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Forums » Suggestions & Development Discussion » Better alt text in image galleries on profiles

Sanne Moderator

While we have useful image descriptions in galleries, I noticed that it remains really difficult to give meaningful descriptions due to the really limited number of allowed characters.

I've been trying really hard to be descriptive with my images to allow visually impaired folks to fully participate in the images I share, but 'a person standing in a doorway' isn't quite enough description in many situations. It's mostly useful to help provide additional context to what visually abled people can see, as they don't need the visual description, e.g. the common usage is "A commission of character 1 and character 2" and similar.

Would it be possible to provide a textarea for each uploaded gallery image that allows for up to 4,000 characters of text, which is then implemented as alt text for the gallery image instead of the current limited description?

Just to be clear, I still think the description itself is useful on its own and should stay, and it will make for a better-than-nothing alt text in the absence of more detailed alt text, but when I use a screen reader myself it just doesn't feel like full participation to me. It's the difference between this:

First example
Painting_2022-10-04_21-41-25_Gallery-4k.jpg


And this:

Second example
Painting_2022-10-04_21-41-25_Gallery-4k.jpg


Additionaly I also noticed that the title on images posted with BBCode doesn't get picked up by the Windows screen reader, it instead just reads out the filename itself. Can that be adjusted as well?
Kim Site Admin

Use alt for bbcode! :D
Code:
[img alt="An oil painting showing a window from the inside looking out into a dark area, lit by blurry dots of light in the distance, and raindrops dotting the window all over. It has an almost gloomy feel to it, with colors of teal, yellow, orange and red dominating the otherwise dark palette. The image invokes feelings of quiet and being alone, but not necessarily loneliness, as the outside world passes by."]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/810275355755675658/1026944791633723542/Painting_2022-10-04_21-41-25_Gallery-4k.jpg[/img]
Sanne Topic Starter Moderator

OH MY GOD I didn't know alt worked?! My brain remembers we had to use title as an alternative to alt omg.
Kim Site Admin

Sanne wrote:
OH MY GOD I didn't know alt worked?! My brain remembers we had to use title as an alternative to alt omg.

It's really really new, so you were right up until quite recently. :)
Sanne Topic Starter Moderator

Kim wrote:
It's really really new, so you were right up until quite recently. :)

OOH okay!! Thank you I'm going to use the heck out of this!!

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