This looks good. It duplicates some functionality
that's already in HTML 3 (<FIG>), but there are at least two
advantages of this approach: specifying the map
indirectly makes it easier to reuse imagemaps, and
this proposal doesn't add any new attributes to the
already overloaded and overburdened <A> element.
On the other hand, the HTML 3 mechanism has better
backwards-compatibility with older browsers.
(Personally, I don't think this is too important.)
Some comments:
The AREA SHAPE attribute ought to include
a POLYGON option; the COORDS attribute would
be interpreted as "x1 y1 x2 y2 ... xn yn",
giving the polygon vertices.
Please, please, please, make ALT #REQUIRED
instead of #IMPLIED! Even a GUI browser
could use the alternate text -- it could display
it in a status bar whenever the mouse moves
over an active area.
Someone is bound to want to put markup in the
alternate text; it would have to be element content
instead of an attribute in that case. That
possibility shouldn't be ruled out.
<!ELEMENT AREA - - (#PCDATA)>
or
<!ELEMENT AREA - - ((%text;)*)>
might be better than the proposed
<!ELEMENT AREA - O EMPTY>
for those reasons. (The ALT attribute
would then be unnecessary.)
--Joe English
joe@trystero.art.com
P.S.: Can I have Feb 3, 8:00 PST in the
how-soon-will-emacs-w3-implement-it pool?