XHTML Feature: Let webmasters use tag to display email as .png

Would be a nice feature

[Clark]

I don't know much about XHTML, but it would be nice as a webmaster to be able to give out an email address without it being spiderable. It would be great if there was a tag that hid the email address and just showed it to browsers as an image.

[encyclo]

I came up with the following (probably very half-baked) idea - come up with some way of generating an image of the email address, say in SVG (if the site is stored in XML) or with the PHP GD library, then do something vaguely like this, using data: URIs:

<object data="data:image/svg+xml,***SVG DATA HERE***" type="image/svg+xml" width="100" height="15"> 
 <!-- secondary backup text file if SVG isn't supported --> 
 <object data="data:text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1,example%40example.com"  
 type="text/plain" width="100" height="15"> 
 </object> <!-- end secondary file --> 
</object>

You never know, it might work one day! On the other hand, it may just be a load of rubbish ;)

[Hester]

It would be great if there was a tag that hid the email address and just showed it to browsers as an image.

And how would this work for blind people?

[Lance]

It would be great if there was a tag that hid the email address and just showed it to browsers as an image.

And how would this work for blind people?

Well, maybe alt="user at domain dot com" would work for blind users.

I generally build mailto links out of javascript to avoid bots grabbing them.

<script type="text/javascript">
function SendMail() {
// This is to prevent automatic systems from finding the email address
 Address = "mai" + "lto:" + " user" + "%40" + "domain.com";
document.location.href = Address;
}
</script>

And the link is done thusly:

<a href="javascript:SendMail();">Send Us an Email</a>

[fwordboy]

Clark, it would be nice if there was some (accessible) way for email not to be spiderable, but unfortunately there isn't. Buidling a contact page and using asp/php/whatever to build a form that sends an email from your site, which looks more professional anyway (imho), is the way to go.

[encyclo]

I found this today, which is an, err, interesting approach which could be used to fool spambots:

A font made entirely with CSS [stunicholls.myby.co.uk]

It's completely crazy, but very clever stuff!

[Clark]

Now that's just plain loony, I love it!

[vkaryl]

Not loony.... I'm seriously thinking I'll try using it for email addys.

I love it too assuming it's truly a cloaked font....

[encyclo]

vkaryl, as I said it is pretty crazy, and it fails accessibility criteria even worse than using an image does (at least with an image you can use the alt attribute). But it just shows what CSS can do!

[TheDoctor]

it fails accessibility criteria even worse than using an image does

but, inconsistently, the page uses access keys. So part of the page is up-to-date with accessibility, and another part ignores it altogether. Wierd.

[vkaryl]

Haven't had time to really dig into this. Has anyone contacted the page owner about it? (Meaning the inconsistent use of accessibility keys etc.)

I can hardly wait until I'm home all day so I can do things like contact the page owner....