Re: Bringing up the issue that DL lacks LI again

Hi Ian!
I'm new in this mailing list, so this is the first time I read your issue.
But I must admit that I have always been unsatisfied about the <dl> content
model and about the fact that the terms and their own descriptions cannot
be grouped together.
The worst thing in regard with positioning and semantics is probably when
you must associate more than one term with only one description, or the
opposite (one "term" with more "descriptions").
Someone will probably tell you one or the other of these fables:
1. It is incompatible with existing examples, as they contain only <dt><dd>
models. It could be solved stating that li elements wrapping dt/dd are
implied (as it happens in tables with <tbody> elements)
2. It forces a specific content model in <li> elements (which have a
content model extended to "flow content" and in this case should have a
content limited to dt/dd)
3. you can always write a different model this way
<ol>
 <li>
  <h2>pentagon title 1</h2>
  <p>pentagon text 1</p>
 </li>
 <li>
  <h2>pentagon title 2</h2>
  <p>pentagon text 2</p>
 </li>
 <li>
  <h2>pentagon title 3</h2>
  <p>pentagon text 3</p>
 </li>
 <li>
  <h2>pentagon title 4</h2>
  <p>pentagon text 4</p>
 </li>
 <li>
  <h2>pentagon title 5</h2>
  <p>pentagon text 5</p>
 </li>
</ol>
Which is rather confusing, as <li> elements are not sectioning content.
Anyway, part of the semantic (the name-value association) is lost, and what
you get in exchange as meaning (titles without text to section) is not
preferable. Of course you can get rid of the list structure altogether, but
that's not what an author wants to do sometimes IMO.
It should be proposed to the spec editors, but due to the point no.2 I
don't think it will be taken into serious account.
Regards
Andrea



2014-04-14 5:16 GMT+02:00 Ian Yang <ian@invigoreight.com>:

> Hi everyone,
>
> How have you been? I hope you are doing well.
>
> In one of my recent projects, I confront the issue that <dl> element lacks
> <li> elements again so here I'm bringing up this issue again. Since a
> picture is worth a thousand words, here is the url of the design:
> http://i.imgur.com/7a8OXwR.png
>
> The design shows that it's basically a pentagon consists of five pairs of
> heading-paragraph, which should be coded by using <dl> element. At the
> center lies the whole section's main heading and description, which should
> be coded by using <header> element. So the HTML tags of this section are:
> <section>
>     <header>
>         <h2></h2>
>         <p></p>
>     </header>
>     <dl>
>         <dt></dt>
>         <dd></dd>
>         <dt></dt>
>         <dd></dd>
>         <dt></dt>
>         <dd></dd>
>         <dt></dt>
>         <dd></dd>
>         <dt></dt>
>         <dd></dd>
>     </dl>
> </section>
>
>
> As you can see, without <li> elements, there is no easy way to place each
> heading-paragraph pair (<dt> and <dl> pair) at each corner. Although we can
> still position <dt> and <dl> one by one, I believe no one want to do that.
>
> And from my previous experiences, such contents which should be coded by
> using <dl> element are usually designed in a special way. Thus this example
> is not an exception.
>
> Personally, I really hope that <dt> and <dd> elements can be grouped
> inside of <li>, for a more meaningful HTML markup and also for styling
> convenience.
>
>
> Sincerely,
> Ian Yang
>