I've been using the phark method - IMO easy and semantic. The 1 problem however, is that it doesn't show anything in images off/css on scenario. Is it worth using another method which adds an empty span just so that text shows up in images off/css on scenario? It adds a fair bit of markup even for just 1 link, let alone 5 or more. And puts in a <span></span>. Does anyone have figures on the amount of people that have images off/css on, or any browsers or something? To me it doesn't seem worth it (its like being compatible with ancient browser versions, so rare that its worth doing it) but if there are some stats I could very well "see the light". http://www.mezzoblue.com/tests/revised-image-replacement/
A lot of your dialup users will have images disabled so they can load the pages faster. It's also recommended that you have your text as a fallback option to improve your site's accessibility as well. If you really want me to scare you, Google and the other search engines also don't mind image substitution techniques as long as people who get the CSS can still see the text when the images are not available (now think about that one - what would they do if that text didn't show up when the images were not available...?).
It's sort of ironic I was looking at this when I wondered whether it was worth adding that extra span or not How many people are still on dial-up though? Having extra markup isn't my issue - its having blank spans that will give validation warnings (I'm a valid nut, if HTMLtidy doesn't give me a green tick in its bottom right hand corner, I'm not happy) EDIT: Wow you have a site up since this morning! 2 questions: Why an image? The only useful point of an image IMO is for the simple fact sites will rank for their name 99.99% of the time anyway, so no point wasting a <h1> on it. Why make a blank link - linking to #container to go to the top would produce the same effect? Probably good reasons why, curiousity gets the better of me
Uhm, no I don't have the site up. The "logo" you're seeing is a temporary fixture which is acting as a placeholder, and I'd really appreciate it if you'd remove the reference (the URL) as soon as possible, especially since I plan on using a lot of mod_rewrite mad-hattery to rewrite those URLs once I get the site on the new server prior to launching it. As for dialup, a hell of a lot more than you think. Until February this year, I was on dialup for two years, as was SitePoint's Design Team Leader (remember, I'm an Advisor on the SitePoint forums - and he's my TL) Tommy Olsson was on dialup this year until recently as well. The main problem with broadband penetration isn't the lack of money - it's the lack of PEOPLE in rural markets (which there are far more of than you think) to make it economically viable for the telcos and cable companies to roll out lines to those areas. With regard to the <a id="top"></a> blank anchor on the template, that's going to be used as an accessibility link once I get the skip links set up on the site. Still on my "to-do" list though. Oh, and don't trust HTML Tidy completely - use the W3C validator instead. (And yes, empty SPANs are perfectly valid, and even usable when done properly.)
As in theres a shell, not just the white landing page (I looked at the example you posted on some other thread there) Wow, I died on slow broadband downloading psd's and whatnot. True, I didn't think of the country folk, I thought the amount of people on dialup would be less than 5% (except for some of the countries a bit behind in technology, like Australia!) Then out of those 5%, take away all those who keep images enabled, which would only leave a few. I thought HTMLtidy used the same engine as W3C (both its own, and SGML Parser)
I don't think that right, here in the UK I believe the split is around 60% with 40% without broadband. I would think that most countries are around this marker.
That was just my guess, I have no clue, internet speed isn't something I specialise in! Still, I was thinking at most 25%... Might as well add that stupid span in then