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2025-06-23 20:42:19

cogdog@cosocial.ca

I have an #AltText writing question. If I want to refer to an image that shows text on a sign or some kind of screenshot, what is the best way to describe some quoted text- do quotes work best?

e.g.

Rusted metal highways sign tilted at an angle, reading "Next Exit 11 miles".

2025-06-23 21:37:55

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Alan is @cogdog Never use the quotes on your keyboard in alt-text!

Quotes are not a recognised standard element of alt-text. Thus, not all frontends support these quotes in alt-text, also because quotes are useless for blind or visually-impaired people, the actual primary target audience of alt-texts.

Sure, maybe Mastodon supports quotes from your keyboard in alt-text. But Mastodon is not the gold standard for alt-text. In fact, Mastodon is not the gold standard for anything.

In contrast, Hubzilla (which is what I'm posting from right now, so it's very much part of the Fediverse and has been for longer than Mastodon) does not turn keyboard quotes back from their HTML entities to actual quotes. It displays them as &⁠quot;. Screen readers read them out as, "and quot," and raise their voice right afterwards, regardless of what follows.

Your example would be rendered by Hubzilla as

Rusted metal highways sign tilted at an angle, reading &⁠quot;Next exit 11 miles&⁠quot;.

and read out by a screen reader as "Rusted metal highways sign tilted at an angle, reading and quot, next exit eleven miles and quot." The full stop at the end saves you a little.

(streams) and Forte, both descendants of Hubzilla by Hubzilla's own creator, regard keyboard quotes as alt-text delimiters. As soon as they come across one quote in an alt-text, they think it's the end of the alt-text.

They would render your alt-text as no more than:

Rusted metal highways sign tilted at an angle, reading

Oh, and no, it is not a design fault if a frontend does not support characters in alt-text which aren't officially supported by alt-text, and which do not even have any reason to exist in alt-text, especially not in professional environments outside of Mastodon. Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte are not broken for not supporting characters that don't belong into alt-text in the first place. (Sorry, but I keep having to read the opposite over and over again.)

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta