[Bug 8404] Refocus the figure element back to being a figure

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=8404





--- Comment #29 from Shelley Powers <shelleyp@burningbird.net>  2009-12-01 00:25:54 ---
(In reply to comment #27)
> (In reply to comment #22)
> > 
> > How are DocBook converted to HTML now? There is no figure in HTML4, or XHTML.
> 
>             <figure>
>                 <title>Sample Figure</title>
>                 <informaltable>
>                     <tbody>
>                         <tr>
>                             <td>Cell</td>
>                         </tr>
>                     </tbody>
>                 </informaltable>
>             </figure>
> 
> Becomes
> 
> <div class="figure">
>     <p class="title">
>         <b>Figure 1. Sample Figure</b>
>     </p>
>     <div class="figure-contents">
>         <table id="d0e12">
>             <tbody>
>                 <tr>
>                     <td>Cell</td>
>                 </tr>
>             </tbody>
>         </table>
>     </div>
> </div>
> 
> 
> I admit to having written code to convert HTML tables into images for use on
> the Kindle. This was not... ideal.
> 


Yes, I've been working on converting web pages into ebooks, and tables don't
make the conversion with ease. Tables are a pain in publication anyway. Even
when I use OpenOffice and a template, I hate working with tables. 

But what you've shown is what I expect: the figure would be converted to a div
element, wrapping the contents. Perhaps this is the approach we should adopt,
and abandon figure as an element. I've not seen a good argument to keep figure,
not if we have to repurpose dt/dd, or wrap the thing in a div element just to
make it work in IE6/IE7.

Folks have said, well what about web bots? If we have a figure element, the bot
can grab the figure image, and the caption, and use this to build the images
directory at Google[1].

Well, when figure has table, a poem, or whatever, how meaningful is this now?
Seriously? And the assumption that figure wraps a graphical illustration fully
demonstrates how confusing this element will be.

Shelley

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Nov/0667.html


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Received on Tuesday, 1 December 2009 00:25:56 UTC