Graa.

[skreidle]

Some people..

Someone in one of my communities was informing another person how to link to a graphic.. like so: <img src="http://www.wherever.com/files/picture.jpg" alt="">.

I offered this:
"Better, actually, would be something like this:

<img src="http://www.wherever.com/files/picture.jpg" width="width of the image" height="height of the image" alt="picture description">

That way, the web page knows what size the picture is, and can display the rest of the page more quickly/efficiently. Could drop the alt= bit altogether, if you had no text to attach to the picture. :)"

(Actually, I was even more specific--user gave an actual URL, I used that same URL, the size of that image (640x480) and some relevant alt text.)

Their reply was:

"That's too complicated! LOL I like the way I do it just fine :)"

*smacks forehead*
*smacks user*

------------------------------------
Ooh, and round 2!

> Too complicated? All I did was add 'width="xxx"' and 'height="yyy"'..
> which any graphics program (even Internet Explorer) can tell you about a
> picture.. and added some actual ALT text, since you already had the
> 'alt=""' with nothing in it.

> Believe me, it makes it much better for people looking at your picture
> on the web if you put in the width/height of the picture. (Oh, and those
> are the really simple things to add.. it can get a lot more complicated
> ;)

Their reply was:

Subject:

" Well...excuse me!!!!!!! I have not had any complaints before! Thanks for your advice, but I post one picture that I forgot to resize and now I am getting crap for it???? Geez! Lighten up buddy!"

...*throttles*

Anyone notice that what I've offered wasn't a complaint, nor did it have anything to do with resizing or giving crap, but was in fact advice?

Note: The user in question is in fact 30, despite sounding 14.

...Resolution: User acknowledges advice. *relief*

Comments

[subbes]

Morons.

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

Agreed. At least one of them. There must be more.. can we hunt them down and flay them?

[alacrity.livejournal.com]

Evidently HTML isn't as easy as it looks.... ;-)

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

Appaaaaarently not.

[damienden.livejournal.com]

I will say, though, that alt should probably be encouraged more than dropped because its pretty easy and adds -something- to the image for those who either cannot or choose not to view images. On slow connections sometimes, I disable my images and then only load the ones that are really necessary -- alt tags make that easier.
I wonder where said user picked up that usage of alt, though.. do some publication progs throw in an empty alt sometimes?

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

I think the LJ client might throw in an empty alt.. yup, it does.

[six2.livejournal.com]

Don't forget border="0" :)

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

Nah, I never put that in.. if my image is a link, I want that to be obvious.

Re:

[six2.livejournal.com]

Then you put border="1" ... the default varies greatly from browser to browser. If you want a certain thing, you *must* specify it.

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

But in general, I don't really care if it has a border or not, or the size thereof..

Re:

[six2.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but then I get to look at your dern pictures. :P

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

And how do they look, to you, if I don't specify a border size?

[six2.livejournal.com]

Like this:

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

Works for me.. lets me know which ones I've visited recently.

Re:

[six2.livejournal.com]

Which is fine. But this is what I see in my usual browser (Opera):

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

Ah.. defaults to a zero border if unspecified?

Re:

[six2.livejournal.com]

No standarization on default border size. Another place where w3c is slipping.