[Bug 5823] Scope allowable on a td

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=5823


Rob Burns <rob@robburns.com> changed:

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                 CC|                            |rob@robburns.com




--- Comment #2 from Rob Burns <rob@robburns.com>  2008-07-01 17:22:51 ---
(In reply to comment #1)
> Much like with the headers="" attribute, this was intentional, based on
> research into what tables on the Web actually looked like and what the expected
> UI of scope currently is and ideally should be.
> 
> Basically, it turns out that while one would intuitively think that
> hierarchical headers are a good design, they end up being more of a pain than a
> gain. By forcing a two-level structure, we make authors who are using scope=""
> think more carefully about what they want each cell to do and be in the table.
> 

Here too Ian you demonstrate a severe lack of understanding of this issue. It
does not matter whether the author thinks more carefully about what they want
each cell to do, there are many times where data cells serve visually as
headings for other data cells. This happens whatever HTML5 or any HTML says
about tables. However, HTML 4.01 recognized that these tables exist and for the
sake of the visually impaired it allowed the scope attribute to be placed on
these data cells as well. Is HTML5 going to insist that authors place data in
TH cells so that they can be associated with the scope attribute? All this does
is reverse the previous advice of HTML4 that: when in doubt use a TD cell. Now
we're saying when in doubt use a TH cell. To what end would we make such a
change that would potentially confuse authors? What use cases are you trying to
address in introducing this confusion? What problem statements have you
contemplated that leads you to want to introduce this confusion? Can you point
to a specific table where the data cells serving as headers cells are better
marked up as TH cells than TD cells. To me it makes no difference, but why
change it arbitrarily?


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Received on Tuesday, 1 July 2008 17:23:26 UTC