Comments on: The poorly supported title attribute http://www.webdevout.net/tidings/2006/09/02/the-poorly-supported-title-attribute/ Updates on the march of progress. A weblog about web design, standards, web browsers, and the overall health of the Web. Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:45:24 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Ganesh http://www.webdevout.net/tidings/2006/09/02/the-poorly-supported-title-attribute/comment-page-1/#comment-41826 Ganesh Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:45:24 +0000 http://www.webdevout.net/tidings/2006/09/02/the-poorly-supported-title-attribute/#comment-41826 I have a concern for the title/ alt attribute for the anchor tag. =>> Do we have any text limit for tooltip in IE/FF/chrome or any of the well know browsers? If we have text limit do we have any other hack to give long tooltip for anchor tag. I have a concern for the title/ alt attribute for the anchor tag.
=>> Do we have any text limit for tooltip in IE/FF/chrome or any of the well know browsers? If we have text limit do we have any other hack to give long tooltip for anchor tag.

Posted using Safari 535.2 on Windows.

]]> By: çeviri http://www.webdevout.net/tidings/2006/09/02/the-poorly-supported-title-attribute/comment-page-1/#comment-4048 çeviri Wed, 16 Jan 2008 20:52:58 +0000 http://www.webdevout.net/tidings/2006/09/02/the-poorly-supported-title-attribute/#comment-4048 It is very frustrating that web browsers, particularly Firefox, do not properly support the TITLE attribute as it is laid out in W3C HTML specifications. This isn’t a trivial matter; it is a major usability/accessibility issue.. It is very frustrating that web browsers, particularly Firefox, do not properly support the TITLE attribute as it is laid out in W3C HTML specifications. This isn’t a trivial matter; it is a major usability/accessibility issue..

Posted using Internet Explorer (Windows) 7.0 on Windows.

]]> By: David Hammond http://www.webdevout.net/tidings/2006/09/02/the-poorly-supported-title-attribute/comment-page-1/#comment-1343 David Hammond Thu, 21 Sep 2006 20:04:35 +0000 http://www.webdevout.net/tidings/2006/09/02/the-poorly-supported-title-attribute/#comment-1343 I'm not sure why you're focusing on the (again arbitrary) 6-second limit. I and others believe that the tooltip should remain visible as long as the user needs it, so there should be no 6-second limit. The title attribute can contain useful information and there is an obvious and common user interface feature (tooltips) to provide access to the value. I see no reason that the user interface feature should limit the amount of information that the user can access when providing more would not cause any significant loss of usability (in fact, I don't think it would cause any loss of usability). Firefox doesn't cut off the title at 25 characters if there is more room available, and I see no reason it should limit tooltips. In fact, the reasons so far presented have been technical issues relating to the vertical sizing of the tooltip box, not because it was a design choice to maximize usability. Limiting the displayed value and display time does not improve usability and it does hurt it in many cases. I’m not sure why you’re focusing on the (again arbitrary) 6-second limit. I and others believe that the tooltip should remain visible as long as the user needs it, so there should be no 6-second limit.

The title attribute can contain useful information and there is an obvious and common user interface feature (tooltips) to provide access to the value. I see no reason that the user interface feature should limit the amount of information that the user can access when providing more would not cause any significant loss of usability (in fact, I don’t think it would cause any loss of usability). Firefox doesn’t cut off the title at 25 characters if there is more room available, and I see no reason it should limit tooltips. In fact, the reasons so far presented have been technical issues relating to the vertical sizing of the tooltip box, not because it was a design choice to maximize usability. Limiting the displayed value and display time does not improve usability and it does hurt it in many cases.

Posted using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.7 on Linux.

]]> By: Gérard Talbot http://www.webdevout.net/tidings/2006/09/02/the-poorly-supported-title-attribute/comment-page-1/#comment-1342 Gérard Talbot Thu, 21 Sep 2006 18:30:52 +0000 http://www.webdevout.net/tidings/2006/09/02/the-poorly-supported-title-attribute/#comment-1342 > If the browsing window is large enough, the full title will display. Someone in bug 45375 has said that the limit of the title attribute should exceed the browser window itself! Browsing window as the inherit limit is promoting and supporting bad webpage design and bad usability principles to begin with. > Firefox unnecessarily limits the tooltip content length It has an arbitrary limit but then what should be the limit for a tooltip? I've asked at least 3 times people in bug 45375 how many characters they can read in 6 sec. in a box of Tahoma 8px text? No one answered. And tooltips can affect almost any types of elements, even a <p>! > that’s no excuse for the web browser deliberately hiding the > rest of the value from the user UAAG 1.0 has provided several answers on conditional content. I can read the title attribute thanks to the properties menu item from the context menu: it's not perfect but the "full" content of the title attribute is accessible. > If a title attribute is provided, no matter how long it is, > the web browser should do its best to provide the full value > to the user within reason Sorry, but I disagree. It does not work like that and it shouldn't work like that. There is a limit to how much C++ code should go into a default browser behavior (some have again explained that the browser should calculate at run-time duration of tooltip, box dimensions, line-wrapping, etc. for tooltip). There is a limit to how much an user can read in 6sec. inside a box of Tahoma 8px font. There should be a limit to how many characters should be displayed in a tooltip before cropping the rest/excedent, just like <title> vs titlebar and window.status and the statusbar message work. If the HTML 4.01/WAI/WCAG/UAAG specs did not explicitly defined how many characters are supposed to mean "short message", "short description", "advisory title", "informative link title" and the opposite side certainly avoided to define what was long enough, sufficient text length and any kind of quantitative value for text length. How many characters mean "long", "normal", "long enough" is nowhere defined. And one has to define this before defining when and where to line-wrap if line-wrap becomes necessary. So far, all I got from a coding perspective is calculations for timers to be started at run-time for duration of tooltips! Just imagine the performance issues (pointers in memory, timers' dependencies, storing values, etc) as one just moves the mouse over tooltip-able elements Gérard > If the browsing window is large enough, the full title will display.

Someone in bug 45375 has said that the limit of the title attribute should exceed the browser window itself!
Browsing window as the inherit limit is promoting and supporting bad webpage design and bad usability principles to begin with.

> Firefox unnecessarily limits the tooltip content length
It has an arbitrary limit but then what should be the limit for a tooltip? I’ve asked at least 3 times people in bug 45375 how many characters they can read in 6 sec. in a box of Tahoma 8px text? No one answered.
And tooltips can affect almost any types of elements, even a <p>!

> that’s no excuse for the web browser deliberately hiding the > rest of the value from the user
UAAG 1.0 has provided several answers on conditional content. I can read the title attribute thanks to the properties menu item from the context menu: it’s not perfect but the “full” content of the title attribute is accessible.

> If a title attribute is provided, no matter how long it is,
> the web browser should do its best to provide the full value > to the user within reason
Sorry, but I disagree. It does not work like that and it shouldn’t work like that. There is a limit to how much C++ code should go into a default browser behavior (some have again explained that the browser should calculate at run-time duration of tooltip, box dimensions, line-wrapping, etc. for tooltip). There is a limit to how much an user can read in 6sec. inside a box of Tahoma 8px font. There should be a limit to how many characters should be displayed in a tooltip before cropping the rest/excedent, just like <title> vs titlebar and window.status and the statusbar message work.

If the HTML 4.01/WAI/WCAG/UAAG specs did not explicitly defined how many characters are supposed to mean
“short message”, “short description”, “advisory title”,
“informative link title”
and the opposite side certainly avoided to define what was long enough, sufficient text length and any kind of quantitative value for text length. How many characters mean “long”, “normal”, “long enough” is nowhere defined. And one has to define this before defining when and where to line-wrap if line-wrap becomes necessary.
So far, all I got from a coding perspective is calculations for timers to be started at run-time for duration of tooltips! Just imagine the performance issues (pointers in memory, timers’ dependencies, storing values, etc) as one just moves the mouse over tooltip-able elements

Gérard

Posted using SeaMonkey/Mozilla Suite 1.5a on Windows.

]]> By: David Hammond http://www.webdevout.net/tidings/2006/09/02/the-poorly-supported-title-attribute/comment-page-1/#comment-1338 David Hammond Thu, 21 Sep 2006 09:11:54 +0000 http://www.webdevout.net/tidings/2006/09/02/the-poorly-supported-title-attribute/#comment-1338 Gérard: The titlebar issue is not the same thing. Firefox doesn't arbitrarily cut off the titlebar text are a small number of characters. If the browsing window is large enough, the full title will display. But regardless of the window size, screen resolution, or anything else, Firefox unnecessarily limits the tooltip content length. You're right that web developers should limit the amount of title attribute text for usability reasons, but that's no excuse for the web browser deliberately hiding the rest of the value from the user. If a title attribute is provided, no matter how long it is, the web browser should do its best to provide the full value to the user within reason, and there is no reason not to use a lot more screen space than Firefox uses for tooltips if the value demands it. Gérard: The titlebar issue is not the same thing. Firefox doesn’t arbitrarily cut off the titlebar text are a small number of characters. If the browsing window is large enough, the full title will display. But regardless of the window size, screen resolution, or anything else, Firefox unnecessarily limits the tooltip content length. You’re right that web developers should limit the amount of title attribute text for usability reasons, but that’s no excuse for the web browser deliberately hiding the rest of the value from the user. If a title attribute is provided, no matter how long it is, the web browser should do its best to provide the full value to the user within reason, and there is no reason not to use a lot more screen space than Firefox uses for tooltips if the value demands it.

Posted using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.7 on Linux.

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