Re: Side Effects from HTML to HTML conversion

[John MacFarlane <jgm-TVLZxgkOlNX2fBVCVOL8/A@public.gmane.org>]

"S. Manning" <scriptor-aFO/2INALiozYggVrLCuDg@public.gmane.org> writes:

> I seem to still be getting side effects when I take HTML as input and 
> output to HTML (so all I use pandoc for is to take some variables and 
> wrap the contents in header and footer code with the variables inserted 
> in the appropriate places).  Passages like the following in the input:
>
> <figure>
> 	<a href="/images/2021/04/acme-widgets.jpg">
> 	<img src="/images/2021/04/acme-widgets.jpg" alt="a mysterious machine 
> sticking out of a cardboard shipping box" />
> 	<figcaption aria-hidden="true">One of this proud company's most famous 
> products, the type 37 widget ...</figcaption>
> 	</a>
> </figure>
>
> become like so in the output:
>
> <figure>
> <img src="/images/2021/04/acme-widgets.jpg" alt="One of this proud 
> company's most famous products, the type 37 widget ..." /><figcaption 
> aria-hidden="true">One of this proud company's most famous products, the 
> type 37 widget ...</figcaption>
> </figure>
>
> I lose the <a> tag and I lose the contents of the alt attribute (good 
> alt text is not the same as a good caption!  The caption tells you how 
> to interpret the picture, the alt text tells you what the picture would 
> be if you could see it).  Are there any ways of avoiding these side 
> effects?

On this see
https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/pull/6495

If the alt text and caption are both there, screen readers read
both which is bad for accessibility.  

See also https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/issues/6782
which is an open issue in this vicinity.

> If any of you can suggest a more appropriate tool than pandoc for my use 
> case (take a HTML fragment and some metadata, wrap the fragment in 
> header and footer text with some values inserted from the metadata to 
> create a valid HTML file) I will consider it.

Any templating engine should be able to do this.
mustache for example.
https://mustache.github.io/