The title attribute

What are user agents *supposed* to do with the title attribute?

Lynx (Version 2.8.6rel.5) doesn't. I don't know about other text
browsers.

Most graphical browsers wait about a second before displaying it, so you
won't see it unless you hover over an item, though iCab at least has the
kindness to put up a little icon if there's one under the pointer
straight away. Gecko browsers put the text on one single long line.

All of this renders title attribute text rather less useful than it
could be, especially in contexts where the user doesn't know in advance
that there might be useful title text there.

I was thinking of using it to provide a commentary on some text, like:

<h1 title="The headline neatly summarises the story">Zuma wins ANC
leadership election</h1>

<p title="The basic facts of the story are given in the first sentence">
Jacob Zuma has defeated South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki to
win the leadership of the country's ruling ANC.
</p>

<p title="The report then begins to expand on the facts">
Mr Zuma won the votes of more than 60% of the delegates at the
leadership conference to claim victory.
</p>

But I don't think that it will work that well.

Daniele

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What are user agents *supposed* to do with the title attribute?

Check the recommendation:
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/...tml#adef-title

"Values of the title attribute may be rendered by user agents in a variety
of ways."

It's up to the UA. Don't rely on the title attribute for mission critical
information. Safari, for example, does not always display the information
and when it does it's in the status bar (if you have that switched on).

--
Richard.

On 12/18/2007 2:45 PM, D.M. Procida wrote:

What are user agents *supposed* to do with the title attribute?

Lynx (Version 2.8.6rel.5) doesn't. I don't know about other text
browsers.

Most graphical browsers wait about a second before displaying it, so you
won't see it unless you hover over an item, though iCab at least has the
kindness to put up a little icon if there's one under the pointer
straight away. Gecko browsers put the text on one single long line.

All of this renders title attribute text rather less useful than it
could be, especially in contexts where the user doesn't know in advance
that there might be useful title text there.

I was thinking of using it to provide a commentary on some text, like:

h1 title="The headline neatly summarises the story">Zuma wins ANC
leadership election</h1

p title="The basic facts of the story are given in the first sentence"
Jacob Zuma has defeated South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki to
win the leadership of the country's ruling ANC.
/p

p title="The report then begins to expand on the facts"
Mr Zuma won the votes of more than 60% of the delegates at the
leadership conference to claim victory.
/p

But I don't think that it will work that well.

Daniele

Be careful that you don't over-use the Title attribute. Tooltips
popping up all over the screen can be quite annoying.

I use them to give an English translation for a foreign phrase. I also
use them when a link is in an image rather than in text.

--
David E. Ross
<http://www.rossde.com/>

Natural foods can be harmful: Look at all the
people who die of natural causes.

On Tue, 18 Dec 2007, D.M. Procida wrote:

I was thinking of using it to provide a commentary on some text, like:

h1 title="The headline neatly summarises the story">Zuma wins ANC
leadership election</h1

This is pointless. What's the use of this TITLE?
And if the TITLE attribute has real information, it is better to put
it into the normal text.

For an application of the TITLE attribute, see
http://www.unics.uni-hannover.de/nhtcapri/arabic.html6

--
¹ superscript 1 ¼ fraction 1/4 Ð D stroke ð d stroke
² superscript 2 ½ fraction 1/2 Þ Thorn þ thorn
³ superscript 3 ¾ fraction 3/4 Ý Y acute ý y acute
× multiply sign ¦ broken bar

Scripsit D.M. Procida:

What are user agents *supposed* to do with the title attribute?

Whatever they choose to. Perhaps nothing, perhaps a tooltip, perhaps
reading the value to the user if working in a mode where such operation
is requested by the user.

Most graphical browsers wait about a second before displaying it, so
you won't see it unless you hover over an item,

And you have no clue of its presence. And if you add visual clues, you
add distractions (and there is no guarantee that they will be
understood).

All of this renders title attribute text rather less useful than it
could be, especially in contexts where the user doesn't know in
advance that there might be useful title text there.

Indeed. Thus, it is mainly useful for links, its natural habitat (ever
since HTML 2.0). For links, it is natural to move the pointer over a
link and perhaps wait a second or two, thinking whether the link is
useful, and then the popup text _may_ help in making the decision.

I was thinking of using it to provide a commentary on some text,

No, that wouldn't be a good idea even if it worked.

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

D.M. Procida wrote:

What are user agents *supposed* to do with the title attribute?

You have to be a little careful about your use of TITLE. I suspect that
visually impaired people like it to contain something useful; a rather
vague concept (especially for me, since I work with computer hardware
engineers few of whom are visually impaired. Darwinian selection).

I tend to put items of related information into the titles; stuff which
is useful, but didn't warrant space on the webpage. I realise that this
is precisely what the TITLE is not for, but I'm designing for a niche
market.

--
Steve Swift
http://www.swiftys.org.uk/swifty.html
http://www.ringers.org.uk

Andreas Prilop <aprilop2007 (AT) trashmail (DOT) net> wrote:

h1 title="The headline neatly summarises the story">Zuma wins ANC
leadership election</h1

This is pointless. What's the use of this TITLE?

It provides a commentary on text. In this case, it would be a commentary
on the text for journalism students.

And if the TITLE attribute has real information, it is better to put
it into the normal text.

I'm inclined to agree, but mainly because on the whole user agents don't
display title attributes very usefully.

For an application of the TITLE attribute, see
http://www.unics.uni-hannover.de/nhtcapri/arabic.html6

That suffers from exactly the issues I pointed out: some browsers won't
display it at all, others will do so after an irritating wait, and you
will only discover it by chance.

What kind of information is do you want to leave to be discovered by
chance?

And yet there is o very good way of presenting information which - like
a commentary or a transliteration - you want to run alongside a main
text, without interrupting the flow of the main text.

Daniele

D.M. Procida wrote:

Andreas Prilop <aprilop2007 (AT) trashmail (DOT) net> wrote:

It provides a commentary on text. In this case, it would be a
commentary on the text for journalism students.

And if the TITLE attribute has real information, it is better to put
it into the normal text.

I'm inclined to agree, but mainly because on the whole user agents
don't display title attributes very usefully.

You can already use <a> tag for which a TITLE argument work in most browsers.

My idea is to write something like this

<a name="text1" title="This is comment for text1"><p>this is text1....</p></a>
<a name="text2" title="This is comment for text2"><p>this is text2....</p></a>

--
Petr Vileta, Czech republic
(My server rejects all messages from Yahoo and Hotmail. Send me your
mail from another non-spammer site please.)

Please reply to <petr AT practisoft DOT cz>

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed "Petr Vileta"
<stoupa (AT) practisoft (DOT) cz> writing in news:fkck5o$1o2k$1 (AT) ns (DOT) felk.cvut.cz:

D.M. Procida wrote:
Andreas Prilop <aprilop2007 (AT) trashmail (DOT) net> wrote:

It provides a commentary on text. In this case, it would be a
commentary on the text for journalism students.

And if the TITLE attribute has real information, it is better to put
it into the normal text.

I'm inclined to agree, but mainly because on the whole user agents
don't display title attributes very usefully.

You can already use <a> tag for which a TITLE argument work in most
browsers. My idea is to write something like this

a name="text1" title="This is comment for text1"><p>this is
text1....</p></a> <a name="text2" title="This is comment for
text2"><p>this is text2....</p></a

1. That would be meaningless for the user. Since there would be no visual
cue, why would someone mouse over a paragraph to get a title tooltip? If
the comment is imporant enough, it should be included either in the
paragraph itself, a footnote, or end note. Example:
<p>Cats are good ^{<a href="#note1" title="Jump to note">1</a>}
companions.</p>
<p id="note1" class="notes">1. Rolo in particular</p>
2. An inline element cannot contain a block element. The a element is
inline, and p is block.

--
Adrienne Boswell at Home
Arbpen Web Site Design Services
http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
Please respond to the group so others can share

Adrienne Boswell wrote:

1. That would be meaningless for the user. Since there would be no visual
cue, why would someone mouse over a paragraph to get a title tooltip?

Well, this particular user is gradually forming the habit of mousing
over things, and clicking on apparently unclickable things, in the
expectation that something interesting may happen, as it frequently does.

I even hide such "Easter eggs" in my own pages just for fun (mine, and
the discoverers). Given a regular visitor set of about 20,000 people,
it's a challenge to find something which can lie undiscovered for a year
or so. My favourite lay undiscovered for over ten years, and the person
who found it was actually on the phone to me when they found it. I'll
never forget the peals of laughter. It was an apparently unclickable
area, with nothing special about it at all. If you clicked it, you got a
popup which was entirely black, but if you found a way to reveal the
black text on the black background, it said "Please do not click there
again".

--
Steve Swift
http://www.swiftys.org.uk/swifty.html
http://www.ringers.org.uk