Image-link captions in Opera

[Khalid01]

Anyone familiar with IE knows that if you hover your cursor over images that link webpages, that the cursor will change to a hand and a small text box will pop up, giving the title or a rather concise explanation of what the link offers. However, in Opera, most image-links have a box that pops up and says "address: [the URL]", which is wholly nonessential information, and could be procured otherwise. I know that Opera recognizes the image titles because pressing g will display the text, but it would be horribly cumbersome to periodically switch the images on and off. I've searched around the help files, I imagine there's some setting in the Opera.ini (http://www.opera.com/support/usingopera/operaini/) that pertains to this. Does anyone know what it is off-hand?

[shanek]

It means that the web designer hasn't provided a "title" attribute for that image. Don't get the "title" attribute confused with the "alt" attribute. The "alt" attribute is for displaying only when the picture isn't available, but for some stupid reason IE decided to show the alt text in the mouseover when there was no title text.

Opera should be working as per the standards.

[Rat]

Quite right. Mozilla is the same. A browser shouldn't show alt text for an image pop-up. Doing it when there is no title attribute would be one thing, but, as I understand it, IE shows the alt text even when there is a title present.

Cheers,
Rat.

[Khalid01]

Originally posted by shanek
It means that the web designer hasn't provided a "title" attribute for that image. Don't get the "title" attribute confused with the "alt" attribute. The "alt" attribute is for displaying only when the picture isn't available, but for some stupid reason IE decided to show the alt text in the mouseover when there was no title text.

Opera should be working as per the standards.

Ah, you're quite right, it seems. However, on occasion, I prefer the ALT text to be displayed, whether an image has a title or not, since most icons which should have a title, don't and one can miss some good information. An example would be viewing these forums and noticing a thread's rating. A 5 looks impressive (to some at least), but one can't learn how many votes the thread actually received, which is stored in the ALT text, rather than title, and this is a disadvantage. Therefore, I'll rephrase my request, does anyone know how to make Opera always display the alt text (as silly as that sounds. I suppose this is an indication of being a latent M$ zombie ;):p.)?

Thanks for clarifying ALT and Title texts, gentlemen.

[ceptimus]

Originally posted by ratcomp1974
Quite right. Mozilla is the same. A browser shouldn't show alt text for an image pop-up. Doing it when there is no title attribute would be one thing, but, as I understand it, IE shows the alt text even when there is a title present.

Don't think so.


Here are four copies of your avatar. Left to right, we have neither, alt only, title only and both.
<div align="center">
http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/avatar.php?userid=4367&dateline=1054126439 http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/avatar.php?userid=4367&dateline=1054126439 http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/avatar.php?userid=4367&dateline=1054126439 http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/avatar.php?userid=4367&dateline=1054126439</div>

I think you'll find IE does the best possible thing, which is to display the title if it's available, or the alt text as a second choice.

This is one of the few ways in which IE is better than opera or mozilla. :)

[Zep]

Yes, but it is NOT standard behaviour for browsers.

Then again, the old maxim usually holds true: "It doesn't matter if there is an existing standard, or none, if you wait long enough then IBM (or Microsoft) will make a new one."

[ceptimus]

<div align="center">



This post intentionally left blank.
</div>

[shanek]

Originally posted by ratcomp1974
Quite right. Mozilla is the same. A browser shouldn't show alt text for an image pop-up. Doing it when there is no title attribute would be one thing, but, as I understand it, IE shows the alt text even when there is a title present.

Actually, my experimentation shows that IE does, in fact, favor the title attribute over the alt.

[shanek]

Originally posted by ceptimus
This is one of the few ways in which IE is better than opera or mozilla. :)

Not adhering to the standards and encouraging broken web pages does NOT make IE better.

[Rat]

I stand corrected. I understood this to be the case purely based on the writings of Mozilla evangelists. Teach me not to take their word for such things in future. It's like listening to Mac evangelists. (Ducks for cover).

Cheers,
Rat.