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[Clients] Gemini and accessibility regarding preformatted code blocks

avr at geminet.org avr at geminet.org

Fri Feb 26 15:32:11 GMT 2021

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On Thu, Feb 25, 2021 at 03:14:43PM -0500, John Cowan wrote:

I think that most preformatted blocks are meant to be readable. How about
an option to hide preformatted blocks if and only if they have alt text?

Of all the proposed solutions, this one seems the most obvious.

The main problem with it is the spec, as it reads:"Alt text may also be used for computer source code to identify the programming language which advanced clients may use for syntax highlighting."

which is what a lot of the alternative solutions are trying to accomodate for.

Using the alt-text for source code highlighting sounds like a fun idea, but does it really belong in the spec? It feels like a remnant of a cool idea that a programmer*would* put in a spec in its early stages, since it feels like a natural fit, but maybe,in retrospect, it doesn't really belong there.

I think it would be best to drop that line from the spec--which would mean changing it,but at least it's not extending it--and adopt your proposed solution as a simple conventionfor those who want to make their content easily available for the visually impaired.