

ALT and LONGDESC attribute in CSS positioned background-image

From: Joel Sanda <joels@ecollege.com>
Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 14:10:37 -0600
Message-ID: <1F65B84ED796D3119307009027DE0A5101734A77@exchange.ecollege.com>
I'm confused on adding an ALT attribute to a background image positioned
with CSS. Here's the CSS snippet that is positioning the background-image:

	font-family: arial, georgia, palatino, times;
	font-size: 10pt;
	background-color: #FFFFFF;
	background-image: url(resources/background.jpg);
	background-repeat: no-repeat;

Since the ALT attribute is an HTML attribute what's the proper way to
include alternative text when the image is positioned with CSS in the body
property? The site in question is at:  http://online.luc.edu. The image is a
photo of Loyola University and contains the site title and university

A LONGDESC may be more appropriate to convery more information - but that
raises a related question: how to place the LONGDESC when the element is
positioned with CSS, to ensure the LONGDESC link is associated with the
image, if images are turned off or the user agent doesn't support CSS. If
CSS isn't supported or is turned off, the LONGDESC may not be positioned in
the same place the image placehold might appear in the user's browser, which
could be more confusing than no text.

If I've somehow overlooked the obvious, berate me offline and recommend a
better CSS reference book <GRIN>.

Thanks in advance for any advice and thoughts.

Joel Sanda

Joel Sanda 
Accessibility Coordinator
10200 A East Girard Avenue 
Denver, CO 80231 
phone   303.873.7400  ext.3021 
fax     303.873.7449 
"Educators Working for Educators" 
Received on Thursday, 4 May 2000 16:10:55 GMT
