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A proposed scheme for parsing preformatted alt text

Gary Johnson lambdatronic at disroot.org

Thu Sep 10 17:43:10 BST 2020

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Just to throw another idea out there:

There has been some extended discussion now on the mailing list about aconflict in machine-readable vs human-readable content being added afterthe opening pre-formatting ``` characters. It seems that enough peoplein the Gemini community see both of these kinds of information asproviding value, but the spec currently lacks a clear path forward fordifferentiating between them.

Right now, anything written after the closing pre-formatting ``` charsisn't being used as per the spec's instructions. I can't help but wonderwhat would happen if we were able to put machine-readable instructions(like "table", "image", "code:python") on the opening line (so thatclients could switch their line interpreter modes accordingly) and placehuman-readable alt text (mainly for screen readers) on the closing line(assuming the screen reader will probably just skip over thepre-formatted block's contents anyway and then read the alt text ifprovided).

I realize this would entail a fairly significant change to the spec, butit seems - at least to me - to resolve the issue in a ratherstraightforward fashion. If I'm missing something important here, pleaselet me know. I'm also interested in hearing anyone else's suggestionsfor how to address this issue.

Onward Geminauts! Gary

mbays at sdf.org writes:

* Wednesday, 2020-09-09 at 22:41 +0100 - Luke Emmet <luke at marmaladefoo.com>:

On 09-Sep-2020 18:38, mbays at sdf.org wrote:

So, with apologies for hijacking this thread with something totally

opposed to its original idea, I'd like to encourage client authors

to close this extensibility hole by not suppressing text after the

"```" in preformatting toggle lines.

As far as I can see, the spec seems clear enough on this: "5.4.3:

Any line whose first three characters are "```" (i.e. three

consecutive back ticks with no leading whitespace) are preformatted

toggle lines. These lines should NOT be included in the rendered

output shown to the user."

That passage predates the later additions to the spec in the same

section about what to do with text on these lines. I guess the

intention was to make it clear that clients aren't expected to

actually print "```". I don't think it should be read as ruling out

printing the alt text.

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