110595 - input type="image" is not rendered as alt text (or "Submit Form") when image loading is disabled

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core :: Layout: Form Controls, defect, P2)

Description

[Christian Reis]

Using CVS tip build, but seen on 2001110815

If a user has disabled image loading, or chooses "Warn me ..." , input
type="image" controls are not rendered as alt text or "Submit Form" (for
ALT-less images). I'll attach a testcase so it is easier to understand.

Comment 1

[Christian Reis]

Attachment: testcase for bug

Comment 2

[Christian Reis]

CCing attinasi who has been doing ALT work as of late. I'm looking into this to
see where the problem could be.

To reproduce, simply select "Do not load any images" on the Image Acceptance
Policy frame in the Images dialog, part of Security prefs, and load the attachment.

Hint: this problem does not happen if you save the attachment to a local
foo.html file and access through the file: method.

Comment 3

[Aaron Lawrence]

Hi, I've seen this too. However, to clarify (Moz 1.2): the alt text is not used
if the image is blocked, but it IS used if the image is just inacessible (e.g.
wrong filename). However, the wrong font is used in that case!

Comment 4

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

This is semi-purposeful -- blocked images do not show alt text (or show up at
all).  How is this worse for form submit buttons than for images that are links?

Comment 5

[Christian Reis]

Well, it's slightly more problematic given that many (some?) web forms perform
useful actions. It varies, of course, but not seeing an image IMHO is slightly
less annoying than not being able to submit a form. (There's the teensy dataloss
issue of losing form contents you typed in because you can't submit the #@!#!
form 8)

I guess the question is *what is disabling image loading for*? If the intended
semantic is *blot out anything related to that image*, I agree ALT text is best
kept off. However, if the semantic is *keep bandwidth down by not loading
images* then I think ALT text has a purpose. I venture to say the second
interpretation may be the more useful of the two.

Comment 6

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Wait.....

Actually, there are two separate issues here:

1)  All image loading is disabled.  In this case we should show the alt text.
2)  Image loading from a particular site is blocked.  In this case there should be
    no alt text, imo.

I'll look into this...

Comment 7

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

My patch for bug 83774 will fix this, more or less....

Comment 8

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

This is fixed.  Bug 200023 filed on the problem with changing that pref while
the browser is running.