ellen teapot 🏳️⚧️
Adam ♿Browsers should save the alt text when you save an image. Operating systems should let you search your saved images via alt text.
Graham Sutherland / Polynomial@voltagex exif has the tag for it. just nothing actually uses it.
@gsuberland Seems like UserComment should be used instead as you can't use Unicode (?) in ImageDescription.
https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/07/should-you-embed-alt-text-inside-image-metadata/
Now to petition browser makers...
Should you embed alt text inside image metadata?
Not everyone can see the images you post online. They may have vision problems, they may have a slow connection, or they might be using a text-only browser. How can we let them know what the image shows? The answer is alt text. In HTML we can add a snippet of text to aid accessibility. For example <img src="monalisa.jpg" alt="A painting of the Mona Lisa."> Most social networks will let users…
jntesteves@voltagex @gsuberland There seems to be a standard for alt text: https://iptc.org/news/iptc-announces-new-properties-in-photo-metadata-to-make-images-more-accessible/
I opened their reference image on GIMP and the specific tag seems to be `Xmp.iptc.AltTextAccessibility`.
Interestingly, the standard[1] makes a distinction between AltText – a purely visual description of the image – and Headline – a summary of the contents. This addresses the concerns of the blog you linked above, but may be overcomplicating it for most use-cases.
[1]: https://www.iptc.org/std/photometadata/specification/IPTC-PhotoMetadata#alt-text-accessibility
@voltagex @gsuberland After further reading the standard, I think the Extended Description (Accessibility) [1] property `Xmp.iptc.ExtDescrAccessibility` should be preferred by browsers instead, because the AltText property is too limited, being capped at 250 characters. ExtDescrAccessibility has no limit by the standard.
Aljoscha Rittner (beandev)@gsuberland
SwiftKey deletes the Alt Text on posting GIFs and replaces it with a Microsoft Ad.
@voltagex
SwiftKey deletes the Alt Text on posting GIFs and replaces it with a Microsoft Ad.
@voltagex
Santa Sponge (@[email protected])
I discovered a dreadful accessibility thing yesterday. I was testing Microsoft Swiftkey keyboard, and tried its gif support. Microsoft being the pieces of shit that they are will take the gif, and then replace the included alt text to just say "A gif from Microsoft Swiftkey keyboard." They turn the alt text into a fucking ad for their application.😡 As someone with several blind followers I immediately stopped using the keyboard. There are no depths to which that fucking company won't sink.
R. L. Dane 
@beandev @gsuberland @voltagex
Reason #65536 why I loathe Microsnot
PhDogPhones should do this even more.
VulcanTouristHow will they do this? Is it to be included somehow in EXIF data? There are finite limits to that, I expect.
Raphael@voltagex One might argue that the server (or even uploader) should provide the image with alt-text baked in.
Potato Enthusiast 🇵🇸@voltagex
There's some pretty good python modules for identifying what's in an image. Could make that data ae.
There's some pretty good python modules for identifying what's in an image. Could make that data ae.
nonlinear@voltagex For the love of god YES!