Imagefields should have the option to require Custom Alt text

I'd definitely support this, but it is a feature request.

For Drupal 7, it's would be fairly easy to provide this as a contribution module.

For Drupal 7, it's would be fairly easy to provide this as a contribution module.

As in the ImageField queue, I think we need to balance the accessibility-friendly with usability-friendly options. If you start giving users errors that their ALT text is required, and then another error that the alt text isn't "good enough", people aren't going to like creating content in Drupal. IMO, such frustrations should be kept to contrib, even in Drupal 8.

What about a "require alt text" option, that is by off default?

So people keep enjoying creating content in Drupal :)

Perhaps could we strive to have a message pop up to warn folks that they've added an image without an alt tag by default? Not a error that would stop them from uploading the page, but something which clearly lets them know that it is an issue.

Maybe this warning message would probably need to be configured to be turned off too. I'm just afraid that with the status quo, we're not going to change content administrator's behaviors.

Ties into documentation here - http://drupal.org/documentation/modules/image

Neat. Will have to look at that and add it to the docs! Thanks Quiptime.

@jenlampton - What I'm interested in is how to gently alter people's behaviour. A reminder that they've added an image without an alt tag may be all that's required. I agree that you would want to have an admin setting or additional module that steps this up so that you could actually force users to insert a meaningful alt text (not - "image" or "file123.jpg"), but I think much of the time users just need a gentle reminder. It's really the low hanging fruit of accessibility in many ways, but alt tags are still commonly missing from Drupal 7 sites. How can we change the initial config so that with Drupal 8 content admins find it easier to include this additional information?

I do like the idea of your module for those folks who need to meet higher accessibility guidelines. Could even fold it into an existing module like: http://drupal.org/project/accessible

Let us know how we can help & what elements you're interested in including in this module.

I see required fields as stopping the process. So you can't finish with the image unless you've added the alt text. It's the big red warning in the form process that means you can't complete the submission.

I would like to see that even without alt tags being a required field that users are gently reminded by a nice reminder message that the quality of their post would be improved if they added alt text to their images. Nothing that stops workflow, but simply provides a yellow reminder that something was missed. Something easy enough to ignore if it's not deemed important.

Something that could be disabled if no reminder was desired.

But yes, the lack of an ability to do this in core is something we need to fix in D8. We got images in which was no small feat, but....

I'd still like to vote for leaving this out of core. Let contrib handle it (in fact it already has):

http://drupal.org/project/accessible (and #887424: Make alt text required on imagefields)
http://drupal.org/project/eim

If your site is going to require 100% compliance with accessibility standards, you MUST train your end-users. Forcing them to enter alt text isn't going to mean that they're going to actually use the Alt field correctly. If you want to force this upon your end-users, you can use a contrib solution.

Alt tags are the low hanging fruit of web accessibility. We have done lots of work on improving accessibility of Drupal 7, but because the extra work that's required to incorporate alt tags in Core's image handling it generally isn't done by default. If the best we can agree on is ship core so that you can enable required alt text by default, fine. However, alt text should be listed as an option by default and there should be no additional work

If the "Enable alt field" is checked by default that's a good start http://drupal.org/files/issues/Editing_Image_Field.png

Making a similar option to have it be a required field would be a good addition.

Thanks for the clarification. Been too long since I set up a default vanilla install.

I am the original person who opened this issue, little did I know this would develop into an interesting conversation that has spanned the last 18 months and three versions of Drupal. That being said, as I have been using Drupal for some time now, one thing my site users and editors always ask for is good SEO. That usually comes up in initial rounds of conversation of what the client wants out of their new web site. What I have discovered is that no matter how much training I have provided to my end users, when it comes down to it, they simply will not input info into a field unless it's required some of the time.

Though this issue has been geared more toward good accessibility, I think SEO is worth mentioning too. (i.e. an image with a title and alt tag probably will look better to a search engine, that's kind of web 101). It looks like the EIM module (mentioned here above) provides for required alt and title text and I am going to test that out.

So in a way, there's two good arguments for core, Accessibility and SEO but for now It looks like EIM will do the job.

I haven't read back through the comments. But, would it be acceptable for the default image field widget to have an toggle to require alt text, that defaults to off? If we can build consensus on this by May 4 I will roll the patch on May 4.

While contrib modules are a great solution in the meantime, moving the ability to require alt tags into core will enhance the base product and make it easier for the average administrator to build accessible sites.

(via Montreal Accessibility Sprint)

Who is going to write up a patch that gives us the functionality specified in #32?

I have also found myself writing this in a custom module several times, so I would also like to see this in core. Although the contrib module does not have to be advanced to add the functionality, it would be a nice accessibility feature to have in core.

So here is a patch adding the functionality. Obviously extremely simple. I included the option on both the title field and the alt field. I can write up some tests when (and if) we think we are heading the right direction.

Should probably put this back to needs review? Can't imagine that those errors had anything to do with this patch.

The last submitted patch, drupal-alt-field-required-815144-38.patch, failed testing.

#38: drupal-alt-field-required-815144-38.patch queued for re-testing.

IMO this is not a minor feature. so changing status.

I applied the patch and it works nicely, except that when clicking the "upload" button next to an image field it shows the errors to inform that alternate field or title field are required (when they are set to be required). This is a problem, because users cannot enter values for alt or title before clicking the "upload" button!

Also tagging for tests; I hope that we get this in before feature freeze!

The last submitted patch, drupal-alt-field-required-815144-38.patch, failed testing.

One other issue I just ran into with this is if there are eixsting images for a given field that did not have any alt and or title text and then you decide to impose required alt or title, when you go to remove an existing image that did not have the text, you get an error that the fields are required. I think that might be related to:

Delete button triggers form validation - change to Delete link for entities with URI

I just tested the latest patch in #51 and the only issue now seems to be with:

Does not complain about deleting fields when alt/title is empty

To test this:

1. Don't require alt and title in the field settings for an image
2. Upload an image in a node (I am using the default article imagefield) and don't fill in either alt or title
3. Now go back and set alt and title to be required in manage fields for the given imagefield
4. Go back to the node where you just uploaded the image and try to remove the image
5. The image is removed without any error
6. Save the node and now I get at the top:
   
   The field Alternate text is required
The field Title is required
7. However the image is gone so the only way out of this is to either not save it or fill in some temporary alt or title text, save and then go back in and remove and save.

That's probably an extreme edge case so I am not sure about the relevancy of it but at any rate the main functionality is working.

@eiriksm - yes that's great, just tested again and it's all good this time. Thanks!

@mgifford - who would usually set to RTBC the author of the patch or those who have tested like me? Thanks :)

Ok, then make it so. Thank you to all who helped out with this!

Awesome!

Committed and pushed to 8.x. Thanks!