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@Ted. If you can get into the habit of adding an 'alt' attribute to significant images, your site will be more accessible to people using assisted technology browsers than if you don't. It's good to see that XOOPS is providing this feature.
Actually, it is handy to be able to change the alt tag each time you use an image (e.g via Koivi), because it's meaning can vary each time you use it. E.g. in one story a picture might be described as "An egg". In another, "An egg, like the one thrown at the prime minister"
To fully meet accessibility requirements (not guidelines) demands considerable diligence when creating static sites, let alone CMS solutions. There are numerous pitfalls and very few CMS products make the grade. Of the solutions we looked at recently, PHPWebsite does the best, but the trade-off is limited functionality. It is however the only CMS with which I could successfuly post to a forum using Lynx, the text browser.
My website design company considers that if a site works logically in Lynx we have met our accessibility obligations. No images. No CSS. If a client wants a site to work in a privately produced AT browser for which the browser developers charge £1200 per user license... we price our site design accordingly.
It is a great shame that the open source developer community has not looked at developing free AT browser solutions. This might perhaps break the 'council gets grant - council employees keep their job - suppliers make fortune selling at high price to council (who pays through grant)' cycle.
A thread is for life. Not just for Christmas.
