[Bug 25003] modify required heading mappings to reflect reality

https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=25003

--- Comment #19 from Jake Archibald <jaffathecake@gmail.com> ---
I'd like to better understand some of the complaints here.

Dominic Mazzoni:
> I don't think it's always possible to nest sections properly

Perhaps (do you have an example?). But it's also possible to lose the game with
numbered headings, especially when content is included from elsewhere. As an
include author I decide "hmm, well, I'm probably not going to be top-level, so
I'll start at h2". With sections I can start at h1, and the includer can place
that in a section (or not) and the outline works.

Dominic Mazzoni:
> In order to achieve the desired layout, an author may make two sections siblings

To achieve a desired style, the author may make what should logically be an
<h3> an <h1>. I don't think this is a relevant argument. If authors use
semantic elements purely for visual formatting, the semantic game is over.

Dominic Mazzoni:
> Either they'd need to change their behavior to announce a level based on the nesting level (which would certainly degrade the experience of many webpages that aren't authored using nesting sections)

I thought sites authored without sectioning elements would be entirely
backwards compatible (if not, they should be). What markup without sectioning
elements breaks in the model?

steve faulkner:
> I think it makes sense for the HTML5.0 spec match reality… while the 5.1 spec can continue to reflect future, possible implementations.

This means the outline model becomes backwards compatible, which is a no-go.
The new outline model was introduced with sectioning elements, we shouldn't
have one without the other.

James Craig:
> My issue with this is mainly apathy. I don't think there is enough benefit to the outline depth computation of headings to warrant the implementation and subsequent author evangelism.

But evangelism has already happened, and people are already using it. Or is
there a hunch here that developers aren't using sections + h1? If so, that
hunch must be backed up by evidence.

Marco Zehe:
> If you want one possible result of this, install JAWS 13 or 14, not 15, and test out your outline algorithm. Have fun with heading level 4711.

Assuming that JAWS has correctly implemented the outline, what code generates
heading level 4711?

Browsers should adopt the outline at the AT level. This paves the way for
exposing this via the DOM. If the outline breaks backwards compatibility (sites
without sectioning elements), we need to fix that. If authors are mixing
outline models in a way that breaks the web, we need data for that.

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Received on Tuesday, 22 April 2014 11:07:05 UTC