Auto alt tag on images

Hello all,
Does anyone know is it possible to have an auto alt tag when uploading image?
If user forget to fill alt field, is there any plugin, or any way to FCK complete this by some kind of automation?
E.g. to parse image original name and to save it as alt tag for this image?

Thu, 07/10/2008 - 13:05

nikolic

Joined: 09/07/2008

Posts: 4

Re: Auto alt tag on images

Anyone?

Thu, 07/10/2008 - 13:33

serializer

Joined: 16/08/2007

Posts: 74

Re: Auto alt tag on images

Putting the filename in the alt attribute would defeat the reason why alt text is required for validation.

The alt attribute should give additional information on the image. Telling someone the filename of the image isn't helpful - the browser will already know it, and will probably read it out in any case if no "alt" is present - and most image filenames are pretty misleading.

Now, forcing the user to fill in the alt tag might be desirable.

Mon, 07/14/2008 - 10:13

nikolic

Joined: 09/07/2008

Posts: 4

Re: Auto alt tag on images

Thanks for replying. But it seems you got me wrong:

If you're too lazy to fill in the alt tag manually, then your page is invalidated for a very good reason. You want an easy way to "cheat" past W3C validation and this shouldn't be encouraged!

I dont want to cheat and i am not lazy. I am talking about friend who works with FCK editor and often forget to fill alt tag manually. So i am trying to help here, not to cheat or whatever...
I dont know how you got that impression without asking me if i want to cheat.. No, i just want to help my friend, and to bring some idea up.
So if i had idea and this is not good idea that does not mean that i am lazy or sum..

However, main idea is to have alt tag filled, even if user(not me) forget to fill it.
How user can be forced to fill it? (Please do not tell me that i need tostand behind him with a stick!)
Any idea about this? Yes i know about validation, but i would like to know where and how implement validation on fck editor.

Mon, 07/14/2008 - 20:27

serializer

Joined: 16/08/2007

Posts: 74

Re: Auto alt tag on images

Nikolic,

Apologies for the tone of my previous post. It wasn't very appropriate!

I had a look and it's quite easy to implement a validation error if the alt text is blank (forcing the user to fill it in, which would be the correct thing to do for accessibility purposes).

You need to edit the file: fckeditor/editor/dialog/fck_image/fck_image.js

Around line 200 you see this function:

function Ok()
{
   if ( GetE('txtUrl').value.length == 0 )
   {
      dialog.SetSelectedTab( 'Info' ) ;
      GetE('txtUrl').focus() ;

      alert( FCKLang.DlgImgAlertUrl ) ;

      return false ;
    }

Edit this so you have:

function Ok()
{
   if ( GetE('txtUrl').value.length == 0 )
   {
      dialog.SetSelectedTab( 'Info' ) ;
      GetE('txtUrl').focus() ;

      alert( FCKLang.DlgImgAlertUrl ) ;

      return false ;
    }

    if (GetE('txtAlt').value.length == 0) {
        dialog.SetSelectedTab('Info');
        GetE('txtAlt').focus();

        alert( 'You must fill in the alternate description' );

        return false;
    }

This will prevent the user from leaving the field blank.

Tue, 07/15/2008 - 11:10

nikolic

Joined: 09/07/2008

Posts: 4

Re: Auto alt tag on images

Thank you for the hint

well, i did a slightly different, but basicly same thing. BEcause of multilanguage support i did like bellow:

 function Ok()
    {
       if ( GetE('txtUrl').value.length == 0 )
       {
          dialog.SetSelectedTab( 'Info' ) ;
          GetE('txtUrl').focus() ;

          alert( FCKLang.DlgImgAlertUrl ) ;

          return false ;
        }
if ( GetE('txtAlt').value.length == 0 )
       {
          dialog.SetSelectedTab( 'Info' ) ;
          GetE('txtAlt').focus() ;

          alert( FCKLang.DlgImgAlt ) ;// this is what i changed - found this var - FCKLang.DlgImgAlt in language file

          return false ;
        }

Mon, 07/21/2008 - 19:35

serializer

Joined: 16/08/2007

Posts: 74

Re: Auto alt tag on images

That's the better way to do it. I thought about mentioning the language file, but it doesn't really matter so much for a personal mod.

On the other hand, I think this'd be a good piece of validation to add into the editor permanently, in which case it would need translating and adding to all the language files. :shock: