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How can I see the title alt text for website images on an HTC Desire?

I'm currently using the Dolphin HD browser but I can't see a way of getting the alt text.

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  • It's unlikely that there's a way to view alt-text without disabling images. From a technical standpoint, ALT is not a tooltip. (456bereastreet.com/archive/200604/…) However, in the real world, many sites (like XKCD) use it for added effect. Since touchscreens have no concept of "mouse over", it's unlikely you will ever see a browser with a simple technique to view ALTs. Your best bet is to go in Dolphin's options/preferences and see if there is a way to disable Images.
    – Farray
    Oct 9, 2010 at 14:40
  • From a technical standpoint, the OP is talking about TITLE, not ALT.
    – ischeriad
    Apr 17, 2011 at 10:51
  • Do you mean the title text? In case of xkcd, alt contains the name of the comic again, title="" contains the descriptive text.
    – ischeriad
    Apr 17, 2011 at 10:53
  • @ischeriad good point, I've updated the question
    – therefromhere
    Apr 17, 2011 at 10:58
  • @ischeriad Well, I see they edited the first mention of ALT and replaced it with TITLE, but they still reference ALT in their second sentence. Technically speaking, of course. ;)
    – Farray
    Apr 18, 2011 at 15:42

5 Answers 5

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Good question. I don't see an obvious way to do that to solve your problem on all websites. However, there just so happens to be a few xkcd viewer apps. I use this one which has a menu > hover text option.

EDIT: This seems like a reasonable thing to try for link hover text, but it does not work for me on the default HTC Incredible browser:

  1. Tap any white empty space near to the link you want to hover over.
  2. Now move your trackball up/down until it selects the link. Don’t click it.
  3. There! The tooltip now appears. Simple solution. :)

I saw this suggested here.

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  • Cheers, that's helpful but unfortunately the hover suggestion doesn't work in the case of xkcd.com - maybe because the images aren't links? The app is a reasonable workaround for now though.
    – therefromhere
    Oct 8, 2010 at 11:26
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    Not every Android phone has a trackball, either.
    – ale
    Oct 8, 2010 at 16:04
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The right answer is to just go to http://m.xkcd.com. There is a link on there to show or hide the alt text.

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  • 13
    Works perfectly for xkcd, but not for other sites/situations.
    – ale
    Apr 17, 2011 at 16:48
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Be an activist and upvote the defect here! Though that's a longer term answer. :)

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  • 1
    Definitely, this is the correct approach!
    – therefromhere
    Jan 22, 2011 at 10:52
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I created a bookmarklet for this:

javascript:(function(){var D=document,i,f,j,e;for(i=0;f=D.images[i];++i)if(f.title!=""){var x=D.createElement("div"),s=x.style;s.color="Black ";s.background="yellow ";x.innerHTML=f.title;f.parentNode.insertBefore(x,f.nextSibling);}})();

This displays any TITLE texts as text with yellow background.

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Download XKCD viewer app in the android market. You can then tap on the comic to bring up the hover text.

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