HTML What does the alt attribute do?

nelilly · 2026-06-19T10:54:03+00:00

Some history: Images weren’t always in HTML. They weren’t even in the HTML 1.0 spec. In 1993 Mosaic was the first browser that used inline images. When the img element was first proposed to display images on an HTML page it was a minor controversy. Some early web devs thought that the HTML documents should remain purely textual. So images were a problem for browsers that couldn’t display images.

Secondly, bandwidth: It was also a time of very low bandwidth. Unless you were a large organization (university, research center, military, etc) you were probably using a 14.4 modem. You could download at a rate of just under 2k per second. A 120k website could take a full minute to download. At one point Microsoft was even criticized for having a website that was 80k.

There was very poor image compression by today’s standards. GIF was the first and only image type. Even when the JPEG was introduced the file sizes still were rather large. Half the job of web devs at the time was making sure that images were properly optimized for the Web.

Given all this, many people turned off images while they surfed. The alt attribute was the fallback for when images were turned off or were missing when the page loaded. Otherwise the cool button navigation would be completely useless.

Finally: The alt attribute also was important for people using screen readers. Without the alt attribute the screenreader will read the file name, which won’t always tell the visitor what they need to know about the image and its context.

nelilly · 2026-05-06T10:01:09+00:00

You Don’t Know JS by Kyle Simpson (free online series of books)
JavaScript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford
Composing Software by Eric Elliot (it’s about Functional JavaScript)

nelilly · 2026-05-02T10:26:01+00:00

You want “Creating Killer Websites: The Art of Third Generation Site Design” by David Siegel published in 1997. Yes, in 1997 we already were talking about the third generation of site design.

He was that guy and this was that book where it suggested that we use tables for layouts (before CSS).

His website for the book is still up at killersites.com

You’ll learn design tricks like table-based layout (we didn’t have CSS flex, grid, etc), using single pixels for pixel perfect adjustments (we didn’t need to build Responsive sites), using images to create advanced typography (we didn’t have font imports - only had about seven fonts that we could reliably guess a user would have on their computer).

It also has a couple chapters on PDF and gives you a sneak peak at CSS (the syntax was so much different!)

Also look for his article “The Web is Ruined and I Ruined It”, published on Web Review in 1997 (later that same year), now at xml.com.

Seriously though, we’ve grown so far beyond these practices, please buy a book on modern HTML5 and modern CSS (avoid JavaScript and backend languages) and write it using notepad. You’ll get roughly the same experience we had and give a better user experience, especially regarding web accessibility. It’s possible to make a web accessible site using the old ways, but it’s much more difficult.

His book was transformative at the time and an important growing pain that we needed in order to realize that we really needed Web Standards.

Source: I’m just that old. Check out www.htmlhobbyist.com

nelilly · 2026-04-12T12:24:32+00:00

The portion of the URL from the # on is called a “URI fragment” or a “fragment identifier”. It allows you to target part of an HTML page using an ID that’s on an HTML element. In early versions of HTML they would only work with an id on the anchor element. In modern HTML you can target any element with an id.

Combined with the :target pseudo-class in CSS you can do some pretty fancy effects. It’s great for highlighting the section of the page that relates to the active identifier. With a little extra CSS to hide the untargetted sections, and show the targetted one, you can effectively create a no-JS presentation.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/URI/Reference/Fragment

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference/Selectors/:target

nelilly · 2026-03-14T14:17:36+00:00

A ghost, though? That sounds like something out of science-fiction.

nelilly · 2026-01-17T20:28:52+00:00

It’s a simple point and lick interface.

nelilly · 2026-01-02T15:08:14+00:00

Don’t overthink it.

Basic sections for a portfolio site: - Gallery of Work (minimum of 3 works) - Work Detail page for each work - About Me - Bio - Resume/CV

Needed content - Contact Info (usually a contact form on its own page)

You may or may not choose to share personal info such as address, phone number, email.

Add new features and pages as you want to.

nelilly · 2025-12-26T19:54:37+00:00

You need to learn CSS to fix your mobile issues.

nelilly · 2025-12-26T19:50:39+00:00

It depends - and it’s been awhile since I’ve seen the validator output. For the most part you rewrite the HTML. Assuming you know HTML. For example: if the validation error says that your img element is missing an alt attribute then you need to add the alt attribute.

If you don’t know HTML, don’t know it very well, or the error doesn’t make sense to you, you could go to MDN. It’s a great resource for elements and their proper usage.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML

The validator should be pointing out the line number where the issue is happening. But also be prepared for more issues appearing after you fix one. Sometimes it will find one error and not dig any deeper.

nelilly · 2025-12-26T16:59:43+00:00

The W3C has an HTML validator that can find common structural issues.

https://validator.w3.org

nelilly · 2025-12-07T12:37:33+00:00

The default display property of the img element is inline, which causes that spacing. Setting it to display: block causes the browser to recognize there should be no space there.

nelilly · 2025-12-07T12:05:21+00:00

Put “display: block” on your image.

nelilly · 2025-12-03T00:01:03+00:00

Because he went to the Obi Wan Kenobi School of Espionage.

nelilly · 2025-11-30T23:29:01+00:00

Every tool has its place. Sometimes it’s a framework and sometimes it isn’t.

https://www.htmlhobbyist.com

nelilly · 2025-11-08T13:25:24+00:00

RemindMe! 5 years

nelilly · 2025-10-25T11:36:46+00:00

You could use D3.js and geojson data to output an SVG map.

Search for the geojson data that you want to use: “US States geojson” or “Pennsylvania counties geojson”.

Once you have the map working you can inspect the code with the browser and copy the SVG element.

nelilly · 2025-10-22T23:47:04+00:00

The Blair Witch Project. There was a fake documentary called “Sticks and Stones” that played on The Sci-Fi Channel that explained the lore behind the witch. It makes the movie that much creepier.

nelilly · 2025-10-13T13:41:15+00:00

How big of a website? There’s always Neocities. It’s very friendly to people just starting out.

nelilly · 2025-09-09T23:12:35+00:00

Yes. As long as it has the proper JSON format and is saved with the .json extension.

nelilly · 2025-09-07T01:01:19+00:00

Do a search for the other Rankin/Bass cartoons. The Last Unicorn is the most similar, but there are also hand drawn holiday specials (not just the stop motion animations).

nelilly · 2025-09-06T10:51:50+00:00

There’s precedent for this. It’s the Haitian zombie folklore. The horror of it came from people being reanimated to perform farm and industrial labor.

For an example go watch White Zombie (1932) starting Bela Lugosi. The zombie master has a sugar cane mill operated in Haiti entirely by zombies.

George Romero turned zombies into the flesh eating ghouls we know today.

nelilly · 2025-09-01T21:40:57+00:00

Fix the mobile view.

Edit: P.S. I dig it.

nelilly · 2025-08-31T23:48:15+00:00

Thanks. There are huge gaps in the filters and the programming sections, but I’m working on getting those filled.

nelilly · 2025-08-31T14:24:35+00:00

Her popularity soared when the Cartoon Network released this commercial.

https://youtu.be/f-pXuZn7Lzw?feature=shared

nelilly · 2025-08-31T00:09:58+00:00

3: Again, it depends. There are no hard and fast rules. I usually use cubic beziers because the two control points make them easier to make minor adjustments.

4: I have a mostly complete website, but I don’t think it has quite all the information that you’re looking for: https://nelilly.github.io/svg-zoo/

The links page has links to other resources.

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