton" <bobs@sagehill.net>]

Hi,

The directory in the longdesc attribute of the an <img> element comes from either a dbhtml dir processing instruction if the mediaobject has one, or the base.dir param. 

 

The W3C designates the longdesc attribute as a URL, which means it should be relative to the HTML file that contains it.  Using either the dbhtml dir or the base.dir in that attribute is not correct, because then the link path from the HTML file (which is in base.dir) would be wrong.  So I consider this a bug in the stylesheet.

 

Like you said, it doesn't seem to matter much, because the <a href> link to the actual long description file is correctly constructed relative the the HTML file.  And this W3C page:

 

http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_img_longdesc.asp

 

says "Tip: The longdesc attribute is so poorly supported that it should not be used. To offer a long description of an image, simply create a link (that is visible to anyone) to a page with the description."

 

The HTML5 spec appears to have dropped the longdesc attribute entirely.  Since DocBook XSL generates a visible link, I'm tempted to drop support for this attribute in the stylesheets rather than fix it since it appears to be useless.  Any objections?

 

Bob Stayton
Sagehill Enterprises
bobs@sagehill.net

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Mark Craig

To: docbook-apps@lists.oasis-open.org

Sent: Friday, March 16, 2012 2:59 AM

Subject: [docbook-apps] Generate relative longdesc on <img>?

Hello,

What HTML customization serves to get relative paths in the longdesc attribute on img elements?

The longdesc links and pages are fine, so it's not something noticeable when browsing. But img elements in HTML are coming out with absolute paths in longdesc attributes.

For example:

<img src="" longdesc="">

The corresponding source for the whole media object is:

   <mediaobject xml:id="figure-standalone-repl">

    <alt>Dedicated servers versus consolidated instances</alt>

    <imageobject>

     <imagedata fileref="images/standalone-repl.png" format="PNG"/>

    </imageobject>

    <textobject>

     <para>Dedicated servers are suited to environments with large numbers

     of replicas.</para>

    </textobject>

   </mediaobject>

Regards,

Mark