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[SPEC] Shouldn't Alt-Text be standarized?

1. Miguel de Luis Espinosa (enteka (a) fastmail.com)

As I was reviewing the spec, following Jason McBrayer bit of advice, I came to this part


> "Any text following the leading "```" of a preformat toggle line         

> which toggles preformatted mode on MAY be interpreted by the             

> client as "alt text" pertaining to the preformatted text lines           

> which follow the toggle line.  Use of alt text is at the client's        

> discretion, and simple clients may ignore it.  Alt text is               

> recommended for ASCII art or similar non-textual content which,          

> for example, cannot be meaningfully understood when rendered             

> through a screen reader or usefully indexed by a search engine.          

> Alt text may also be used for computer source code to identify           

> the programming language which advanced clients may use for              

> syntax highlighting."     

Very nice, but what exactly do I put there?

 ``` ASCII-Art 
for ascii art? and why not ascii art or ASCII ART or...

 ``` code
for code?

 ``` poem
for poerty (let be me a bit cheeky here)

Is there a standard I am not aware of?

If it's up to every client designer then do I need to take a look to what 
every client programmer thinks is best?

I'd say that the ascii art bit is specially important. I've tried to check 
how my websites "sounded" though a screen reader and it was often a fine 
mess. So, I mean, imagine if your first experience of Gemini with all its 
promise of little else than text was somehting like "eee aa eee oou err 
comma comma dot ha ha" or something

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2. devel (a) datenbrei.de (devel (a) datenbrei.de)

Am 11.02.21 um 17:26 schrieb Miguel de Luis Espinosa:
> As I was reviewing the spec, following Jason McBrayer bit of advice, I 
came to this part
> ...
> Very nice, but what exactly do I put there?
 > ---
As far as I read this you can put there whatever you want.

What I think about this is, that like in Markdown one could technically 
tag or mark what kind of code or fixed format text this is. This would 
force no client to implement anything, but would open possibilities to 
those, that want.

If we use this instead for alternate text, what means a different use, 
namely a human readable and maybe longer description of the following 
text, the first more technically use is not available anymore.

If I would have invented this I would technically mark the fixed text as 
in Markdown and additionally add those text on the closing uptickt - we 
have the leading and the closing upticks, why not use them both?

Especially for blind people it would be good if a screenreader could 
technically know what kind of fixed width text this is and handle it 
accordingly while still providing (blind) human readable meta information.

Just my two ?-cents...

Martin

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3. ew.gemini (ew.gemini (a) nassur.net)

Hello,

Miguel de Luis Espinosa writes:

> As I was reviewing the spec, following Jason McBrayer bit of advice, I 
came to this part
>
>
>> "Any text following the leading "```" of a preformat toggle line

Apparently you missed the last word. toggle "line". There is
nothing on this line but three back quotes.


 ```
code, poem, ascii art,
monospaced text  even   preserving     spaces :)
 ````

This is it.

Cheers,
~ew

-- 
Keep it simple!

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4. Miguel de Luis Espinosa (enteka (a) fastmail.com)

On Thu, Feb 11, 2021, at 6:39 PM, ew.gemini wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> 
> Apparently you missed the last word. toggle "line". There is
> nothing on this line but three back quotes.
> 
> 
> ```
> code, poem, ascii art,
> monospaced text  even   preserving     spaces :)
> ````
> 

You are right, just implemented it on my little cosmic.voyage space ship 
(Isla Ristol), which would be visible in Gemini some time soon. 
(Cosmic.voyage seems to be partial to gopher)

Anyway, still, I feel there should be some common standards for alt texts

Live and be jolly,
Miguel

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