alt tags for images

[Cheapprices4u]

just a simple one for those in the know

but how can i put alt tags in my images within actinic?

ive searched and found a link for express but not for "real" actinic

any help greatly appreciated

Gareth

[TraceyHand]

do you mean product images?
They automatically have a alt tag of the product name (or should have)
If you want something more detailed, I guess you could add a custom variable at product level and edit your image layout to use this new variable for the alt tag instead
Look at your product image layout and you should see how and where to change it

[peblaco]

It is helpful if you also use a title tag so Firefox browser users can see text when they mouseover the image.

[TraceyHand]

ooh..thats useful, Louise, thanks for that
I'd always wondered why they didn't show in FF

[Cheapprices4u]

ooh..thats useful, Louise, thanks for that
I'd always wondered why they didn't show in FF

well bugger me thats why

im not going daft after all

cheers for that

told you it was a simple fix

just use microsoft and not my loverly Firefox

now to figure out how to implement

ta

[TraceyHand]

now to figure out how to implement

ta

2 second job, Gareth

find the layout your image is using by clicking on the image in your preview pane in the design tab (mine is Standard Image Layout)

Find the line that says

<img style="border: 0;" src="<actinic:variable name="ProductImageFileName" />" alt="<actinic:variable encoding="strip" name="ProductName" />" />

and add title="ProductName" before the closing /> (that's ProductName...as in the variable)

so it looks like

title="<actinic:variable name="ProductName" />"

You could also do the same for the default image line too

And fragments etc

[Cheapprices4u]

ta done it

so should look like this>>


<img src="<actinic:variable name="ProductImageFileName" />"
id="im-<Actinic:Variable Name="EncodedProductAnchor" />"
border="0"
width="<actinic:variable name="ProductImageWidth" />"
height="<actinic:variable name="ProductImageHeight" />"
alt="<actinic:variable name="ProductName" encoding="strip"/>"
title="<actinic:variable name="ProductName" />"/>

cheers

[Runner]

Mr Actinic: Why isn't this standard in the Actinic layout????????

[dave_finlayson]

Mr Actinic: Why isn't this standard in the Actinic layout????????

I suspect some on the forum would say putting a title tag in every link and image would not be the best SEO idea, but I could be wrong.

[TraceyHand]

good point, Keith
You'd think that Firefox was used by a significant enough number of people nowadays for this to be included as standard really.

[Runner]

I suspect some on the forum would say putting a title tag in every link and image would not be the best SEO idea, but I could be wrong.

So is there another way to get the alt text to show on images in FF?

[cdicken]

No - according to the W3C, alt text is never meant to appear in the browser - it's just there for screen reading software (and search engines). It's only Internet Explorer that's taught us to expect alt text to appear when you mouse over things.

I'll look into adding title tags to images in the next version. It could be quite handy.

[dave_finlayson]

No, but FF uses the alt tag correctly, it is not meant to be used for displaying text on mouse overs, here's a brief description of it's usage:-

    * nowadays, Web browsers are available in a very wide variety of platforms with very different capacities; some cannot display images at all or only a restricted set of type of images; some can be configured to not load images. If your code has the alt attribute set in its images, most of these browsers will display the description you gave instead of the images
    * some of your visitors cannot see images, be they blind, color-blind, low-sighted; the alt attribute is of great help for those people that can rely on it to have a good idea of what's on your page
    * search engine bots belong to the two above categories: if you want your website to be indexed as well as it deserves, use the alt attribute to make sure that they won't miss important sections of your pages.

The title tag is for displaying a title.

Now whether it is a good idea or a bad idea to add it to everything I don't know, I will bow to someones greater knowledge there. But personally I would not add it to all my images/links unless someone with a great deal of knowhow told me to!

[Runner]

Apologies for earlier post due to ignorance!

Chris and Dave are right. Thanks Guys.

I have just Googled this and found some on-topic links:

http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/altAttribute

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=551093

[leehack]

If someone turns off images in their browser if they are on dial up for example, they will also see them and the screen looks a little more appealing.