[html4all] Object element support

[Jason White]

On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 12:35:33PM +0200, Leif Halvard Silli wrote:
 
> The most obvious problem with OBJECT is not technical. It is 
> semantical. For instance: Does OBJECT have a method for offering 
> both a long and a short text equivalent?

The distinction between "long" and "short" text alternatives is really an
artifact of the poor design of the HTML IMG element. In XHTML 2.0, for
instance, we have:
<p src="image">Paragraph serving as an alternative.</p>

Of course, if the author so desires, the alternative can include a link
referring to additional information. This is true of OBJECT as well:

<object data="image"><p>An image. <a href="description.html">See this
description for full details.</a></object>

Some might argue that this isn't sufficient, since the user agent can't tell
that the link refers to a textual alternative, and therefore cannot handle it
specially. Whether this is a problem or not is debatable; I am not arguing the
matter either way in this post. However, assuming that this is considered a
problem worth addressing, I can think of several alternative solutions:

a. To define the semantics of @title on OBJECT as serving the purpose of
providing a short alternative.

b. To use a suitable Aria role on the anchor (<a>) element, or to define a
value of @role for this purpose in HTML. This assumes that @role finds its way
into HTML, of course.

c. To define <a rel="alternative"> so that the link can be identified as a
long alternative to the object.

Doubtless there are other options. The fundamental question, though, is how
important an issue this really is, and whether it is sufficiently significant
to be defined in the spec, or whether it would be unlikely to be used by
accessible user agents even if a mechanism were available.