Forum Moderators: open
Theoretically, when specified they can allow a browser to leave the the proper amount of space in the layout and render the rest of the page while the images are otherwise downloading, making it look like the page is downloading faster (it really isn't).
Other than that, and the possible Netscape bug mentioned by sparrow -- which would have to be a bug affecting NS v3 or earlier, surely -- I know of no real use for them.
One possible argument against using them is that certain browsers will use the width and height even when the image is not displayed, constraining the alt tag to these boundries. This can make long alt tags unreadable.
Still, I use them all the time. Habit, I guess.
BTW, what validator are you using?
[url=validator.w3.org]validator.w3.org[/url]
<added>
This will only check the validity of your (X)HTML... yours seems to check links, load time and spelling too.
(edited by: BlobFisk at 2:40 pm (utc) on May 24, 2002)
even Google and Yahoo! pages are not valid
Just because the "Big Boys" pages don't validate doesn't mean it's ok for your pages not too. ;)
Sometimes you have to hack at bits of your code to make it cross-browser (ok, ok NS4) compatible... but generally, I'll write my code, make sure it validates and then put in the hacks for NS with a clear conscience!
i also tried [validator.w3.org...] but it is "too right"
Since you use quotes, I assume you don't want a lecture on validation..., you just want to use the tool.
So, have you tried to force looser doctypes? If you don't validate to HTML 4 Transitional, I would think you would want to redo your code. If you don't want to validate to XHTML 1.0 strict, well most people don't (I do, but I don't work against deadlines :) ).
Tom
