[uf-new] hAudio ISSUE #4: Display values for rel-patterns

[Manu Sporny]

hAudio ISSUE #4: open issue!
http://microformats.org/wiki/audio-info-issues#Problem:_Display_properties_of_rel-patterns

The following markup summarizes this problem:

   <a rel="purchase" href="/buy/song/3742827384"
      title="Buy The Song">
     <img src="/images/buy_song.png" alt="Buy Song Image" />
   </a>

What value do you use for displaying the previous markup?

- Buy The Song
- Buy Song Image
- or the image, /images/buy_song.png

If there is no text to display, then how does one place the item into a
menu/display for Operator/Firefox? Please read the history of this
issue, as this discussion previously lead to an EoT request:

http://microformats.org/wiki/audio-info-issues#Historical:_Graphic_buttons_in_rel-patterns

This is one of the main issues delaying full hAudio implementation in
Operator.

The current possible solutions are:

- Do nothing - display values are up to implementors
- Don't specify but Publish hAudio Best Practices Section
- Use the TITLE Attribute
- Create a new DISPLAY property for display values
- Display whatever a text-only browser would display

In an attempt to move the issue forward, I am shifting my position from
specifying proper use of @alt in hAudio, to specifying an hAudio Best
Practices section for application authors. In other words, leave display
value implementation up to the application writers.

We should publish a Best Practices document for hAudio that states the
following:

- Use TITLE for display values for rel-patterns, which is backed up by
  the following: http://microformats.org/wiki/rel-payment#RelPayment
    Authors should use the "title" attribute to provide a human readable
    description of the type of support pointed to by the hyperlink.
    Aggregators may use the contents of the "title" attribute to provide
    additional information about the support link to their users.
    E.g. <a href="[url]" rel="payment" title="Donate Money Via PayPal">.
- If TITLE is not specified, the link text that is displayed in a
  text-only web browser should be used.

There is a "Votes" section for this topic on the hAudio issues page,
please record your vote on the wiki, or discuss further on this list:

http://microformats.org/wiki/audio-info-issues#Votes_4

-- manu

PS: Many thanks to Martin McEvoy, who found the RelPayment prior-art
regarding using TITLE for human readable descriptions.