Tag Archives: media manager

Graham Armfield 11:30 am on November 28, 2013
Tags: , media manager,   

Analysis of what gets into the alt and title attributes when adding an image into a page/post

There was some debate in last night’s IRC chat about trac ticket 26270 raised by @yaelkmiller. Her original point was that when adding images to pages and posts, the Alt text box should have more prominence than the Title box – the alt attribute being an important accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) feature.

Personally, I think the idea is a good one, but discussion and comments by @helen also revealed some interesting behaviour when inserting images concerning what text ends up in the title attribute of the image, and what text ends up in the alt attribute.

I’ve done a series of tests using different use cases and they are presented in the tables below – including my expected results and the actual results.

Uploading images

Test No. Use Case Graham’s Expected Result Actual Result in Page
1 Upload image, add it to page with no change to Title box or Alt text box Title attribute set to image name minus suffix Title attribute absent, alt attribute set to image name minus suffix – ie what the Title box was set to
2 Upload image, add it to page but change Title box, not Alt text box Title attribute set to amended value Title attribute absent, alt attribute set to amended Title box value
3 Upload image, add it to page but change Alt text box, not Title box Title attribute set to image name minus suffix, alt attribute set to amended value Title attribute absent, alt attribute set to amended Alt text box value
4 Upload image, add it to page but change both Alt text box and Title box Both title and alt attributes set to amended values Title attribute absent, alt attribute set to amended Alt text box value

Using images from media library (previously uploaded) without amendment

Test No. Use Case Graham’s Expected Result Actual Result in Page
5 Add image from media library that has Title box set but not Alt text box Title attribute set but not alt Title attribute absent, alt attribute set to whatever Title box was before
6 Add image from media library that has Alt text box set but not Title box Alt attribute set but not title Alt attribute set but not title
7 Add image from media library that has both Title box and Alt text box set Both attrubutes set Title attribute absent, alt attribute set to whatever Alt text box was before
8 Add image from media library that has neither Title box nor Alt text box set Title attribute absent, alt attribute empty Title attribute absent, alt attribute empty

Using images from media library (previously uploaded) but making amendments

Test No. Use Case Graham’s Expected Result Actual Result in Page
9 Add image from media library, that has just Title box set, update Title box Title attribute set but not alt Title attribute absent, alt attribute set to whatever Title box was amended to
10 Add image from media library, that has just Alt text box set, update Alt text box Alt attribute set but not title Title attribute absent, alt attribute set to whatever Alt text box was amended to
11 Add image from media library, that has neither Title box set nor Alt text box set, update Title box Title attribute set but not alt Title attribute absent, alt attribute set to whatever Title box was amended to
12 Add image from media library, that has neither Title box set nor Alt text box set, update Alt text box Alt attribute set, no title attribute Title attribute absent, alt attribute set to whatever Alt text box was amended to
13 Add image from media library, that has both Title box and Alt text box set, update Alt text box Both attributes set Title attribute absent, alt attribute set to whatever Alt text box was amended to
14 Add image from media library, that has both Title box and Alt text box set, update Title box Both attributes set Title attribute absent, alt attribute set to whatever Alt text box was originally set to

Looking at the results

Using the Add Media Panel to insert an imageThe first revealing thing about these tests is that my own view of how I thought WordPress worked is at odds with the actual results in most cases.

The second thing that’s become obvious is that it’s actually impossible to set the title attribute for an image whilst using the Add Media panel. The title attribute never appears in any of the results.

Actually the only way to set a title attribute image within pages and posts is to use the older image edit dialogue box once the image is placed within the page (or to manually update the HTMLHTML HTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is a markup language that is used in the development of web pages and websites. obviously).

I think the confusion comes from the labeling of the Title input field in the Add Media Panel. Helen refers to this in her comments on the tracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. ticket I believe. Maybe to avoid confusion this box should be given another label – ‘Image name’ maybe. I confess that I hadn’t noticed this change in WordPress behaviour – it did used to be possible to directly influence the title attribute of an image when uploading and adding it to a page/post.

I’m sure that I’m not the only one who didn’t appreciate this situation. There is a pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party called Shutter Reloaded that I’ve seen on a couple of sites, which uses the title attribute from the image to provide a caption beneath the image when the full size is shown. Obviously this plugin is broken if site admins don’t realise the title attributes aren’t being written into the <img> tags – and the plugin author perhaps doesn’t realise either. I can’t comment on other lightbox plugins.

What do you think? Is this what you expected? Is this the right way to go?

#images, #media-manager, #testing

esmi 2:58 pm on August 8, 2013
Tags: media manager, , ,   

IRC Meeting: August 7, 2013

A very busy & productive meeting. We’ve identified two high priority areas that we’d like to focus on in the next couple of months.

Continue reading →

#media-manager, #meetup, #trac-2, #ui

Graham Armfield 10:31 am on April 4, 2013
Tags: , , , , media manager, ,   

Accessibility IRC Chat – 3rd April 2013

A few of us took part in the IRC chat yesterday (see transcript here). Not surprisingly the main subject was the Add Media Panel accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility), and the format of the chat turned into a live screen reader test on the functionality performed by @_Redd and @arush (and myself).

@lessbloat had kindly had a go at implementing my quick and dirty pragmatic ARIA solution – for which we are truly grateful. Once we’d got access to an environment where the changes were in effect we could see that vast improvements had been made to the accessibility.

I’ll save the detail to the blog post about Add Media Panel but to summarise:

  • Keyboard-only users can now tab through the items in the media list and select/deselect using Enter key
  • Screen reader users were getting some useful information but possibly only the newest versions can fully use this functionality.
  • Voice recognition users can at least use the tab commands to move around the list and select them.

The key decision now is whether the functionality is useful and solid enough to include in 3.6. A couple of extra enhancements would make the solution better for screen reader users – once again see previous post.

My vote would be to run with it if we can get the small further enhancements. We can hopefully address the rest of the accessibility issues within 3.7.  But what do you think?

#accessibility, #add-media, #irc, #keyboard, #media-manager, #screen-reader, #testing

Graham Armfield 12:37 pm on March 28, 2013
Tags: , , , , , , media manager, ,   

Add Media Panel and WordPress 3.6 – A Simple Solution?

The betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. version of WordPress 3.6 is very close now and the chances of significant extra functionality being included must be slim. But, the Add Media Panel introduced in 3.5 is still inaccessible and the tracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. tickets raised on this are still untouched.

This is a real problem as the Add Media Panel is such a key piece of functionality.

However, from our IRC chat yesterday the germs of a simple solution may have emerged – a solution that could maybe make the functionality accessible to keyboard and screen reader users. We just need someone to give it a try.

Continue reading →

#accessibility, #add-media, #images, #irc, #keyboard, #markup, #media-manager, #screen-reader, #ui

Graham Armfield 5:08 pm on February 13, 2013
Tags: , , media manager,   

WordPress Accessibility Trac Tickets Update – 13 Feb 2013

This is a useful link that returns all the accessibility-related trac tickets.

Existing TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. Tickets (Bugs) that aren’t Fixed.

12825 – Text resizing in Firefox – Raised 3 years ago(!) this one talks about the fact that WP admin screens don’t always look very clever when text is resized by user. Whilst most areas are OK, the buttons and toolbar at the top of the page are fixed-height and so text-spillage occurs. I don’t think everyone realises that zooming and resizing text are not the same thing and suit different people.

20294 – User password field missing label – Looks like some work was done for 3.5 but it appears it was never implemented.

21289 – Custom Menu builder – Raised last year but turned out to be duplicate of 14045 and linked to 22485. Ticket 23119 (see also below) is covering the rework of Custom Menus and design is still being debated hotly. Need to keep eye on this one as Custom Menu Builder has never been accessible since first introduced.

21334 – AccessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) of Quick Edit Panel – Raised last summer, and is getting some attention now. Have suggested (amongst other things) that quick edit panel might be always visible as a result of switch in Screen Options, but kind of nervous about that. Could do with some further accessibility input (ie not just mine). The issue about whether certain links should be permanently visible coming in here as well – cf Skip links at top of page.

22104 – High contrast admin colour scheme – Raised in the autumn, and some debate ensued. However nothing really happened about this. Do we want to get behind this? Is there one high-vis theme that would work for all?

22606 – Keyboard issues selecting a background image in Theme CustomizerCustomizer Tool built into WordPress core that hooks into most modern themes. You can use it to preview and modify many of your site’s appearance settings. – Seems there is a fix for this, but need to test.

22682 – More keyboard issues with Theme Customizer after page refresh – Some action but has been downgraded in importance just before Christmas.

22933 and 23195 – Keyboard tab order in edit screens – Fix is now available that makes tabbing more consistent allegedly. But I haven’t been able to test this.

Trac tickets covering UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing. work

23119 – UXUX UX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it. improvements to nav-menus.php – A LONG ticket with much debate. Difficult to work out exactly what is being proposed for accessibility here. One ticket proposed that accessibility option like widgets should be included – and apparently the stubs for that code are actually in the menu builder and may be used if js not available. Cyndy pointed out within ticket that drag and drop, and even using arrow keys to move items is not really any good for blind people. But would that be an option if there was sufficient announcing (using ARIA live regions?) to allow context to be voiced? And is it OK to just use the arrow keys for this – when users might expect something different to happen? And what about users on tablets using AT like VoiceOver?

New tickets required?

Add Media Functionality – don’t believe this is keyboard accessible (inc screen readers), nor easily accessible by speech recognition software either. But haven’t had chance to test yet.

#core-2, #development, #media-manager, #menus

Graham Armfield 12:07 pm on January 9, 2013
Tags: , media manager   

3.5 Media Manager Accessibility

Has anyone had a chance to test the accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) of the new Media Manager that came in with 3.5? I’ve not had time yet, but I am worried that it’s not fully keyboard accessible.

#core-2, #media-manager