Re: Data Table Collections (Research)

Robert Burns wrote:
> 
> Hi Anne,
> 
> On Sep 9, 2007, at 8:40 AM, Anne van Kesteren wrote:
> 
>>
>> On Sun, 09 Sep 2007 12:43:34 +0200, Anne van Kesteren 
>> <annevk@opera.com> wrote:
>>> [...]
>>
>> At some point in this thread I admitted that scope= was indeed 
>> redundant in my table per the algorithm given in 
>> http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/tables.html#h-11.4.3 HTML4. However, 
>> the reason the scope= attribute was included was not because data 
>> cells would not be associated with header cells but because header 
>> cells would otherwise be associated with the wrong headers. (I 
>> misremembered that.) For instance, following the algorithm of HTML4 in 
>> the absense of scope= the "Day 2 ..." header would get "Day 1 ..." as 
>> header.
>>
>> I suppose this could be circumvented by requiring that headers for 
>> header cells are directly adjacent to those cells.
> 
> The HTML4 algorithm is for associating header cells with data cells. It 
> doesn't associate header cells with header cells so scope= is not 
> necessary in your table. 

I don't think that's at-all clear from the HTML 4 spec though I agree it 
can be read that way. In general, having long debates about the exact 
intent of the HTML 4 spec isn't really an interesting way to spend time 
so, unless their are clear bugs (some examples of which have been raised 
already), I don't plan to change the "HTML 4" algorithm in the table 
inspector. However I am interested in hearing about ways to improve 
heading association and will endevour to implement reasonably-detailed 
suggestions for algorithms as separate options for people to try.

-- 
"Mixed up signals
Bullet train
People snuffed out in the brutal rain"
--Conner Oberst